The Unbearable Weight of Knowledge

Written July 2026

This week, a dear friend who was just 56 years old passed away, and to say that it came as a shock is an enormous understatement. Just four weeks ago, we were engaging in our usual morning work routine, making tea, and chatting about the weekend, our families; today, a mere 28 days later, she’s gone. It seems unreal and is almost more than I can bear.

A few years previously, she had been diagnosed with breast cancer, and as is standard, as we have been convinced to believe is the most successful course, had undergone a mastectomy and the accompanying “treatments”. And, despite being told she was “all clear” a rigorous programme of “maintenance” was implemented by the NHS (envy of the world, remember), that involved various hormone supplements – or suppressants – I was never entirely sure, and bi-monthly intravenous infusions of some concoction, administered at the chemo suite of the hospital. Then, four short weeks ago, she felt a little unwell. That was all, just a little unwell. The GP sent her straight to the hospital for tests, after which she was informed by a consultant that secondary breast cancers were present in several places, and there was nothing they could do. She was sent home to die.

Some readers may know that I lost my mum in 2022, in not dissimilar circumstances. I won’t belabour the details, but briefly, after a diagnosis of ovarian cancer, my mum endured chemotherapy, massive abdominal surgery, and more chemotherapy, before being unbelievably pronounced as NED – No Evidence of Disease. We were, of course, delighted. My scepticism about chemotherapy had been proven wrong, it seemed. Alas, shortly thereafter, the envy of the world struck again. My mum’s consultant declared (on a call to us from his Spanish holiday home) that, although it was amazing news that she was NED, the next step was “maintenance” treatment. Long story short, she accepted it, and three months later, she passed away. Call me cynical, but a pattern appears to be emerging here. If they don’t kill you the first time around, they’ll sure as fuck take a second swing at it.

I realise that I sound angry. I am angry. More than I can adequately explain. While up and down the country, people old enough to know better are crying and making absolute fools of themselves in the name of bread and circuses – Ross Kemp, you’re an absolute embarrassment – they fail to find the same passion to be angry as their fellow humans, indeed even their own loved ones, are being put on treatment pathways designed to kill them. Worse still, they believe they are being helped, even saved. The horrifying truth is that it has been alarmingly simple to herd humanity into believing not only that the NHS have our best interests at heart, but that their solutions to our problems are real and true. Sadly, most never bother to look further into the statistics and facts surrounding such claims, where they would find the far darker, and more frightening reality.

CANCER. The Big C. A branding as successful at inducing fear as Freddy Krueger. We have been conditioned through years of absolute propaganda to fear the very breath of the word. Some find it hard to speak out loud, and whisper it instead. The marketing campaign has been so successful, that few think to question their diagnosis, nor the recommended treatment thereafter proffered. They instead simply acquiesce to the supposed superior knowledge of the “professional”, who delivers the devastating news while simultaneously offering hope in the name of some poison that, rather than cure, will instead most likely leave the patient sicker than they were prior to their “diagnosis”, if not kill them. The fear is so strong, however, that despite studies showing only a 3% success rate of chemotherapy (or, rather, as Jamie points out in his tweet, a 3% not dying from the treatment, rate) most people, faced with a diagnosis, will subject themselves to the poison, and reject any thought of alternative treatments. Even less likely is that they question whether the diagnosis is necessary at all. As Miri points out in this article, the more you look for cancer, the more you’ll find. And, therefore, the more customers the system can on-board to their “treatments”. We cannot possibly know the outcomes of leaving well alone – but I suspect these may be considerably more favourable than we are led to believe.

The persistence with which the NHS promote health screening is alarming. Of course, Covid times made full use of the notion of asymptomatic illness, but this same ridiculous myth has for many years been promoted in relation to cancer. We are encouraged to be in a constant state of vigilance, and to ensure we allow ourselves to be prodded and poked, until something is found, because we cannot possibly be trusted with managing our own health. These horribly infantilising videos explain the “lifetime screening pathway” each compliant citizen can expect – for your own good, of course. The apparently perpetually strapped-for-cash NHS seems somehow to find enormous sums of money to create elaborate television advertisements to ramp up your fear levels and encourage participation in their sinister screening programmes. Such as lung cancer screening, breast cancer screening, and this rather poor taste ad for bowel cancer screening. There’s even a catch all version that doesn’t specify a type, for the more hypochondrial-minded amongst us.

Cancer Research UK reports without irony that cancer incidence rates in all ages are continuing to increase, despite the charity’s 120 years of “research” – and despite its CEO’s whopping £288,200 annual salary. The charity insists that this huge chunk of change is necessary, justified, in fact, because they “employ people to help us achieve our vision of a world where everybody lives longer, better lives, free from the fear of cancer”. And yet, just as with the NHS campaigns, every billboard poster, every radio commercial, every television advertisement made by Cancer Research UK is specifically designed to instil fear. Does this tv ad promote being “free from the fear of cancer”? Does this billboard?

In fact, the designer of the above billboard campaign tells us here that his brief was to “increase public donations to the charity”. This is their modus operandi. Push the emotional buttons as hard as possible, to get people dropping cash into their begging bowls. Up and down the country, good, unsuspecting people who have lost loved ones, or have perhaps received a diagnosis themselves, motivated by the fear instilled in them, walk in their bras around London at night, or participate in fun-runs wearing tutus, before handing the cash raised from these humiliation rituals to the charity. After all, those salaries won’t pay themselves.

Ultimately, we will never know if our loved ones that have died “from cancer” really died “from cancer”, or whether they died from the so-called treatments they were prescribed as an alleged cure for the supposed cancer. But what is undeniable is that cancer is an industry, and once a patient is on the merry-go-round, they are a commodity, and so there is little desire to let them step off. My friend was a person who held enormous respect for the medical profession, and trusted it implicitly. She took vaccines and anything else the doctors recommended to her. She knew of my views – in fact, we would sometimes laugh at how different we were and how diametrically opposed we were in many ways. And if I can draw any comfort from this, it is that I was in awe of her calmness when I visited with her just a few days before her death. The weight of the knowledge of imminent death seemed unbearable to me. We cried together, and laughed about some things too. But I could not shake the sense of unfairness that she was having to experience this most shocking event: the certain knowledge of such a short time left. She held no anger, and no blame towards those government-appointed guardians of her health, who at best failed her miserably, and at worst, brought about her untimely death. For her sake, I’m glad. She had a strong faith, which I am sure helped her hugely, and she died peacefully, at home, surrounded by her lovely family. But I, on the other hand, hold immense anger and blame, on her behalf. And on behalf of my mum, and the hundreds of thousands of other people who experience a hastened end through the efforts of a system they are told is there to save them.

We live in a manufactured environment that encourages us to – no, demands that we hand over responsibility for our health to a system that is quite clearly, in my mind, in the business of killing us. And a never-ending stream of grieving families are left to pay the price. My friend’s tea mug was a little joke between us. It bears the legend “Running on tea, and a whole lot of Jesus!” I am personally not sure where I stand on religion. But at this point, I am leaning towards trusting Jesus over the NHS.

Rest in peace, my dear friend.

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