Cancer's Toll: Medical and Financial Impact

20,000 people die of cancer every day this translates to 8 million deaths every year half a million of which Americans. At the beginning of the last century, one person out of 20 would get cancer. In the 1940s, it was one out of every 16 people. In the 1970s, one person out of 10. Today, one person out of three gets cancer in the course of their life over 1 million Americans are diagnosed with a new cancer every year all these people suddenly plunge into a dark tunnel that will dramatically change their life for many years to come faced with an apparently endless chain of medical tests exam examinations, second opinions, medications, new tests, surgical operations, support therapies, and follow-up checks, they find themselves at the complete mercy of the disease. While in that tunnel, each patient feeds an immense medical apparatus that employs hundreds of thousands of people and generates millions and millions of dollars for the medical and pharmaceutical industries. From research laboratories to medical schools, from prevention clinics to worldwide drug sales, today the cancer medical apparatus is so large and expensive that it needs its patients in order to survive just as much as the patients need the apparatus cancer is a big business one of the biggest businesses the typical cancer patient spends at least $50,000 to treat his or her disease with 1 million new American cancer patients every year that translates to 50 billion dollars annually spent on cancer treatment in the United States. to modern oncology cancer still remains a mystery what a century ago were just wooden contraptions able to lift only a few feet off the ground today have become sophisticated jets capable of reaching incredible heights at three times the speed of sound what a century ago was the creaking sound of the telegraph over some rustling wires today has become a global network of fiber optics where millions of people exchange information in all possible directions what a century ago was still a relatively unknown planet today has been lit by day and night and it has been explored to the extent that we can visit it in every longitude and latitude from the comfort of our home the only thing that has not changed in the last hundred years is the apparent incapacity of medical science to understand and conquer a disease like cancer why the official theory maintains that cancer is a problem that originates in the human cell cancer is a group of over one hundred diseases characterized by abnormal uncontrolled cell growth cancer is a sometimes fatal disease caused by the abnormal growth in division of cells while normal cells have well-defined walls and nuclei the uncontrolled growth in cancer cells causes the creation of abnormal unstructured masses of tissue known as neoplasms or tumors most cancer-related deaths are due to metastasis malignant cells that penetrate into the circulatory system and establish colonies in other parts of the body. How and where the migrating cells stop is different for different cancer types. Once the tumor cells are no longer moving, they can begin the process of forming a new tumor by leaving the blood vessel and beginning to reproduce in the new location. If the new environment is suitable, the newly arrived cell will begin to grow and a new tumor will develop this official theory also called molecular theory is basically the same that was formulated more than 50 years ago cancer begins as a departure from normal cell growth that is harmful and unceasing. If the abnormal cells grow slowly in a limited area, they are called benign tumors. If the cells are spread to other parts of the body, they constitute a malignant tumor, one that is cancerous. Cells of malignant growths break off and travel through the bloodstream to other parts of the body there they may start new cancerous growths in the last 50 years the search for the cause of cancer within the human cell has been pushed beyond the limits of anyone's imagination today the most advanced laboratories are working directly on the human genome in order to identify the genes that seem to be responsible according to some scientists for the different kinds of cancer this opens the door to a dreamlike scenario for the pharmaceutical industry a world where each patient would need its own personal cure tailored to to its own personal needs. One million new patients every year. One million new cures for each and every one of them. What we want to do is we want to match the disease with the cure, or palliative treatment, whatever it is, by using the genomic tools. that's really what what the whole cancer world is now going to be about for a very long time the question of whether we're going to break the cure barrier is not the question about if it's a question about when in the meantime however no one has been able to prove that the official theory is the correct one, and that the origin of cancer is in fact of genetic nature. Major advances are being made in the detection, prevention, and treatment of cancer. But the mechanisms that trigger malignant cell growth are still not completely understood. In the meantime, only to get worse we've lost the war on cancer since the 1950s the outlook for most cancer patients has remained the same a one in three chance of living for five years after diagnosis using conventional therapy surgery radiation chemotherapy drugs the fact is that today two out of three American cancer patients will be dead before five years despite such dismal results official oncology continues to impose on patients the only three therapies that have ever been authorized in the last hundred years surgery chemotherapy and radiotherapy and two of the three are actually carcinogenic surgery is the oldest technique and the most successful of the three but surgery is useful only when the cancer is localized a minority of cases patients also fear radiation's dangerous side effects. One of these is that radiation can actually cause cancer. The use of radiation remains controversial even in medical circles. As much as we could work with her, say on a math problem, she was not comprehending it. It would take a long time to get a worksheet done. Parts of Elizabeth's brain weren't there anymore because of the radiation that had killed that part of the brain. So the part of the brain that was responsible for memory was gone. Chemotherapy is designed to kill cancer cells throughout the body it is highly toxic however and it also kills healthy cells today chemotherapy is often given in combination with surgery and radiation your typical chemotherapy agent will certainly cause tiredness there is a risk of sickness but there are very good anti-sickness drugs these days that can control that. Chemotherapy frequently causes taste change. It can cause a sore mouth. The first side effect that many people ask about, however, is hair loss. In fact, many chemotherapy drugs are carcinogenic their toxicity is so high that all personnel handling them must observe very strict safety rules Their disposal calls for total destruction and incineration of anything that comes in contact with them Some of these drugs remain partially toxic even after incineration beyond 1800 degrees Fahrenheit But there is something new about chemotherapy that's been emerging of late. Many women who undergo chemotherapy for