Nexus - 0702 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

porters organised mass demonstrations in Sherbrooke itself, and and that money is not the motive for him or his three stepsons there was an unprecedented outpouring of international and who run the Centre d'Orthobiologie Somatidienne de I'Estrie, Inc. celebrity support. In the end, Naessens was found innocent of all (COSE) next door. charges. Naessens speaks eloquently and with conviction, but in a non- This incredible turn of events is reported in Christopher Bird's aggressive manner. He struck us as formal and reserved—but dramatic book. After the trial, in early 1990, patients successfully hardly the "secretive" man which he is often accused of being. pressured Health and Welfare Canada to allow the distribution of | These are just impressions, but at least they are based on some 714X under its Emergency Drug Relief Program. So far [as at personal knowledge and are uniformly corroborated by others 1994] in Canada, about 4,000 prescriptions have been written by who know him much better. His critics, on the other hand, gener- about 600 open-minded doctors. ally condemn from afar, sparing themselves the bother of looking Yet one should not suppose that the campaign of organised through his remarkable Somatoscope. medicine against Gaston Naessens and his revolutionary ideas has Gaston Michel Naessens was born on 16 March 1924 in ceased. In 1992, the FDA issued an import alert against 714X, Roubaix, a textile town just north of Lille, France. His father, a banning its importation for commercial or even for personal use. local banker, died when Gaston was only 10 years old. And in July 1994, six FDA agents raided a Rochester, New York, Early on, young Gaston showed a penchant for nervy inventive- company that was trying to educate the public about 714X as well ness. At the age of four, he attached an alarm clock to his as assist US patients in receiving this unique product. Meccano set to create a moving mechanical device. As a teenag- Is Naessens indeed the master charlatan his enemies project? er, he built a functional airplane—which his mother burned when Or is he one of the greatest geniuses of our age? Is 714X just a she realised it really was going to fly! During the war, when worthless nostrum with possibly dangerous side effects? Or is it gasoline was in short supply, he travelled on a motorcycle he had an ingeniously designed and unique product which has the ability built that was entirely fuelled by wood! to stabilise or even reverse symptoms in people with cancer, After graduating from the Collége Universitaire de Marc-en- AIDS and other chronic illnesses? Baroeul in 1938, Gaston began courses in physics, chemistry and Much is at stake here, for Naessens's biology at the University of Lille. After ideas and discoveries could yield an World War II broke out and the Nazis entirely novel way of viewing the origin invaded northern France, Gaston with his of cancer, AIDS and other degenerative Naessens's ideas are so classmates and teachers migrated to the diseases—as well as life itself. . 5 south of France where they reconstituted If even some of Naessens's claims are far-reaching that it would their school in Nice. Naessens continued correct, this fact could lead to major be naive to expect them to his scientific education there, and on 4 advances in such diverse fields as optics, May 1945 received diploma no. 219 in microbiology, haematology and oncolo- be instantly accepted by engineering and biology from the Union gy. It is hard even to estimate the poten- i ifi i Nationale Scientifique Frangaise. tial leap in medicine. the scientific establishment. However, after the war, in a youthful Somatidian orthobiology is truly para- digm-busting science. If Naessens is right, biologists won't have to rewrite oversight he neglected to convert this wartime diploma into a formal degree from the new de Gaulle government. their textbooks; they can throw them away. Such war-spawned confusion over records and diplomas has led to repeated charges that Naessens has no formal education and GASTON NAESSENS AND SOMATIDS therefore no ability to make scientific discoveries. His lack of In the literature of quackbusters such as the American Cancer credentials has often been used to discredit his message. For Society and the National Council against Health Fraud (NCHF), instance, the NCHF states that "Naessens claimed to have studied however, Naessens is demonised as an uneducated international biology at the University of Lille, but records fail to verify this". faker whose entire career has been devoted to hoodwinking the As if World War II and the Nazi occupation never intervened! general public. "Naessens has a long history of promoting dubi- In 1946, Naessens found work as a technician in a blood analy- ous cancer remedies," says a 1993 NCHF article. It claims that he sis laboratory in Clermont-Ferrand, west of Lyon. It was here that "peddles" secret formulas, making him "one of the folk heroes of _ he first glimpsed unexplained particles in human blood. Others the paranoid faction". dismissed these as "dross", but Naessens had an insight that such Yet, after days of intensive interviews, he and Ms Levesque "dross" might have biological significance. [now Mme Levesque-Naessens] made a very favourable impres- At this juncture, Naessens set up his own laboratory with his sion on us. Naessens is a calm and dignified man, and, as Chris mother's financial help. The key problem was that conventional Bird said, he has an almost aristocratic mien. For a person of 70 _ light-microscopes could not provide a clear view of these parti- [now mid-70s], he is also remarkably youthful and buoyant. cles. Standard microscopes barely showed them at all, and they Naessens and Levesque live in a modest but attractive house on would not take a stain. Clearly, what was needed was a new way the banks of the tranquil Magog River. Ducks play in the back- of looking at blood. yard and there is a rowboat moored at the foot of the steps. There were two ways of increasing the power of the conven- Inside, the living quarters are airy and white, sparsely decorated. tional light-microscope. The first was to increase the aperture of Naessens's laboratory is in the low-ceilinged but roomy basement, the lens—which was the direction being taken by all of the as it has been for the last 30 [and more] years. world's major optical firms. The second was to alter the nature of World-class scientific research is about the last thing you would the light source itself. This was the ambitious course young expect in such a bucolic locale. There are no visible signs of Naessens set for himself. other hobbies or interests; everything suggests that science is his In the late 1940s, he travelled to Germany and obtained the aid life. One also has the impression that no one is getting rich here, of that country's artisans, with their long tradition of skill in GASTON NAESSENS AND SOMATIDS In the literature of quackbusters such as the American Cancer Society and the National Council against Health Fraud (NCHF), however, Naessens is demonised as an uneducated international faker whose entire career has been devoted to hoodwinking the general public. "Naessens has a long history of promoting dubi- ous cancer remedies," says a 1993 NCHF article. It claims that he "peddles" secret formulas, making him "one of the folk heroes of the paranoid faction". Yet, after days of intensive interviews, he and Ms Levesque [now Mme Levesque-Naessens] made a very favourable impres- sion on us. Naessens is a calm and dignified man, and, as Chris Bird said, he has an almost aristocratic mien. For a person of 70 [now mid-70s], he is also remarkably youthful and buoyant. Naessens and Levesque live in a modest but attractive house on the banks of the tranquil Magog River. Ducks play in the back- yard and there is a rowboat moored at the foot of the steps. Inside, the living quarters are airy and white, sparsely decorated. Naessens's laboratory is in the low-ceilinged but roomy basement, as it has been for the last 30 [and more] years. World-class scientific research is about the last thing you would expect in such a bucolic locale. There are no visible signs of other hobbies or interests; everything suggests that science is his life. One also has the impression that no one is getting rich here, 30 + NEXUS Naessens's ideas are so far-reaching that it would be naive to expect them to FEBRUARY — MARCH 2000