Is Prostatic Cancer Caused By a Chronic Infection? Probably, says Lawrence Broxmeyer, MD

Recently a virus, tentatively called "XMRV", was identified as being associated with the development of prostate cancer and thus joins a growing list of viruses either suspected of causing or at least complicating the condition: among them human papilloma virus, certain herpes viruses, the hepatitis B virus, and, recently, even Kaposi's sarcoma virus.

To point to a chronic infectious cause behind prostate cancer meets logic, said lead investigator Lawrence Broxmeyer MD. Not only is prostate cancer the most common form of cancer in American men, but if a man lives long enough he is almost guaranteed to have at least microscopic evidence of the disease.

"What does not meet logic is focusing on a virus, ignoring the possibility that chronic bacterial infections of the prostate can also cause cancer", Broxmeyer added.

Cantwell found acid-fast, tuberculosis-like bacteria in Prostate cancer in 2004, and several studies have pointed to the fact that the granulomatous prostate condition caused by these tuberculosis-like bacteria can be clinically and histological indistinguishable from cancer on biopsy.

The virus versus bacteria debate is nothing new, but has huge therapeutic significance. Bacteria were discovered considerably before viruses and by the 1930's and 1940's virology was in trouble. The entire concept of "filterable viruses" or just plain "viruses" was threatened to its very foundations: filterability, invisibility and non-cultivability, the criteria which were supposed to separate viruses from bacteria. But these seemed more dependent on laboratory technique than anything else.

Indeed, not only were there bacterial viral-like forms entirely indistinguishable from viruses, but further clouding the picture was d'Herrelle's earlier discovery of viruses (bacteriophages) which actually housed inside each disease causing bacteria and which were used in Broxmeyer's Journal of Infectious Disease study to kill virulent bacteria.

After the 1950s, and with the advent of the electron microscope, particles later questionably ascribed to viruses were readily being detected, including those "viruses" found in in prostate cancer. But in truth, very few cancers have been traced to viruses.

"Soon, scientists would be certain that a virus was behind Lyme's disease, Mycoplasma pneumonia, and Legionnaire's disease before their respective bacteria were found." Lawrence Broxmeyer, MD pointed out.


Regarding cancer, at the beginning of the 20th century organized medicine's question was not if an infectious disease caused cancer, but which one. As a result, and at a time when medicine's gurus had about-faced and were now firmly set against an infectious cause for cancer, two controversial minority camps splintered from
mainstream, each diametrically opposed.

There were the "virologists", who claimed that cancer was viral, which for the most part they failed miserably to prove, and another group which demonstrated that the viruses in Rous, Bittner and Shope tumors were actually filterable forms of tuberculosis-like bacteria of the Actinomycetales. These tuberculosis-like, "viruses" stained with acid fast dyes; readily passed through a filter, but actually were a class of bacteria, felt my many to cause cancer. This work, spearheaded by physician-researcher Virginia Livingston of Rutgers, validated earlier work on the Rous "virus" as a bacteria. Soon others would join.

Lawrence Broxmeyer, M.D's peer-reviewed article: "Is cancer just a chronic infectious disease?" can be found on his official website: http://drbroxmeyer.netfirms.com/

Distribution: Lawrence Broxmeyer MD, Med-America Research, Dr. Lawrence Broxmeyer