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Cancer Caused by an Infectious Agent

The year was 1905. A fund raiser was needed to assist Adventist medical institutions in getting out of debt. Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, inventor of corn flakes and sundry other foods, wrote a book entitled Living Temple to serve this purpose. But Living Temple contained elements of pantheistic philosophy, something akin to New Age teachings, and so it could not be used. As a substitute, Ellen White donated her book, Ministry of Healing.

On page 313 of Ministry of Healing we read this intriguing statement:

Flesh was never the best food; but its use is now doubly objectionable, since disease in animals is so rapidly increasing. Those who use flesh foods little know what they are eating. Often if they could see the animals when living and know the quality of the meat they eat, they would turn from it with loathing. People are continually eating flesh that is filled with tuberculous and cancerous germs. Tuberculosis, cancer, and other fatal diseases are thus communicated.—emphasis added.

The above claims that cancer is caused by a "germ," which is some sort of microorganism like a bacteria or fungus or virus. Of course, it's common knowledge in today's medical and scientific communities that viruses cause cancer, but it wasn't common knowledge back then. To illustrate, consider the following:

Francis Peyton Rous —National Library of Medicine

Rous, pronounced rows, Francis Peyton, pronounced PAY tuhn (1879-1970), an American medical researcher, proved that viruses cause some types of cancer. In 1910, Rous ground up a cancerous tumor from a chicken and filtered out everything larger than a virus. The resulting liquid produced cancer when injected into other chickens. For many years, scientists scoffed at Rous’s discovery. These scientists believed cancer could not be caused by a virus because the disease is not contagious. In 1966, Rous shared the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine for his work.—"Rous, Francis Peyton," World Book Encyclopedia.

So in 1910, a maverick medical researcher proposed that cancer was caused by a virus and could be transmitted from chicken to chicken. He was subsequently derided by the scientific community for proposing such a ludicrous idea, and then waited fifty-six years before collecting his Nobel Prize. Do you suppose that perhaps Mr. Rous "plagiarized" his novel idea from Ministry of Healing?

More importantly, how in the world did Ellen White know that cancer is caused by an infectious agent?

Give Us Your Opinion

What do you think of this insight into the cause of cancer?

Maybe God told her. That does happen, you know. 81.0% She should be given a Nobel prize posthumously. 7.6% Beats me. I don't have a clue how she knew about that. 6.3% She must have been a super-smart scientist with expensive lab equipment. 5.1% Total Votes: 79