Healer under investigation for herbal cancer cure

[Guest guest]

I think this is what happens if you try to meddle with the tumour

without trying to treat the cause. In alternate methods of healing it

is always seen that physical growths are the last to disappear. Even if

the tumour does not go the cancerous element within it goes and the

tumour is no longer dangerous. Only at that time the tumour can be

surgically dispensed with if the patient so wishes.

 

Regards,

Jagannath.

 

, " califpacific "

<califpacific@g...> wrote:

> http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?

area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/ & articleid=249341

>

> Healer under investigation for herbal cancer cure

> Elliot Minor | Rochelle, Georgia

[Guest guest]

Healer under investigation for herbal cancer cure

Elliot Minor | Rochelle, Georgia

 

http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/ & articleid=249341

 

 

Curtis Brown carries business cards with old pictures of his tumours,

including an egg-sized growth on his neck. He says they were each shed

after the application of a flesh-eating paste containing the medicinal

herb bloodroot.

 

"I cured myself of cancer," the cards read.

 

Georgia's medical board and the United States Food and Drug

Administration do not share Brown's enthusiasm for the paste.

 

The state board has accused its maker, Dan Raber, a rural

pastor-turned-healer, of practicing medicine without a license. FDA

agents recently raided Raber's business, and a doctor could lose her

medical license for allegedly knowing Raber was giving people the

paste -- not approved for the treatment of cancer -- and not reporting

him.

 

Raber's paste is described by the medical board as "a caustic,

tissue-destroying substance that eats away human skin and flesh".

 

On his website, Raber claims the remedy helped him remove a tumour on

his wrist, and he displays graphic before-and-after photos of others

who have used the paste, including women with scabs on their breasts

and men with scarred faces.

 

While the state board has levelled serious allegations against Raber,

he has not been charged with a crime. Prosecutors are studying the case.

 

Raber has never responded publicly to the board's allegations.

 

In an interview with The Associated Press, his son, Kelly, defended

his father and his products, which also include enzyme capsules they

claim will destroy cancerous cells.

 

"The herb does not kill healthy tissue," Kelly Raber said, smearing

some of the paste on his nose.

 

"Instead, it performs a process known as apoptosis that allows the

[cancer] cells to self-destruct."

 

He said his father's paste is being singled out because it is an old

remedy that cannot be patented and therefore would not generate large

profits for the medical establishment or giant pharmaceutical companies.

 

Dan Raber was named in a state complaint filed against Dr Lois March,

an ear, nose and throat specialist in south Georgia who risks losing

her medical license for allegedly providing pain medication to 12

patients who had received Raber's bloodroot treatments. The board said

seven of the patients had breast cancer and that the doctor knew or

should have known that Raber's use of bloodroot "mutilated their

breasts and caused excruciating pain".

 

March has denied any wrongdoing. "These are wild accusations that

aren't true," she said earlier this month when reached by telephone at

her office in nearby Cordele.

 

During a 2003 crackdown on alternative medicine merchants who made

false claims on the internet, the FDA shut down a Louisiana company

that sold a bloodroot paste and its owner was sent to prison. An

Indianapolis woman who said she used products from that company and

Raber's in 2001 contends in a lawsuit that her nose was eaten away,

exposing the bone and forcing her to have seven reconstructive operations.

 

A settlement was reached in the suit against the company; Raber is

also expected to settle soon, said the woman's lawyer, John Muller.

 

To prove bloodroot's effectiveness, Raber cites numerous books and

studies that support the use of salves and pastes containing herbs and

other ingredients for treating skin cancer. Such preparations are

supposed to isolate the tumour from healthy tissue and cause it to

fall out.

 

Mark Blumenthal, executive director of the American Botanical Council,

said bloodroot has been used for years by nontraditional healers to

treat skin cancers, but he acknowledged "the efficacy has been

unproven from a scientific point of view".

 

Brown is a believer. After years of sun exposure, the retired farmer

was plagued with skin cancer. Doctors surgically removed cancerous

growths from his face and arms, but when an 8cm-long tumour grew on

the left side of his neck in 2002, Brown instead tried the paste, even

though it meant nearly a month of excruciating pain.

 

"None of my people ever survived the conventional way," said the

71-year-old Brown, who listed relatives who had succumbed to cancer.

"I knew there was a better way."

 

Brown said after 26 days of using the paste his tumour fell off,

leaving a crater in his neck that eventually healed. A scar is hardly

noticeable just below his jaw.

 

Brown said he promotes the paste strictly to help others and receives

no compensation from Raber or his company, Deodorant Stone

Manufacturing Company.

 

Michael Bradley of Monroe, Georgia, a Vietnam veteran who said he was

exposed to the herbicide Agent Orange, said he decided to try Raber's

paste after doctors confirmed he had a large melanoma on his upper back.

 

"It came out after 30 days," Bradley said. "It was very painful, but

I'm still alive. I know a lot of people who didn't go that route and

they're dead." - Sapa-AP