I remember thinking as I mournfully watched my parents waste away from conventional cancer treatments during the final days of their lives that I never wanted to see that happen to another family member or friend ever again. I didn’t fully understand the ghastly repercussions of chemotherapy and radiation, and the utterly destructive effects that these treatments have on the human body.

But I knew that it didn’t make logical sense to “treat” any disease with known carcinogens and chemical poison, nor did it make sense to diagnose/detect cancer with methods that might actually perpetuate the disease.

Early detection isn’t always beneficial, especially when the methods being used aren’t always accurate—and in some cases, are even carcinogenic! Mammography is a perfect example of this: the National Cancer Institute estimates that among women under age 35, routine mammograms likely cause 75 new cases of breast cancer for every 15 they accurately identify.

Early detection screenings of all kinds— at least those recommended by the cancer industry—are generally risky. Truth be told, cancer screenings are often inaccurate and many are actually harmful, two inconvenient truths that you’ll likely never hear about from the corporate media. Rarely, if ever, do we hear about the very real risks associated with mammograms for breast cancer, PSA (prostate-specific antigen) tests for prostate cancer, colonoscopies for colon cancer, and the many other cancer screening methods commonly recommended for best-chance survival. Knowing that there was so much we weren’t being told about the true nature of early detection, I continued my journey in search of answers and came to a shocking realization:

The cancer screening process is often used as a manipulation tool to herd more people into the cancer treatment fold.

What I mean is this: whether it generates false positives or causes the very cancers it’s supposed to detect, early detection is typically just a ploy to sign more people up for chemotherapy and radiation. And as you now know, these treatments can spell a death sentence for those who don’t truly understand what they do and how they obliterate the immune system.

Cancer is its own cure

Cancer is arguably one of the most misunderstood diseases on the planet. The public has largely been led to believe that if and when cancer shows up, it’s necessary to unleash the chemicals and radiation to get rid of it—and fast! There’s also the pervasive notion that more and frequent cancer screenings mean better chances of preventing and overcoming cancer, when in truth screenings can make the problem worse by interfering with the body’s natural process of dealing with cancer cells.

I touched on this earlier, but nearly everything we’ve been told about cancer is flat-out wrong, as cancer is completely normal. Your body is fully equipped to deal with cancer all on its own, as it possesses an amazing ability to destroy the tens of thousands of new cancer cells that develop daily. The human immune system, when functioning optimally, is a truly remarkable wonder of creation, and not enough credit is given where credit is due.

Cancer, for all intents and purposes, is actually the ultimate remedy for extreme toxicity. It’s a lot like localized inflammation when you get an infection, or a fever when you develop the flu; it’s the means by which your body tries to normalize the damage caused by metabolic failure, chemical exposure, and other factors that lead to cancer.

My good friend Dr. Leonard Coldwell, a naturopathic doctor, radio host, and best-selling author who’s also a medical doctor, explained it to me like this: “Cancer is the cure. People don’t understand that. Cancer is there to save your life. When your body is so toxic that you are going to die of the poison, the body builds a bag and stuffs all the poison in there and locks it up—the tumor.”

It might be a tough pill to swallow based on everything you thought you knew, but it’s the truth. Cancer is the body’s normal reaction to extreme pathogenic and toxic invasion, and cancer screenings, for all the good their proponents claim them to be, can impede this immune mechanism and actually cause cancer to spiral out of control into an eventual death sentence.

Problems arise, however, when cancer cells stop doing their job and go rogue—and perhaps calling them cancer cells in the first place is a bit of a misnomer in this regard. While it’s true that our bodies always have some level of cancer cells present, the “good” kind are those that know when they’re damaged and decide to either repair themselves or commit cell suicide. This is what we would call the normal cell cycle.

The “bad” kinds of cancer cells are those that continue to replicate despite being malignant, forming tumors by sapping from the body energy and nutrients that are intended for healthy cells. These are the types of cancer cells that screenings aim to detect and that treatments aim to destroy—and these are the types that are never okay to just leave alone, as the immune system rapidly loses its ability to naturally deal with them; outside intervention is required.

Excerpted from The Truth About Cancer – What You Need to Know About Cancer’s History, Treatment, and Prevention, by Ty M. Bollinger ©2016 with permission of Hay House, Inc.

Ty M. Bollinger is a happily married husband and father, CPA, health freedom advocate, cancer researcher, former competitive bodybuilder, documentary film producer, radio show host, and author. After losing several family members to cancer, he refused to accept the notion that chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery were the most effective treatments available for cancer patients. He began a quest to learn all he possibly could about alternative cancer treatments and the medical industry. What he found was shocking: there is ample evidence to support the allegation that the “war on cancer” is largely a fraud and that multinational pharmaceutical companies are “running the show.” His most recent documentary is The Truth About Cancer: A Global Quest.