by Janet C. Phelan

The death this past week of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez raises some disturbing questions. It was reported that the iconoclastic and controversial leader succumbed to a two-year-long battle with cancer. In so doing, he may have been the first world leader to lose his life to cancer since 1980, when the Shah of Iran succumbed to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma while in exile.

With cancer deaths figuring at 23% of the mortality rate in the United States (cancer is the leading cause of death in developed countries and the second leading cause of death in developing countries), one might think that the Big C might be striking down leaders of countries with the same regularity as it afflicts everyone else. The rather unusual and nearly universal tendency for the power elite to sidestep cancer death has raised questions as to whether or not the powers-that-be might be bogarting the cure.

Since Hugo Chavez was leading his country, boldly, in a manner that distinguished his leadership from the lockstep, pro-American arse licking that typifies most of the world's statesmen at this juncture in time, one might ask if the power elite specifically bogarted the cure from Hugo Chavez.

In a recent article in Press TV, Dr. Kevin Barrett has suggested that the CIA may have "given" Chavez the death-dealing cancer (Source). Cancer may be transmitted through injection by an unethical medical professional. A number of sources have alleged that a fast-acting cancer was developed in CIA labs decades ago and was responsible for deaths ranging from Jack Ruby to investigative journalist Mae Brussell.

Barrett writes that Chavez himself wondered if agents for the US government had given him (and other Latin American leaders) the illness that he succumbed to on March 5th:

A little over a year ago, Chavez went on Venezuelan national radio and said: "I don't know but... it is very odd that we have seen Lugo affected by cancer, Dilma when she was a candidate, me, going into an election year, not long ago Lula and now Cristina... It is very hard to explain, even with the law of probabilities, what has been happening to some leaders in Latin America. It's at the very least strange, very strange.

If one looks at other notable politicos who have succumbed to cancer of late, the picture becomes a bit eerie. The 2010 breast cancer death of Elizabeth Edwards, estranged wife of former Presidential candidate John Edwards, raises concerns as to whether John Edwards' dramatic fall from grace and subsequent prosecution dovetailed with the cure being withheld from his wife. Edwards was eventually charged with soliciting and covering up spending more than $925,000 to hide his mistress and their baby during the peak of his 2008 campaign for the White House.

The grand jury's indictment contained six felony counts, including conspiracy, four counts of receiving illegal campaign contributions and one count of false statements on his public campaign finance reports.

As Edwards had become a targeted political figure, it is safe to assume that his Icarus-like tumble might have resulted in perks (such as the coveted cancer cure) being withheld from family members.

Upon learning that Edwards had fathered a baby with a campaign staffer, Elizabeth Edwards' fury became tabloid fare. It was announced in the national press when she cut him out of her will (Source). One might wonder if her well-publicized rage was solely due to his infidelity or if she understood the price she was paying for his being kicked off the political gravy train.

I mean, come on now. Remember Bill and Jennifer Flowers? JFK and Marilyn? Dwight Eisenhower and Kay Summersby? LBJ and Madeleine Brown? Powerful men tend to have powerful libidos and for many women, there is no aphrodisiac quite like a man with clout. When someone high enough on the political food chain is trashed by the press for what the DC Press Club knows nearly every powerful man does in his boudoir, then it is safe to assume that a very powerful someone (or someones) wants him out.

Another upstart politico who recently succumbed to cancer was Canadian National Democratic Party (NDP) leader, Jack Layton. On May 2, 2011, he led his party to the most successful result in the NDP's history, winning 103 seats-enough to form Canada's Official Opposition. It was a short-lived victory for Layton, who succumbed to cancer on August 22, less than four months later. Layton was committed to ousting the conservative Harper government and the NDP's leftist policies are in stark contrast to the policies being promoted under the Stephen Harper reign. Prime Minister Harper is largely considered to be a faithful lap dog for US interests.

Dr. Kevin Barrett also pointed to the cult classic, Confessions of an Economic Hitman, to buttress his argument that the CIA may have given Chavez cancer. Barrett writes:

John Perkins, in his bestselling book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, supplies more evidence that the bankers that own the US government routinely murder heads of state, using private assassins as well as CIA killers.

Barrett goes on to write:

Perkins would meet with a targeted nation's leader and say: "I have a fist-full of hundred dollar bills in one hand, and a bullet in the other. Which do you want?" If the leader accepted the loans, thereby enslaving his country, he got the payoff. If he angrily chased Perkins out of his office, the bankers would call in the "asteroids" to assassinate the uncooperative head of state.

As the US has tended in recent years to obscure its blacker activities under "plausible deniability," it doesn't take much imagination to figure that cancer would be a better cloak for murder than a bullet to the head.

The evidence amassing that cures for cancer do indeed exist is becoming overwhelming. For starters, I offer the following links:

http://www.whale.to/a/cancer_c.html

http://carcin.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/3/485.full

http://www.naturalnews.com/037188_Nicholas_Gonzalez_pancreatic_cancer_natural_cures.html

http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/natural-medicine/herbal-remedies/graviola3.htm

http://virginia-press-release.com/37/Big%20Pharma%20cancer%20cure%20cover-up%20exposed.php

http://undergroundhealthreporter.com/pau-d%E2%80%99arco-the-natural-treatment-for-cancer#axzz2MvDMvAlq

http://gerson.org/gerpress/the-gerson-therapy/

And for those who still think that chemotherapy actually cures (rather than kills), these articles may be of interest:

http://www.activistpost.com/2012/08/study-accidentally-finds-chemotherapy.html

http://www.curenaturalicancro.com/2-physicians-refuse-chemo.html

The fact remains that if no cures for cancer exist, then we should be seeing about a quarter of the power elite dying of cancer. Instead, we see a few upstart and inconvenient political figures who are succumbing to this disease.

Whether or not the CIA "gave" Hugo Chavez cancer, one thing we can be sure of. They sure as shinola didn't give him the cure.

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Janet Phelan is an investigative journalist whose articles have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The San Bernardino County Sentinel, The Santa Monica Daily Press, The Long Beach Press Telegram, Oui Magazine and other regional and national publications. Janet specializes in issues pertaining to legal corruption and addresses the heated subject of adult conservatorship, revealing shocking information about the relationships between courts and shady financial consultants. She also covers issues relating to international bioweapons treaties. Her poetry has been published in Gambit, Libera, Applezaba Review, Nausea One and other magazines. Her first book, The Hitler Poems, was published in 2005. She currently resides abroad.  You may browse through her articles (and poetry) at janetphelan.com