breast cancer describe unsettling changes to their memory and concentration. Researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center say this phenomenon is very real women have complained of cognitive changes that have occurred during the time that they've been treated for breast cancer for a long time now and the term chemo brain has been coined and this is used to describe loss of concentration, difficulty remembering things, having difficulty thinking clearly, and not being able to function effectively in normal activities that the person was able to do perfectly well before they had treatment. Simple little things. I would have to, I'd have to wait to think of something and it would be frustrating X is red C is green researchers say the chemotherapy creates memory problems that can last for years children are also beginning to report long-term effects of chemotherapy drugs. Things like my homework, like, let's say, like math homework. When it's real noisy, I can't focus. It just makes me feel like my mind's being erased. But is there any benefit in chemotherapy? John Cairns of harvard university published a study in scientific american he found that chemotherapy drugs benefit at most five percent one out of twenty of the cancer patients they're given to if conventional therapy has such limited results why isn't the medical profession willing to investigate alternative approaches the answer to this question may be found in some historic events that took place almost a century ago, when official medicine finally managed to gain the upper hand on the so-called empirical doctors, who cured patients with herbs and natural remedies. In the 1800s, society sanctioned both approaches to healing. patients had a choice of using either doctors called allopaths or natural healers called empirics or homeopaths. The two groups waged a bitter philosophical debate. The allopathic doctors called their approach heroic medicine. They believed the physician must aggressively drive disease from the body. They based practice on what they considered scientific theory the allopaths used three main techniques they bled the body to drain out the bad humors they gave huge doses of toxic minerals like mercury and lead to displace the original disease they also used surgery but it was a brutal procedure before anesthesia and infection control few patients were willing to have surgery most patients feared allopathic methods altogether satirists of the day remarked that with allopathic treatment the patient died of the cure competing with the doctors were the empiric healers contrary to the doctors they believed in stimulating the body's own defenses to heal itself instead of poisonous minerals they used vegetable products and non-toxic substances in small quantities they especially favored herbs learned from native american and old european traditions The empirics said they based their remedies not on theory, but on observation and experience. Satirists of the day added that with empiric treatment, the patient died of the disease, not the cure. And the balance of medical power remained equal until the turn of the century. Then, new medical treatments emerged that were potentially very profitable the AMA joined with strong financial forces to transform medicine into an industry the fortunes of Carnegie Morgan and Rockefeller financed surgery radiation and synthetic drugs they were to become the economic foundations of the new medical economy the takeover of the medical industry was accomplished by the takeover of the medical schools well the people that we're talking about rockefeller and carnegie in particular came to the picture and said we will put up money they offered tremendous amounts of money to the schools that would agree to cooperate with them. The donors said to the schools, we're giving you all this money. Now, would it be too much to ask if we could put some of our people on your board of directors to see that our money is being spent wisely? Almost overnight, all of the major universities received large grants from these sources and also accepted one, two or three of these people that I mentioned on their board of directors and the schools literally were taken over by the financial interests that put up the money. Now, what happened as a result of that is that the schools did receive an infusion of money. They were able to build new buildings. They were able to add expensive equipment to their laboratories. They were able to hire top-notch teachers. But at the same time as doing that, they skewed the whole thing in the direction of pharmaceutical drugs. That was the efficiency in philanthropy. The doctors from that point forward in history would be taught pharmaceutical drugs. All of the great teaching institutions in America were captured by the pharmaceutical interests in this fashion fashion and it's amazing how little money it really took to do it surgery became viable with anesthesia and infection control and doctors advocated expensive radical operations these in turn produced the need for a large lucrative hospital system radium fever swept medicine the price of radium rose one thousand percent almost overnight another costly technological industry entered the hospital system a drug industry grew out of the booming patent medicine business the doctors changed educational standards and licensing regulations to exclude the empirics. Soon, only AMA-approved doctors could legally practice medicine. In a brief 20 years, the AMA came to dominate medical practice. Organized Medicine launched a media campaign to associate the empirics with quacks. The code word for competition was quackery so now the average doctor goes through school he gets a great education he has to be really smart to get through it he learns all about drugs he doesn't know too much about basic nutrition I found that the average wife of these physicians knows more about nutrition than he does but they sure know their. And if you go to your typical doctor today, I don't care what it is, chances are you're going to walk out of there with a prescription. Why? Because that's what he has been trained to do. The companies that make up the pharmaceutical industry are among the largest corporations in the world. Together, these businesses have come to be known as Big Pharma. In 2004, their combined global sales were over half a trillion dollars, with Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson leading the pack. In the U.S., the core of Big Pharma's immense profits is from sales of prescription medication. And since these drugs can only be prescribed by medical professionals, most of the industry's promotional and marketing activities are directed at doctors, pharmacists, and other health care providers. This starts out at the first day of medical school, and in many medical schools, even the incoming students that, you know, are two years away from seeing a patient will start to get gifts from the pharmaceutical industry. And as these students get farther along in their medical education, the interactions and the gifts escalate to free lunches, to dinners. Champagne, brunches, happy hours, hours New York jet tickets no matter where you spend the money you make money and my boss always told me don't worry about it there's there'll always be more funding spend what you can in fact if I give you $100,000 to spend Jean