Presenter Eva Jinek, together with actress Jennifer Hoffman, sells bottles of natural vinegar for charity. Not just like that, because with that simple kitchen good you can detect cervical cancer.
“It is a matter of dabbing the cervix with a cotton swab with a few drops of vinegar on top. If there are wrong cells, the cervix will turn white”, Jinek explains in the Pauw program. The problem can then be solved by removing the ‘wrong’ cells with nitrogen.
‘You always need vaccinations’
Before you immediately stock up on a bottle of vinegar: this method is not perfect, and is mainly used in developing countries. Jinek is ambassador for de Female Cancer Foundation. Founder is gynecologist and tropical doctor Lex Peters. “It is not a perfect method. Perhaps the impression arose in Pauw’s broadcast that you can eradicate this form of cancer with kitchen vinegar, but you also always need vaccinations”, says Peters.
The RIVM recognizes that vinegar is a method with which a precancerous stage of cervical cancer (or rather: the HPV virus) can be detected. “But in the Netherlands we have much better methods. We therefore mainly advise women between the ages of 30 and 60 to participate in the population screening and the home test,” says Jaap van Delden, head of the Center for Population Screening.
‘Old fashioned way’
“It has been known for a long time that we can see abnormalities of the cervix with acetic acid. That is a fairly old-fashioned method”, says oncological gynecologist Brigitte Slangen. Despite this, many people in the Netherlands are unfamiliar with this phenomenon. “Here we only apply the technique if a smear shows that it is necessary.”
“This research is certainly an alternative for countries where no better method is yet available”, says Jaap van Delden. And that is precisely the reason that Jinek and the Female Cancer Foundation are now raising money to make vinegar research possible in those developing countries.
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