THE MOSS REPORTS Newsletter (10/17/04)

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THE MOSS REPORTS Newsletter (10/17/04)

 

 

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Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D. Weekly CancerDecisions.com

Newsletter #154 10/17/04

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THE MOSS REPORTS

 

 

Whether we like it or not, medicine is essentially a marketplace, and

the patient is ultimately a consumer who must make choices from among

the many options offered by both conventional and alternative

practitioners. When it comes to cancer, these choices are made all the

more bewildering and onerous by the fact that decisions must be made

quickly.

 

In thirty years of monitoring the complex field of cancer research and

therapy I have assembled a comprehensive library of reports, the Moss

Reports, on the conventional and alternative treatment of more than two

hundred different types of cancer. For a newly-diagnosed cancer

patient there can be few more useful guides and decision-making tools

than a Moss Report.

 

To order a Moss Report please visit our website,

www.cancerdecisions.com, or call Diane at 1-800-980-1234 (814-238-3367

from outside the US).

 

We look forward to helping you.

 

 

 

IN MEMORY OF MICHAEL CULBERT (1937-2004)

 

 

I note with great sadness the passing of Michael Culbert, one of the

leading figures in the field of CAM cancer treatments. Michael died on

September 11, 2004 in Tijuana, Mexico. By coincidence, I happened to be

in Tijuana at the time. On the day before his death I spent an hour at

his bedside, talking with him. He was undergoing treatment at

International BioCare, the clinic of which he was a long-time officer.

But I had no intimation of how serious his condition must have been.

 

Michael was the first person I knew in the alternative health care

movement. He was formerly the president and chairman of the Committee

of Freedom of Choice in Medicine and then became founder and president

of the International Council for Health Freedom (ICHF). His journalism

career began as an editor of the Berkeley (California) Daily Gazette

but he became intrigued by the Laetrile story and went on to write 20

books and scores of articles on the topics of alternative medicine,

medical politics and economics.

 

To visit the ICHF website, which carries an obituary of Michael

Culbert, please click or go to:

http://www.ichf.info/

 

Some of his best-known books were Vitamin B17: Forbidden Weapon

Against Cancer, AIDS: Hope, Hoax & Hoopla, and Medical Armageddon.

Although he would have scoffed at the notion, promoting far-out

treatments was a labor of love. His " day job " was as Vice President

and Director of Information of the International BioCare Hospital and

Medical Center (IBC).

He helped and gave hope to innumerable patients with his witty style

of repartee.

 

I knew Michael for almost 30 years and always looked forward to our

meetings, not only because of his great accomplishments and his steady

leadership of the field, but also because of his captivating sense of

humor. He was one of those naturally hilarious people who could bring

out the humorous side of even the most dire situation.

 

My association with him dated from the height of the Laetrile movement.

When I 'blew the whistle' on Memorial Sloan-Kettering's cover-up of

positive data on Laetrile, I sent the documents - anonymously - to

Michael, since he was then president of the Committee for Freedom of

Choice. I had never met him but knew him by reputation as an eloquent

spokesman for patients' right to choose alternative medicine.

 

Some months later, I received a surprise visit at my Sloan-Kettering

office from Michael and two other leaders of the field. They had come

to New York looking for the person who had leaked the Laetrile studies.

Remember that there were then 4,600 employees at Memorial

Sloan-Kettering, and at that time my identity was still a deep and

dark secret. Yet somehow his " nose for news " had led him to the most

likely suspect! And one look at my bookshelf - filled with 'forbidden'

works on various alternative cancer treatments - immediately convinced

him that he had come to the right place.

 

After I was fired from Sloan-Kettering, Mike flew to New York to see

and interview me. It was wonderful to have a touch of humor in what

seemed like a dangerous and confusing period of my life. We were often

in contact after that. For example, we were together during the

Coolfont Conference, a historic meeting of 16 leaders of the CAM

field, held at a Berkeley Springs, WV, conference center in August,

1988. I also remember well his speech, criticizing the Office of

Technology Assessment report on alternative treatments. I reprinted

his speech in my Cancer Chronicles and it is currently available on my

ralphmoss.com website. His words ring with the authentic voice of a

prophet crying in the wilderness:

 

" The vicious system [he said] which, on the one hand says 'we cannot

cure you', and on the other hand says, 'but don't try some unproven

remedy' and warns you always not to sneak off to Tijuana, must come to

an end. It is blatantly immoral. "

 

Michael Culbert's Speech to the OTA panel:

http://www.ralphmoss.com/html/culbert.shtml

 

About the Coolfont Conference:

http://www.ralphmoss.com/caind2.html

 

Michael and I were often together during the 1990s, when we served on

various government panels or testified before various committees of

the National Institutes of Health. And, of course, whenever I made

site visits to the Tijuana clinics (as I was doing last September) I

made sure to include Michael and the IBC on my itinerary.