I want you to spend 200, Before 1980, most clinical research was funded by the National Institutes of Health. During the 90s, most of that research got pulled out of universities and was brought to for-profit research organizations. The problem is that that gave virtual complete control over the research to the drug companies they could design the studies they have control of data so that many of the authors of the most important articles published in our best journals aren't even allowed to see their own data they don't get free access to their own data and they have control over publication to sum it all up the pharmaceutical industry first gained control of the teaching system then it gave the ama the power to exclude all other doctors from practicing then it took over the entire drug testing process while heavily influencing the medical publications that reviewed those drugs and finally big pharma extended its control over the federal entity that is supposed to verify those drugs safety and efficacy at the opposite end are the six citizens and in the middle are the doctors who must cure them based on information they can only get from the pharmaceutical industry which can no longer be verified chemotherapy drugs are in fact among the most expensive of all a one-month supply of erlotinib a chemotherapy drug produced by Roche cost two thousand three hundred dollars the same supply of sorafenib Bayer's chemotherapy drug costs five thousand five hundred dollars the monthly supply of sunitinib a chemotherapy drug produced by Pfizer cost almost $5,500. The monthly supply of sunitinib, a chemotherapy drug produced by Pfizer, costs almost $7,000. The drug industry is the most successful global industry in the world. What they don't want you to do is get better, because if you get better, their market's gone. Fear, its darkness causes humanity to make awful choices with dreadful power fear can rule our lives and paralyze lofty hopes and dreams in an instant a global affliction and deployed all too often by those intent on inflicting control over the masses. Fear preys on the most vulnerable among us. Fear sells, and nowhere is fear peddled more shamelessly than in the fields of medicine and human nutrition. Fear anesthetizes us. It coerces us, making us believe that we can do little on our own to prevent or treat disease, and forces whole nations to kneel at the altars of the drug industry and of course the fear mongers are also preying on fear of disease and the solution that the fear mongers give us are drugs as if by design health choices are limited information is scarce lives are ruined and the truth be damned the fear machine is well oiled by petrochemical dollars and a near worldwide monopoly in health care it works overtime to prevent the truth about dietary supplements from getting out to the public anything that comes from nature cannot be patented. They're not interested in that. So, we translate that into the real world of FDA approval. Surely these drug companies aren't going to spend $20 million or more testing any substance from nature because it can't be patented. That and, of of course the FDA says it's illegal to use unless it's been tested for efficacy and safety. Now you see the catch-22 you're in there. Nothing from nature, regardless of how effective it might be, will ever be proven safe or effective according to the FDA. It'll never be. Because nobody's going to spend the money to go through the test. I don't know. will ever be proven safe or effective according to the FDA. It'll never be, because nobody's going to spend the money to go through the test. So therefore everything from nature will always be condemned by the FDA as unproven, an unproven cancer cure. In a small town in northern Ontario, the year 1922, Green case first learned of a cancer remedy which she termed SIAC unbeknownst to history this fragile Canadian nurse has heroically managed to cure thousands of people from cancer with a simple concoction of herbs while nursing an old patient Renee noticed that she had a scar on her breast The patient said it was left over from a cancer she had cured over 30 years before, using a mixture of herbs suggested by the medicine man from the local Ojibwe tribe. Renee tried the same formula on her aunt, who had recently been diagnosed with cancer. I went down and I asked Dr. R.O. Fisher, who later was dean of the University of Toronto, if he would watch over her, if I would try some of these herbs. And he said he would. And it took quite a while, but she got better. And she lived for 21 years after that successful experience Renee quit the hospital and began curing people with a mixture of herbs that would become known as a siac which is her last name spelled backwards soon the voice spread and the number of patients healed from cancer started to multiply. In about 1943, I was diagnosed in Toronto General Hospital as having a growth in the bowel which was inoperable. And that was in January, and my husband was told that when the snow was gone, I would probably be gone with it. So through friends, I was directed to Miss Case, and I came to her and had treatments from her for practically three years, and felt I was cured, and I've had no return of it since. Dr. R.O. Bastida of Bracebridge sent me a patient of cancer of the bowel, Bert Rosin, and I cured him. So Dr. Bastida went before the town council and mayor and persuaded them to give me a building that they had taken for taxes as a clinic. That I had made a great discovery and that I should be supported in my own hometown. down. So they set up the clinic where I treated for eight and a half years in a few months the clinic was fervent with activity with patients flocking in from all different places her clinic would be full every time we were there and there were people came inances, who were not able to come in for a treatment. She would have to go out and administer the medicine out in the ambulance. And as the time went on, we watched these people be able to walk in. And finally, they were driving their own car to get SCI. I treated from three to six hundred patients a week and I the only way they would allow me to do this was free of charge and I had to have a doctor's diagnosis for every case i treated so we brought the diagnosis to nurse case and i took treatment from her every week for about a year and i have no cancer today it was one dr leonardo from buffalo who had immediately recognized the potential of renee's cancer cure to warn her of what was waiting ahead dr leonardo he was a cancer surgeon and he said you think you have a cure for cancer i said and way beyond thinking I know then he I had five other doctors in examining patients and he asked if he could go in with them and examine patients and I told them he could so then he told me he said you have it, but the medical profession will never let you do this to us. After a while, a mysterious group of entrepreneurs showed up, offering Renee $1 million for the secret formula. But she flatly refused, as they would not guarantee that her cure would be made available for free to anyone who ever needed it. Green case was called before the legislature in 1938 to determine Essiac's legal status. I was trying to legalize my treatment, and the patients went out and got this petition signed, 55,000 names on it. And I went before the legislature and I lost out