Someone sent me a Facebook post the other day. You know the type: capital letters, grandiose claims, a lone heroic “doctor” who has solved cancer but has been ignored or suppressed. In this case, the hero was one Leonard Coldwell, who assures us that he has cured 92 per cent of cancer patients and warns that biopsies “spread” the disease by releasing “toxins.”

Now, the medical mainstream is awash with lies. Its journals are swollen with industry-sponsored trials; its regulators are captured; its doctors are bribed with “continuing education.” The opioid epidemic, the statin racket, the endless vaccine mandates—every scandal shows the same pattern of rent-seeking dressed up as science. But this does not mean that every maverick with a Facebook page is a suppressed genius. The corruption of the mainstream makes it all the more important to check the literature, not to lurch into new dogmas dressed as dissidence.

So I did what Coldwell’s admirers never do: I looked at the evidence.

1. The 92% Cure Rate

The post begins with a miracle statistic:

“Dr. Leonard Coldwell has seen 66,000 patients, with 35,000 of them having cancer. He has the highest known cancer patient cure rate of over 92.3%.”

This number has been repeated verbatim across Coldwell’s books and websites. It is always 92.3 per cent, not 92 or 93. Its source is the “Schmargendorf Health Institute, Berlin,” supposedly under the scientific leadership of “Dr. Med. Thomas Hohn.” This sounds impressive until you search the databases. There is no record of such an institute in oncology literature. Thomas Hohn was in fact a respected plant molecular biologist in Basel, known for his work on cauliflower mosaic virus—not an oncologist auditing Coldwell’s patient files.¹

And the files themselves? They do not exist. There are no survival curves, no denominators broken down by cancer stage, no published data. UK Companies House records list Coldwell as “Doctor of Natural Medicine,” not as a licensed physician.²

If he had cured 92 per cent of cancers across 35,000 patients, it would be one of the greatest medical breakthroughs in history. Instead, it exists only in his promotional copy.

2. The Tumour as “Protective Bubble”

Coldwell insists:

“The tumour is working on keeping you alive. Cancer is not even an illness. Cancer is a symptom.”

There is a kernel of scientific reality here, twisted into fantasy. It is true that tumours exist in a complex ecosystem called the tumour microenvironment (TME). Recent reviews describe how the TME protects malignant cells from immune attack, creates metabolic niches, and supports angiogenesis.³ It is even possible to describe this as a survival strategy—though not for the patient.

For the cancer, the TME is life. It provides cytokines, extracellular matrix alterations, and immunosuppressive factors that allow the malignant colony to thrive. For the patient, it is the death sentence. The TME does not shield the host from “toxins.” It shields the tumour from the host.

To call cancer “a symptom” is like calling metastatic spread “an inconvenience.” It is rhetorical inversion, not biology.

3. Do Biopsies Spread Cancer?

Here Coldwell stumbles into a half-truth.

There is such a thing as needle-tract seeding: when a biopsy dislodges cancer cells and deposits them along the needle’s path. A 2014 review documented case reports of seeding across several cancer types.⁴ A 2019 systematic review and meta-analysis in European Urology Oncology confirmed that the phenomenon is real in renal tumours, though extremely rare.⁵

But rarity is the point. Out of tens of thousands of biopsies, only a handful result in seeding. The risk is so low that guidelines continue to recommend biopsy when diagnosis is uncertain. Modern biopsy techniques—coaxial sheaths, limited passes, smaller cores—reduce the risk further. In prostate cancer, transperineal biopsy has almost eliminated concerns of seeding altogether.⁶

Coldwell’s version of events—that puncturing a tumour releases “toxins” that make the cancer suddenly aggressive—has no basis in the literature. Tumours are not sacs of poison. They are proliferating tissues with their own blood supply, stromal support, and immune infiltration. The danger of biopsy is mechanical displacement of cells, not the bursting of some toxic balloon.

4. Facebook as Substitute for Science

The anatomy of this Facebook post is instructive. It relies on four rhetorical moves:

1. The Miracle Statistic – a 92% cure rate with no verifiable data.
2. The Inversion – calling cancer a friend rather than a foe.
3. The Half-Truth – taking a rare complication (needle seeding) and inflating it into a universal rule.
4. The Selective Citation – sprinkling references to PubMed papers that, when read, do not support the claim being made.

It is the mirror-image of mainstream corruption: both lie, but in different directions. The mainstream falsifies trials to protect billion-dollar drug franchises. The Facebook dissident falsifies numbers to promote himself as a miracle worker. Both are selling, not proving.

5. The Real Lesson

If you want to challenge the medical mainstream, the answer is not to fall for every gaudy dissident claim. The answer is to do the work. Needle-tract seeding exists, but it is rare. The TME exists, but it sustains cancer, not health. Miracle cure rates require evidence, not anecdotes.

The mainstream lies constantly, but the way to beat it is with accurate criticism. Otherwise we only replace one cult with another.

The Facebook post I was sent is unlikely because it is false. Its numbers are fabricated, its interpretation of tumours is wrong, and its warnings about biopsy are inflated. The mainstream needs critics, but real critics, not salesmen.