 

Mike Culbert was so much a part of the freedom of choice movement that

I never once stopped to consider that one day he might be gone. Even

when I saw him the day before he died I was oblivious to this

possibility. But as I was leaving Mike held my hand and said, " Thanks

for coming. "

He paused. " You can't imagine how much this means to me. "

 

Little did I know how much it would mean to me as well.

 

 

 

A VISIT TO WEST COAST CANCER CLINICS

 

 

A two-week visit to Southern California and Tijuana, Mexico, has

convinced me that alternative medicine is alive and well there. As

proof, over 1,200 people came to hear 50 speakers at the Cancer

Control Society (CCS) meeting over Labor Day weekend at the Universal

City Sheraton. It was a pleasure to participate in that three-day

meeting and to receive the Society's Humanitarian Award.

 

In Southern California, I also visited several oncologists who were

not participants in the CCS meeting, but whom I especially wanted to

interview because of their innovative approaches to cancer. Some of

these practitioners, including Haim I. Bicher, MD, of the Valley

Cancer Institute, Bernard Lewinsky, MD, of the Western Tumor Medical

Group and Arman A. Shahbazian, MD, of the Pacific Radiation Oncology

Center, use hyperthermia (therapeutic heat) along with radiation to

treat cancers of various types. I also held discussions with Dr. T.R.

Shantha, MD, of Stockbridge, Georgia, who uses an unusual kind of

hyperthermia in his holistic practice.

 

In addition I made site visits to several other cancer clinics in

southern California. I visited the Orange County Immune Institute of

Dr. Ferre Akbarpour, the San Diego clinic of Dr. Edwin McClelland, and

the Rational Therapeutics Institute, which is directed by Robert A.

Nagourney, MD. Dr. Akbarpour is using a comprehensive immune regimen,

Dr. McClelland is continuing the work of the late Virginia Livingston,

MD, and Dr. Nagourney uses in vitro assays to determine the likely

effectiveness of various chemotherapeutic drugs and combinations.

 

In Mexico, I also visited several clinics. Tijuana cancer clinics have

been denigrated by many in the American oncology profession as

uniformly unsavory establishments which offer treatments that are

inferior in every way to the care American patients receive at home.

Highly derogatory statements about Mexican clinics are often repeated

at anti-quackery websites, but these statements only tell part of the

story. This was my fifth visit to the Mexican clinics (the first was

in 1976) and I once again found a more complicated and nuanced picture

than the widely-circulated stereotype. While there have indeed been

some real charlatans in Tijuana, i.e., people who were not legally

qualified to practice medicine and who used methods that were dubious

or downright fraudulent, many of these " bad apples " have now been

weeded out by the Mexican authorities. On this trip, every clinic that

I visited was headed by a licensed Mexican medical doctor, and used

methods that are commonly employed in Europe and Asia, if not always

in 'El Norte,' the behemoth to the north.

 

The clinics and individuals I visited were as follows:

 

American Metabolics Hospital (Geronimo Rubio, MD)

Baja NutriCare (Charlotte Gerson)

Insulin Potentiation Therapy (IPT) clinic (Donato Perez Garcia III, MD)

International BioCare (IBC), Tijuana (Michael Culbert)

Oasis of Hope Hospital--Issels program (Gar Hildenbrand)

Rapha Clinic/Hope4Cancer (Tony Martinez, MD)

Sanoviv Hospital (Dr. Anthony Peña)

 

In Los Angeles, I also had dinner with Dr. Gilberto Alvarez, MD, and

his wife, and was therefore able to learn about his outpatient

facility, the Stella Maris clinic in Tijuana.

 

 

Licensed Graduates

 

 

Typically, the physicians who run these Tijuana clinics are graduates

of the Autonomous University of Gudalajara or the Autonomous

University of Baja California, both of which are licensed facilities.

A few have also trained or practiced in the United States or Europe.

For example, Francisco Contreras, MD, medical director of the Oasis of

Hope Hospital, states at his website that he specialized in surgical

oncology at the University Hospital in Vienna. Dr. Rodrigo Rodriquez

of International BioCare trained at Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn.

Dr. Tony Jimenez grew up in New Jersey but attended medical school in

Mexico. All of the doctors and many of the nurses speak good,

colloquial English.

 

Admittedly, they may not be luminaries in the field of conventional

oncology. Few of them have done prestigious internships or

residencies, or have published extensively in peer-reviewed journals.

However, most patients who come from afar to be treated at these

clinics do not do so because they are in search of state-of-the-art

oncology, but because they specifically seek a different approach.