by three votes. Public outcry forced the establishment of a cancer commission to investigate herbal remedies. The greatest majority of Reen's evidence was rejected. You see they said the doctors all made mistaken diagnosis but that's why the patients thought they were cured. I kept on my clinic as long as I could until they stopped the doctors from giving a diagnosis and then I had to stop and and it's a sad thing when somebody comes and they have somebody that is ill with cancer and the medical profession can do nothing for them and they beg of me to treat them it's a very very sad thing to turn them away and I had a nervous breakdown over there so I really had to stop don't see how they can how they can refrain from from recognizing it because if you have the the proof you have the pit you have the diagnosis from the doctor you have the pathological findings and you find you have the living patient to show that that they are still alive after the medical profession has given them up and yet they refuse to admit that it is a cure after she recovered from the breakdown Renee started from scratch, brewing the herbal mixture and curing patients in her own basement. I have to grind them. I used to get them already ground. Soon the authorities began harassing her again, having her arrested more than once for the most preposterous reasons. But the fame of Asiak had already crossed the border border as one day Renee received an invitation to scientifically test her herbal remedy from a clinic in Massachusetts about 20 years ago 1958 here in this lavatory its director was dr. Charles brush who was also president Kennedy's personal physician and a close friend undertook to study the effects of a drug or an herb called Asiak and we found that it was non-toxic and did have effects and help in the treatment of cancer and as a result of this at that point dr. brush recommended Asiak to be tested for toxicity in order to be approved by the FDA as a possible cancer cure. But once the herbs arrived at Sloan Kettering, one of the most important cancer research centers in the country, the process somehow got bogged down by inexplicable delays and eventually never came to a conclusion. The results that I reported to Green Case were studies in sarcoma 180 in the mice in which we were looking not only for possible primary inhibition of the tumor, which did not occur, but also for regressions. And there was a very small percentage in a small group of regressions, but we never had the opportunity to confirm this and to see whether we could obtain better results nevertheless asiak was not approved by the fda exactly as predicted by dr leonardo 30 years before further attempts to legalize the cure were made by different groups of patients who went as far as suing the medical authorities for denying them a possible cure for cancer. Permit them to have Essiac. They're asking to be given the right to use Essiac since orthodox medicine no longer has any answers for them. You can't burn a cancer out of a body with radiation. You can't poison it out of the body without poisoning the body as well. And I feel nature holds the answer the only answer for cancer patients and as such we should have it our constitutional rights at the moment are being denied to us and it shouldn't even come down to a court hearing it should be a matter of fact that we have what we want for our body I have cancer from head to toe in the bone you're going to try and tell me that if I think there's something that's going to give me a little bit of life, that I'm not going to try it? But the response from the medical authorities has always been the same, even at the cost of looking foolish for the ridiculous excuses they often had to concoct to resist its approval. If we release Laetrile and and Essiac, and Probiacin, and so on, I can give you a very long list. You'll have a very wide choice. Then when there is something effective, how will you know which to choose from? In fact, someone thought better to prevent Essiac from being used in the future by doctors, who may eventually respond to a higher calling of their conscience. As it's well known in the state of California, the state legislature actually made it a felony for a doctor to use any of the accepted methods of treatment for cancer, and they named them in the legislation. Surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and cobalt. And when doctors are handed like this and their very livelihood is threatened, they're not going to be anxious to step out of line. Exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, And when doctors are handed in like this and their very livelihood is threatened, they're not going to be anxious to step out of line. Exhausted and frustrated by the endless fight, Renee simply returned home and went on treating patients on a personal basis until the day she died in 1978. One year before that, many of her cured patients convened on her 90th birthday to thank her for what she had done for them ex-patients and supporters arrived in bracebridge ontario they came to help reen celebrate her 90th birthday they have experienced the benefits of essiac many of the people here feel they owe their life to read. Remember when you brought the two ladies up to you that day in the house? She doesn't know me. Where is it? I don't know. I have given my life for it. I couldn't give any more than that. God's been good to let me live this long, to see it used. used by people very similar to renee's story is the one of harry hoxie a texas businessman his father had passed on to him an herbal formula that would reveal highly effective against cancer unlike renee however hoxie was very wealthy and was a natural-born fighter who feared no one this set the premise for one of the most prolonged and virulent fights between an american citizen and the medical authorities in the history of the united states the trouble began with what seemed like good news and we now have in our files and our records many many thousands of case histories and records pathological proof x-ray photographic studies that we do positively cure cancer both internal and external i give you names times dates names of doctors names of institutions the doctors labeled hoxie the worst cancer quack of the century. But Hoxie's supporters called him an effective healer, persecuted by a medical trust. They have never proven that this treatment don't cure cancer. The ex-coal miner with an eighth-grade education became a legend in his own time. According to the Hoxie legend, the remedies were discovered by his great-grandfather experimenting on a sick horse. As the story goes, John Hoxie was a veterinarian whose prized stallion got cancer. He put it out to pasture to die. But three weeks later, the tumor had stabilized. He observed the horse eating unusual plants, not part of its normal diet. Within a year, the horse was well. So John Hoxie began to experiment on animals with the herbs, and he added other popular home remedies. He claimed success and passed the formulas down through the family, who eventually used them on people. Hoxie said his father was the first to try the medicines on people he gave young harry the formulas with a deathbed wish to make the treatment available to people whether or not they could pay prophetically he warned the boy against the high priests of medicine who would fight him