The tumour is not your friend. And Leonard Coldwell is not your doctor.

Original Facebook Post

Doctor Who Cured 92% Of Cancer Patients Says Biopsies Are SPREADING Cancer
A needle biopsy punctures the tumor and releases the toxins into the system.
In a bold and controversial video recirculating on social media, Dr Leonard Coldwell, challenges conventional views of cancer, arguing that tumors are not malignant invaders but protective mechanisms created by the body to contain toxins.
“The tumor is working on keeping you alive,” he says. “Cancer is not even an illness. Cancer is a symptom.”
Dr. Leonard Coldwell has seen 66,000 patients, with 35,000 of them having cancer. He has the highest known cancer patient cure rate of over 92.3%.
This figure is based on the clinical and scientific research of the Schmargendorf Health Institute, Berlin, under the scientific leadership of Dr. Med. Thomas Hohn.
In the video, Coldwell begins by challenging the mainstream narrative around cancer. “The tumor is working on keeping you alive,” he says, suggesting that tumors form as a protective response to overwhelming internal toxicity.
Rather than framing cancer as a random genetic disaster or a purely cellular malfunction, this perspective posits that cancer is a biological adaptation—a last-ditch effort by the body to wall off and neutralize harmful substances that would otherwise cause systemic collapse.
This concept aligns with certain holistic or functional medicine viewpoints, which argue that chronic diseases often stem from environmental, dietary, and emotional imbalances. In this model, cancer is not the primary problem—it’s the red flag. The real issue lies upstream: years of exposure to toxins, processed foods, unresolved trauma, and cellular inflammation.
“So the body builds a bubble, a tumor, and collects all these poisons and keeps the poisons on one spot where they don’t do harm. That’s a tumor,” Colwell says, “so that’s why it’s so dangerous if anybody comes with a needle, with a needle biopsy, and pinches into this tumor and releases the toxins into the system. And all of a sudden they find you have a very fast-growing, very aggressive cancer that you didn’t have before the needle biopsy.”
Coldwell is describing an occurrence called “needle seeding”, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24591300/ an instance of biopsies spreading cancer.
The idea gained traction following the publication of a book in 2012 by urologist Ronald Wheeler, whose medical licsence was revoked in 2017. Dr Wheeler was convinced that needle biopsies of prostate cancer spread cancer cells outside the prostate.
Needle tract seeding refers to implantation of tumor cells by contamination when instruments like biopsy needles are used to examine, excise, or ablate a tumor. Implantation alongthe needle tract may lead to a change in the stage of the tumor, converting a resectable tumor into an inoperable one.
A 2019 systematic review https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31116493/ and meta-analysis published in European Urology Oncology examined the phenomenon of needle-tract tumor seeding following image-guided renal mass biopsies, a concern raised by critics of routine biopsy procedures. The authors analyzed multiple studies and found that while the risk is low, it is real.
According to the abstract, “Needle-tract tumor seeding is a rare but documented complication of percutaneous biopsy of renal masses.” This lends scientific support to concerns like those expressed by Dr. Leonard Coldwell, who warns that puncturing a tumor could potentially spread cancerous cells into surrounding tissue or the bloodstream.
Another 2025 study published in Molecular Cancer supports the idea that tumors may function not solely as pathological growths, but as dynamic microenvironments designed to preserve cellular survival under stress. According to the authors, “the tumor microenvironment (TME) functions as a protective niche that shields malignant and non-malignant cells alike from metabolic, immunological, and oxidative stress.” This aligns with Dr. Leonard Coldwell’s assertion that tumors may form in response to internal toxicity as a protective mechanism.
The study further states that tumors adaptively shape their local environment through “secreted cytokines, altered extracellular matrix components, and immune-modulatory pathways” that help sustain the tissue despite systemic imbalance.
Notably, researchers observed that these environments may “orchestrate localized homeostasis” even when the rest of the body is compromised. While the study does not go as far as to say cancer is not a disease, it does acknowledge that tumor behavior reflects an evolved survival strategy, adding nuance to conventional views and lending partial support to Coldwell’s broader claims.

References

1. Hohn, T. et al. Plant Molecular Biology Institute profile. University of Basel.
2. UK Companies House, filings for Leonard Coldwell, “Doctor of Natural Medicine.”
3. Hinshaw, D.C. & Shevde, L.A. “The Tumor Microenvironment Innately Modulates Cancer Progression.” Cancer Research 79.18 (2019): 4557–4566.
4. Volpe, A. et al. “Needle tract seeding after percutaneous renal tumour biopsy: a review.” European Urology 65.3 (2014): 660–668. PMID: 24591300.
5. Richard, P.O. et al. “Needle-tract seeding in renal mass biopsy: a systematic review and meta-analysis.” European Urology Oncology 2.2 (2019): 123–131. PMID: 31116493.
6. Grummet, J.P. et al. “Seeding risk in prostate biopsy: a review of current practice.” BJU International 124.5 (2019): 735–742.