Many of these clinics are staffed by doctors who are very

knowledgeable about alternative treatments.

They are bright and resourceful people who have lots of hands-on

experience of what seems to work and what doesn't. In this respect,

they could run circles around the average American oncologist. Some

can and do hold their own with European CAM specialists.

 

Another fault that conventional oncologists find with the Mexican

clinics is the cost of their services. And indeed, I have found that

costs have nearly doubled in the last four years. A typical fee is now

around $6,000-$7,000 per week, or $20,000 for the usual three weeks of

treatment. What makes this charge so onerous is the fact that many

insurance plans refuse to pay even in part for the kind of

experimental treatments offered at such clinics. To house and treat a

patient for $1,000 per day does not in principle seem exorbitant,

especially for in-patient care. But it is certainly beyond the means

of many North Americans, especially considering the very unpredictable

outcome of any treatment for advanced cancer.

 

 

Bedside Manner

 

 

The Mexican doctors and nurses I met seemed, as a rule, caring

individuals. What they lacked in technological know-how they made up

for with their very compelling bedside manner. Some are charismatic,

and go out of their way to reassure and to educate their patients.

This is a big part of their appeal to North Americans, who are often

refugees from an unfeeling medical system that puts a high priority on

technology and efficiency at the expense of the more traditional

healing skills. The nurses, I was told at several clinics, are

underpaid by US standards and some do not have even have proper R.N.

training. But they manage to exude a feeling of concern and hope. This

warmth is very important to most of the patients I spoke with.

 

 

Dirty and Dangerous?

 

 

We are often told that Tijuana clinics are dirty and dangerous. " TJ " as

a city is indeed frighteningly squalid in parts. But one thing I will

say about the facilities that I have visited: most of them are

meticulously clean. Their physical plants range from sad little

outpatient clinics in down-at-the-heels neighborhoods to one fabulous

five-star seaside " resort hospital. "

 

Tijuana is a difficult environment for most Americans and Europeans to

adjust to. It is a huge and sprawling city, swollen with economic

migrants from the Latin American interior seeking work in the maquilla

factories or looking to cross the border into the US. It is quite

different from the sleepy burg I visited back in 1976 when I played

hookey from a medical meeting in Anaheim to visit the first clinic of

Dr. Ernesto Contreras, Sr.

 

Tijuana has been a fixture in alternative medicine for 40 years, since

Mildred Nelson brought the Hoxsey herbal treatment there in the 1960s

(Ausubel 2000). But why did Tijuana become the Mecca for alternative

clinics? " TJ " has long had a reputation as a convenient sin city

minutes from the US border. It became notorious during the Prohibition

era—and some see the outlawing of many alternative cancer treatments

in the US as a kind of " medical prohibition. " It is also famous for

horse racing, bull rings, boxing matches, curio sales, hot springs,

and, unfortunately, prostitution of various sorts.

 

Tijuana also has a thriving medical industry. A large section in the

city's voluminous yellow pages is taken up with listings for clinics

of various kinds. North Americans now come to TJ to get inexpensive

dental care, especially " biological " dentistry; to purchase

pharmaceuticals at a discount (and sometimes without a prescription);

or for cosmetic or plastic surgery, for which the city is now a major

capital – the number of such procedures performed in Mexico is second

only to the number performed in the US.

 

During the late 1970s, at the height of the Laetrile phenomenon,

Tijuana received 70,000 North Americans per year streaming across the

San Ysidro border crossing for alternative cancer treatments. A famous

photograph from those days shows a roadside stand offering " Sandwiches

and Laetrile. " Today, that flood has slowed considerably. None of the

clinics I visited seemed very busy—but all had some North American or

European patients.

 

There are periodic attacks by US authorities against " bogus cancer

cure gurus " (FTC 2002) operating on both sides of the border. In 2001,

spurred by negative American newspaper articles, the Mexican health

authorities clamped down on many of the clinics. Some were closed for

good, such as BioPulse, which was then heavily promoting its insulin

shock therapy —and its dubious stock— in the US. I happened to be

touring Tijuana clinics when that raid occurred, and wrote about it at

the time.

 

Click or go here to read the article I wrote about the raid:

http://www.cancerdecisions.com/Townsend/May2001.html

 

A dozen clinics were shut, in whole or in part, at the same time, but

later reopened in a more restrained fashion (Crabtree 2002). The

attacks of 9/11 nearly derailed the remaining clinics, after most

North Americans simply stopped traveling for months. Some of the

clinics turned to lower-paying Mexican clients to sustain them. On

this visit, I noticed that the waiting rooms at several clinics

contained about equal numbers of North American cancer patients and

local residents seeking treatment for everyday complaints. Attracting

well-heeled foreign patients is a chancy business which depends on

many factors, most of which are out of the control of the clinic itself.