jealously it didn't take long hoxie started his first clinic in Illinois in 1924, and he immediately incurred the wrath of organized medicine. He was arrested more times than any other man in medical history. Yet by the 1950s, the Hoxie Clinic of Dallas, Texas, was the largest privately owned cancer center in the world. Hoxie Clinics reached through 17 states. Endorsing the treatment were senators, judges, and even some doctors. Two federal courts upheld its therapeutic value. If the treatment was worthless, how did it gain so much support? To claim a cure for cancer is to invite evaluation. While the medical profession turned its back on Hoxie, numerous individuals did make personal investigations. These experiences repeatedly turned skeptics into believers. Among them was Esquire magazine writer James Wakefield Burke, who in 1939 began covering the Hoxie story. My boss Arnold Gingrich one day said said why don't you go down to Texas and let's expose this fella he's getting too big and the American Medical Association like to put him out of business and said you go down and get acquainted with him and says we'll do a couple of pieces on him and put an end to this so it was was an assignment. I came to Texas. I expected to stay about a day, get my information and leave. I became fascinated. I stayed for six weeks. Every day, Harry would pick me up, bring me to the clinic. We'd come in in the morning, and he would put his arm around these old men and women, say, Dad, them doctors been cutting you up. Says, I ain't gonna let them sons of bitches kill you, you're gonna live. And he'd treat them and I'd watch him treat them, they'd get better and begin to get well. So I wrote an outline for a piece, which I called A Quack Who Cured Cancer, and I sent it back to the editors, but it never came out. Assistant District Attorney Al Templeton was more than a skeptic. He arrested Hoxie more than 100 times in two years. Then his own brother Mike got terminal cancer and secretly went to Hoxie. When Mike Templeton got well, Al Templeton gave Hoxie the credit. Hoxie's prosecutor became his lawyer. More and more people kept supporting Hoxie's claims of a cure. His boldester was christian evangelist gerald winrod his radio broadcast reached millions of listeners with sensational reports of hoxie's mounting successes i wish to begin this broadcast by reading for you what i regard as a very important statement and i quote judge w.l farton this is the second jury of 12 men that has found in my court that the Hoxie treatment cures cancer. Ten doctors found that the number of cures reaches into the thousands. Former United States Senator Thomas studied a large number of cures. I had made my own investigation, had satisfied myself that cancer was really being cured by the Hoxie method this humble reporter can only say god bless these quacks the only quacks who are curing cancer today but a new cancer treatment needs more than personal investigations to gain acceptance it needs a formal scientific review and when i say to you all i want is to have them come here the american medical association the pure food and drug the federal government anybody come here and make an investigation and if i don't prove to them beyond any question of it out that our treatment is superior to radium x-ray and surgery then i will lock the doors of this institution forever but the medical profession did not respond to his call. The doctors claimed that they already knew from their medical education that his remedies had no efficaciousness at all, was no cure. They were just sought in their ways and adding that and their beliefs according to Hoxie there was a more sinister reason the medical profession wouldn't investigate Hoxie said the AMA doctors invited him to demonstrate the treatment among them was dr. Morris Fishbein editor of the influential influential AMA Journal. According to Hoxley, the day after his successful demonstration, a high AMA official asked to buy the rights to the formulas. The alleged offer would have given all rights to a group of doctors, including Dr. Fishbein. Just like Rene, Hoxley turned down the offer because he could not get the guarantee that the formula would have been made available for free to anyone who ever needed it. But one thing was certain. Hoxley had made a very powerful enemy. By crossing swords with Dr. Fishbein, he alienated the most influential figure in medicine. Dr. Fishbein held a unique position as journal editor he controlled the main income producing organ of the AMA and thus the organization he also published the accepted standards of medical practice after the Chicago incident dr. Fishbein blackballed Hoxie by branding him a quack in the journal. It commented that Hoxie's most enthusiastic supporter was the local undertaker. The AMA attack was relentless. Dr. Fishbein and Hoxie would battle each other for 25 years to come in a drama of national dimensions. But rather than settling the dispute through scientific means, they played it out in the media. At the association's headquarters in Chicago, vigilant against quackery is Dr. Morris Fishbein. There is no serum, drug, or combination of drugs that we know that will definitely cure cancer. When Hoxie approached the National Cancer Institute for an investigation the agency refused the nci said his medical records were incomplete oxy said doctors refused to supply necessary records because of dr fischbein's influence the government concluded it would be a waste of public funds to investigate having struck oil in texas hoxie offered to pay for a test himself his challenges were putting dr fishbein under public pressure and the doctor fought back hard in the public arena but when he wrote blood money for the hearst sunday papers he went too far hoxie sued dr fishbein and the hearst newspaper empire for libel and slander. He didn't seem to stand a chance. The nation's most notorious quack faced a who's who of American medicine. Surprisingly, Harry Hoxie became the first man ever to win a judgment against Dr. Fishbein and the AMA. Dr. Fishbein had to resign from his post at the AMA. But the Hoxie-Fishbein trials held an even more shocking revelation. Dr. Fishbein admitted in court that Hoxie's supposedly brutal pastes actually did cure external cancers. The most dangerous external cancer is melanoma. It can spread rapidly through the body. Doctors advise extremely radical surgery. Even so, melanoma is often fatal. We have more positive proven cases of melanoma in our records and the files and the patients to talk to that have been cured in this institution and any institution in the world, and that's a broad statement, but we have the facts to back it up. Hoxley went as far as producing his own movie to make his voice heard from the medical profession. It would be an innovation to men of the medical profession if, instead of devoting so much time and money to court trials, sniping tactics andear campaigns They would come to the clinic do some investigating check into our methods speak to some of our patients Then they would understand why our treatment has been as effective and in most cases far more successful than anything they've had to offer as a solution to the cancer problems but instead of accepting the invitation the medical establishment escalated the war mildred nelson has directed hoxie's clinics from the beginning but he was never investigated except in a criminal type of way to see what he might be doing wrong the food and drug have always been famous for harassing the hoxie patients go to people's houses, take their medicine when it was delivered to them, talk to them, tell them they were doing wrong. But when the government couldn't stop Hoxie in court, the FDA decided to take unprecedented action. Sufferers from cancer, their families, physicians and all concerned with the care of cancer patients are hereby advised and warned that the so-called Hoxie treatment for internal cancer has been found on the basis of evidence presented by the FDA to be a worthless treatment. And it was so successful that the FDA then went ahead and issued it in a poster form which was put up in post offices around the country I'm swimming in blood now they've done everything they possibly can to try to humiliate me they've had me in court many many times but do i care about that i'm not thinking about what they're doing to me i'm thinking about the 12 000 patients who's under treatment observation here at this clinic i'm only thinking of one thing suffering humanity but the government did more than just warn the public although federal prosecutors couldn't prove the treatment was worthless they did outlaw it on technicalities, like false labeling in interstate commerce. At one time, we had 17 clinics open across the country. Food and drug walked in. The same day to every one of them and padlocked them. And no way did Harry have the money to fight that in court state by state after losing all his clinics harry hoxie eventually gave up his 25-year-long fight against the medical establishment he built a new clinic in mexico put mildred nelson in charge and went back to texas where he died in 1974. the mexican clinic has been treating thousands of patients over the years and is still active today under different doctors after mildred nelson passed away but the hoxie treatment has never been made available to american patients and it cannot even be shipped legally into the country those who wish to use the hoxie treatment must travel each time to Mexico and are allowed to bring back only the amount needed for their personal use all the diets the health food principles and the nutritional concepts that we share today have a single father, Maximilian Gerson. Dr. Gerson was the first to ever suggest that good health depends primarily on a healthy nutrition. Born in Germany in 1881, Max Gerson was inspired by the figure of Ignaz Semmelweis, the Hungarian doctor who discovered that in order to avoid infections in pregnant women, physicians simply needed to wash their hands in a chlorine solution. Prior to receiving his doctorate as a medical student, Max Gerson suffered from severe and repeated migraine headaches, leaving him essentially unable to function for days. After two years of experimenting, Dr. Gerson was able to eliminate his migraines completely by eating only certain raw fruits and vegetables. By 1918, word was spreading about the Gerson migraine diet, but on one occasion a patient returned with an observation not only had the migrant been relieved but a skin tuberculosis also disappeared the astounding news spread like wildfire in April 1924 famous lung specialist dr. Ferdinand Sauerbruch offered to do a clinical trial with 450 incurable skin tuberculosis patients. At the commencement of the study, Sauerbruch said to Gerson privately that if even one patient showed improvement, he would believe every word of Gerson's treatment. 446 out of 450 patients recovered, over 99 percent. Dr Gerson and his wife, Gretchen, had three daughters, Joanna, Gertrude, and the youngest, Charlotte. Of all the children, Charlotte took a special interest in her father's work. By the late 1920s, Dr. Gerson's fame had spread throughout Europe, especially after he cured Dr. Albert Schweitzer's wife Helena of pulmonary tuberculosis and Schweitzer's daughter's skin disease when dr. Schweitzer was 75 years old came to dr. Gerson with diabetes and was also cured the Gerson therapy aims to achieve a complete detoxification of the body through a series of intestinal washes based on organic coffee and a strict diet of raw vegetables and fruits grown in an optimal terrain meat is absolutely to be avoided as explained by Charlotte dr. Gerson's 82 year old daughter because meat in the body in the digestive process causes acidity phosphoric acid and in this kind of acidity the body isn't able to function the body has to maintain homeostasis has to maintain a very exact level of alkalinity versus acidity once detoxified the human body confirms being a wonderful machine, capable of healing itself from any given disease. Between 1933 and World War II, Gerson and his family fled Nazi persecution, eventually settling in New York. Dr. Gerson's seven siblings died in the Holocaust. in the 40s, Dr. Gerson's success at his New York clinic stunned the medical community, but also evoked the dark forces within it. Dr. Gerson was curing patients with cancer, and as a consequence, he testified before the United States Senate on July 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in 1946 along with five of his recovered cancer patients and the medical records of five more. So stunning was this testimony that on the evening of July the 3rd 1946 renowned ABC news correspondent Raymond Graham Swing declared on his radio broadcast to the entire United States and for the first time in history We'll be right back. news correspondent Raymond Graham Swing declared on his radio broadcast to the entire United States for the first time in history they have been discovered the cure for cancer the public response was overwhelming staggering lighting up the switchboards at ABC non-stop out of control unbelievable but what happened next was even more so two weeks later raymond graham swing was fired from his position at abc that he'd held for over 30 years and the pepper neely anti-cancer bill of 1946 document number 8947 now gathers dust in the archives of the united states printing office behind it all it wasn't hard to see the hand of Morris Fishbein and the AMA. Fishbein had already been in a long struggle with Gerson, since the German doctor was the first to ever denounce the dangers of smoking, at a time when the largest advertising contributor for the AMA was in fact Philip Morris. In in a repeated national survey doctors in all branches of medicine doctors in all parts of the country were asked what cigarette do you smoke doctor once again the brand named most was camel yes according to this repeated nationwide survey more doctors smoke camels than any other cigarette Max Gerson was ostracized from the entire medical community who labeled him a quack continuously attacked him and harassed him I was investigated my time what do you mean by being investigated from the me they investigated yes my time Every time they come I show them here's the patient you sent home to die cured. Other patient you sent home to die cured. Next patient you sent home to die cured. What are you going to do? You don't look like the type of man that's going to give up at this point no how could i give up this when i see these wonderful results that's impossible first i write the cancer book and in the cancer book i will bring in as many cases as possible sent home to die so that every physician