 

Since 2001, some of the clinics that have folded include the Advanced

Medicine & Research Center (Lawrence Taylor), GenesisWest (Jacob

Swilling), Induced Remission Therapy (Sam Chachoua), New Hope

Bioresonance Center, the Manner Clinic, and Cell Specific Cancer

Therapy (Zoetron). The latter closed after it was banned from

marketing and selling its treatment as part of a settlement with the

US Federal Trade Commission (Feb. 25, 2004).

 

For a while the future of all the Tijuana clinics looked in doubt

(Chowka 2001). But although many clinics did disappear, the most

resilient have survived. Some treatments have played musical chairs at

the various facilities. The Gerson program has moved at least three

times but finally seems to have found a pleasant home at Baja

Nutricare. The Issels vaccine program has also migrated from the

CHIPSA hospital to Oasis of Hope. Dr. Donato has moved to more

accessible quarters in the Grand Hotel.

 

 

What can one expect by way of treatment?

 

 

Despite rumors to the contrary, there are no reliable 'miracle cures'

for cancer in Tijuana or elsewhere. But Laetrile, hydrazine sulfate,

ozone and oxygen therapies, dendritic cell vaccines, high-dose vitamin C

drips, vegetarian diets, etc. are the staples of treatment at most

centers. Most clinics also have some specialty that differentiates

them from the rest. For example, Baja Nutricare is tightly focused on

the Gerson diet. It is the fulfillment of Charlotte Gerson's quest for

a center that will faithfully practice and teach the treatment

philosophy of her celebrated father, Dr. Max Gerson. Similarly, Dr.

Donato's clinic specializes in potentiating chemotherapy through the

use of insulin, an idea pioneered by his grandfather and father. The

BioMed clinic (which I saw on a previous visit) uses the formulas of

the late Harry Hoxsey.

 

Two " hot " treatments right now are PolyMVA and dendritic cell vaccines.

These two illustrate the contradictory aspects of Tijuana's appeal.

" Poly " is still unknown to the great majority of American patients and

even doctors. It thus has the cachet of the " new new thing, " appealing

to people who have been told that there is nothing further that can be

done for them.

 

Click or go here for my prior articles on PolyMVA:

 

http://www.cancerdecisions.com/101803_page.html

http://www.cancerdecisions.com/102403_page.html

 

By contrast, dendritic cell vaccines are well known to scientists, and

in fact originated in conventional medicine. There are 3,500 articles

in PubMed on the use of dendritic cell vaccines in cancer, with 25

clinical trials of dendritic cell vaccines in cancer currently underway

(www.clinicaltrials.gov). Despite this, American patients cannot just

walk into their oncologist's office and receive this promising treatment.

That is because there is a considerable delay between the time that a

new treatment first emerges and its general availability. This

inability of American medicine to respond with sufficient alacrity to

consumer demand creates the incentive for Tijuana's unconventional

clinics to offer such treatments on a fee-for-service basis.

 

I will continue to summarize the results of my investigations in the

weeks to come. I also intend to return to the West Coast in about six

months in order to reassess my impressions of these clinics and seek out

new possibilities for my readers and Moss Report clients.

 

 

 

--Ralph W. Moss, PhD

 

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References:

 

Ausubel, Kenny. When Healing Becomes a Crime: The Amazing story of the

Hoxsey cancer clinics and the return of alternative therapies.

Rochester, VT: Healing Arts Press, 2000.

 

Chowka, Peter. Action against two Tijuana cancer clinics casts doubt on

the future of CAM south of the border. NaturalHealthLine, March 1,

2001. Retrieved September 17, 2004 from:

http://naturalhealthline.com/newsletter/1mar01/tijuana.htm

 

Crabtree, Penni and Dibble, Sandra. Borderline medicine: Tijuana

alternative clinics frustrate regulators. The San Diego Union-Tribune.

San

Diego, Calif.: Feb 24, 2002. Retrieved September 17, 2004 from:

http://utawards.signonsandiego.com/borderline_medicine.html

 

Fink, John. Third Opinion: An International Directory to Alternative

Therapy Centers for the Treatment and Prevention of Cancer & Other

Degenerative Diseases. 4th Edition. Square One Publishers, 2004.

Available

from:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0757001319/cancerdecisio-20/ref=nosim/002\

-9520002-7862456

 

FTC (Federal Trade Commission). Bogus Cancer Cure Guru Settles FTC

Charges, news release, October 28, 2002. Retrieved October 15, 2004 from:

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2002/10/walker.htm

 

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IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER

 

The news and other items in this newsletter are intended for

informational purposes only. Nothing in this newsletter is intended to

be a

substitute for professional medical advice.

 

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