here in the country can read it and I will have it translated in many languages. It took Gerson 10 years to write the book, which presented 50 fully documented terminal cases he had cured with his therapy. Yet Gerson found no major publisher willing to release the book in the United States. At that point, he was totally and forever banned from publication in the United States. Why was the American Medical Association so opposed to the garrison therapy? I think all the medical associations were opposed to the garrison therapy. Here comes a new nutritional approach an effective approach the medical pharmaceutical industry if it even wants a cure for cancer since there's so much profit in this disease certainly does not want the cure to be a nutritional one dr. Gerson spent the rest of his life secluded in his New York apartment, where he kept curing patients with the same therapy that in the meantime was being forbidden all over the United States. This is where Dr. Gerson was up until the day of his death, where he had a clinic, where he saw patients, where patients recovered from cancer, where he documented so many recoveries, yet those recoveries are not available to the public those published articles have been published in europe but have not been allowed to be published in american journals why the reason for that is the fact that it's not a patented medicine and it's not an expensive medicine i mean this is the crux of the matter this is a natural therapy that allows people to take control of their own health and not require drug intervention if the gerson therapy were permitted inside the united states and i believe that it should, we would see a dramatic decrease in deaths from cancer. I would estimate the fatality rate would go down by at least 50 percent, very possibly more so. Exactly like Mildred Nelson, Charlotte Gerson had to go all the way to Mexico to open a clinic to cure people after her father's death over the years the gerson clinic has seen a continuous flow of patients from all over the world the medical records from over 1500 patients are available to anybody who wishes to examine them further any physician is heartily invited to come to the mexican hospital and visit and see a patient there or visit with the patients and with their permission, then they would have access to their medical records. But the medical establishment kept ignoring the call while officially continuing to deny the validity of the Gerson therapy. Dr. Dean Adele, whose popular radio and television programs a fixture in american television dr adele has been representing the voice of official medicine on national television for many years i don't think the gerson's therapy has ever cured a terminally ill patient people get very confused by this if you think of basically what's in gerson therapy you really wouldn't expect it to cure cancer but people sometimes cancer cures itself there is a rate of cancer goes away by itself some people didn't really have cancer as a misdiagnosis 1986 I was diagnosed with pancreas cancer which is spread to my liver gallbladder and spleen doctors told me I had three months to live to go home get my finances in order and prepare to die my husband just wouldn't accept it I was only 46 at the time far too young, so we came home, did therapy for two years. After three months, my doctors here wondered why I was still living. They asked me if I would have a CAT scan, which I did. The masses of cancer had gone. They said, I don't know what you're doing. we don't want to know what you're doing. Just keep doing it. The doctors at that time had said I would never live to see my second grandchild, which he is now 19 years old. So we proved them wrong. After the therapy we went back to Utah to a specialist on blood, and she said my blood was so clean and clear that she couldn't tell I'd ever had cancer, and she said I was the first patient that ever happened to. Yes, and after I had gone back to the oncologist after I had done the Gerson therapy for a couple months, at that time when they had found that i was cured of cancer from the ct scan that they had done on my abdomen he couldn't believe it he thought it was a miracle for the 10 years following being on the gerson therapy which took a year and a half i started going back to the Mayo Clinic and seeing Dr. Scutt who was an oncologist there just for checkups to be sure I was clear and he said everything was like an 18 year old again my blood profile was perfect and he couldn't believe how I looked and how much energy I had and he asked me what I'd done and I went over the Gerson therapy with him Dr. Scutt said that's great but he said that we can't sell that dr. Wallace Sampson is the editor of the scientific review on alternative medicine and aberrant medical practices which claims to present an objective viewpoint has a Gerson therapy ever cured a cancer patient well of course not they won't even release their record so what would it take for you to be convinced that this therapy is credit has credibility well first of all they have to show some reason why it should work we know why like how cancers that behave and we know the kinds of things that cause cancer so they have to come up with some kind of a believable theory of why their diet should work but second of all that have have to convince us that everything we know about it in the past 50 years is wrong. And they're right. Now, how are they going to come up with material like that? That's impossible. They don't have it. Dr. Gerson documented so many recoveries, yet those recoveries are not available to the public. Those published articles have been published published in europe but have not been allowed to be published in american journals dr stephen barrett can be considered today's equivalent of morris fishmine steady at the helm of his publication quack watch dr barrett denounces every form of therapy that the official medicine considers to be a fraud or a fake take the gerson therapy for example gerson was a physician who claimed that he could cure cancer with diet and a number of other methods there's absolutely no scientific evidence that he's cured anyone I was investigated by time onMA, every time they come I show them here is the patient you sent home to die cured, other patients you sent home to die cured, next patient you sent home to die cured. The Gerson therapy was known some 75 years ago, if doctors know there's a cure and send patients home to die, that is an atrocity worse than the Holocaust. Dr. Gerd Hammer is the founder of the so-called New German Medicine. Dr. Hammer believes that each cancer is the consequence of a deep psychological trauma that was not completely resolved by the individual, manifesting in a specific kind of tumor for each kind of trauma. Despite the large popular movement in his favor, despite the support of many other doctors from all over the world, and despite the evidence presented by dr. hammer the medical institutions have never undertaken a serious evaluation of his work and have proceeded to revoke his license instead since then European authorities have been continuously harassing dr. hammer until one day he was arrested in Spain simply for having advised other citizens on the curative method they should follow. Dr. Hammer ended up spending 19 months in a French prison. Today, Dr. Hammer is a free citizen again, but he cannot practice medicine, nor can he promote in any way his theory, which appears to have the potential of helping thousands of people all over the world in the 1970s dr. Ernst T Krebs perfected the so-called trophoblastic theory of cancer that had been originally proposed by dr. John beard one century ago the same theory had been developed and publicized by the father dr. Ernst Krebsbs. According to Krebs, vitamin B-17, which is found in the seeds of apricots and other similar fruits, is an effective cure against many kinds of cancers, and especially breast, lung, colon, and prostate cancers. Vitamin B-17, also known as laetrile, has been one of the most popular remedies against cancer since the 1950s and, in the last decade, has collected the support of many scientists and oncologists from all over the world. In Italy, Dr. Guidetti from the Turin University undertook a scientific study on Laetrile that showed very promising results. Dr. Dean Burke, head of the Cytochemistry section of the National Cancer Institute, has reported that in a series of tests on animal tissue, the B17 had no effect on normal cells, but released so much cyanide and benzaldehyde when it came in contact with cancer cells that not one of them could survive. He said, when we add laetrile to a cancer culture under the microscope we can see the cancer cells dying off like flies also Sloan Kettering the New York based cancer research institute seems to have known about the therapeutic qualities of laetrile for a long time this was confirmed by one of the foremost cancer researchers of the time doctor Kanam Kanematsu Sugiura, in a magazine interview published in 1977. As the news began to spread, Sloan Kettering pressured Sugiura to refute his statements, but he refused to do so, forcing Sloan Kettering to officially deny the anti-cancer qualities of Laetrile. Sloan Kettering was later accused of falsifying the research on which they based their negative statement on Laetrile this was not the only case in the major war waged by the medical industry in the 1970s against Laetrile dr. John Richardson MD who is now deceased had cancer clinic, a very thriving cancer clinic up in the San Francisco area in the 70s when he met Dr. Ernst T. Krebs, Jr., had many conferences with him, became familiar with the theory, the science behind it, and began to cautiously use it in his practice. He was losing most of his patients that he was treating with cancer. He went from that to a high success rate almost overnight by using this substance. And so he became very enthusiastic about it. The word got around. His patients were very happy, of course, and they told their friends. It wasn't very long before people were coming from all over the United States, and in some cases even from from Europe to be treated at the Richardson Clinic. Then he got into trouble with the medical authorities. The hospital administration contacted him and said, you have to stop using this material because it is not approved by the FDA. And he said, yeah, I know it's not approved but it works they said we don't care whether it works or not it is not an approved substance and you're in violation of the law medical authorities have never recognized the therapeutic use of Laetrile while the FDA has listed it among the toxic substances making it in fact illegal to be sold in the United States. In 1992, Dr. William Lane published a book called Sharks Don't Get Cancer, in which he maintained that shark cartilage has the capacity of inhibiting the growth of tumors. In order to grow beyond a certain size, every tumor needs to build its own capillary system the creation of new blood vessels is called angiogenesis shark cartilage has a specific anti-angiogenic characteristic and that it envelops the growing tumor and literally suffocates it by not allowing the new capillary system to grow the anti-angiogenic characteristic of shark cartilage is well known to official medicine and it's confirmed by a number of different scientific studies but shark cartilage for some reason is not suggested as a cure for cancer while the pharmaceutical companies are competing in secret to produce a similar compound in the lab, or to extract from the cartilage a specific compound that can be patented and exploited commercially. What they are interested in finding something perhaps within something in nature, if they can find some subcomponent that they can extract and then make it a man-made chemical that works the same way, then they can patent that, then they're interested, but not if it comes from nature. Another well-known remedy against cancer, particularly popular in Europe, is mistletoe, a semi-parasitic plant found on oaks and other similar trees mistletoe is used to produce different medicines like iscador whose effectiveness against cancer has been known for many years i think it deserves some merit because it's nothing new it's not a fad it's been around a long time it's been used for over 70 80 years scientists and philosopher Rudolf Steiner the founder of anthropological medicine suggested the use of mistletoe against cancer almost a hundred years ago this plant has been considered sacred since the times of the Celts who worshipped it and used it as a universal ailment in a cancer patient mistletoe causes an immediate increase in the macrophages which is normally followed by a regression of the disease we do know that it has immune stimulatory properties like if you measure like cytokines they can see them actually go up with using mistletoe there's there's components in mistletoe that are actually cytotoxic meaning it actually can kill cancer cells or it can put them to sleep. In Steiner clinics, Iskador is used as part of a larger program against cancer that includes all the emotional, psychological, and spiritual aspects of the individual. In the United States, mistletoe is almost unknown, but the task of denying its curative qualities has been taken up in this case by the British sanitary system which resorted to the well-known excuse of absence of evidence the PCT has reviewed the evidence relating to mistletoe in the management of breast cancer and we have found and I'm one of the people that's looked at the evidence, we've found that there's no convincing supporting evidence. Recently, American author and actress Suzanne Somers announced that she defeated cancer using mistletoe. You mentioned cancer. Back in 2001, you on this program announced that you had been battling cancer. Most people would just go to the doctor and get chemo. You went a different route. How are you now? Well, I'm I just had my killer cells tested naturally That's your immune system. And you know, I've been injecting that iskador now for eight years So I haven't had a cold I haven't had anything you don't have cancer. I don't have cancer anymore The list of historic cases in which a potential cure for cancer has fallen into oblivion could literally continue for hours from the vitamin C cure by Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling to the infamous krabi is in by dr. Ivy from the molecular cures through the microscope of dr. Reif to dr. Collins toxins the dynamics have always been the same the doctors have been ostracized derided or persecuted without their therapies ever being considered for serious scientific evaluation. © transcript Emily Beynon Thanks for watching!