Can You Survive Cancer And Cancer Treatment?

Alternative Cancer Treatment - A News Reporters Story

Dr Gerson Examined - Chapter 2

My sympathies were all with the woman who had written me the letter. From the television exposes I had seen and from the numerous articles I had read on this very subject I was sure she had fallen into the hands of that vilest of all men, the cancer quack, and that she was being bled for every last penny she had.

My first move, since Dr. Gerson was an M.D., was
to write to the American Medical Association and ask
them what they thought of his cancer treatment. They
replied that they did not engage in the approval or
disapproval of treatments.    `

"According to our biographic records," they said, "Dr. Gerson was graduated from Albert-Ludwigs Uni-versitat Medizinische Fakultat, Freiburg, Baden, Germany, in 1909, and was licensed to practice medicine in New York in 1938. We have been informed that he has been suspended from membership in his local medical society for a period of two years, beginning March 4, 1958. The specific charge was his use of a radio interview to discuss his work in the treatment of cancer.

"We have had record of .Dr. Gerson and his diet
treatment for various disease's for a considerable period of time. We commented on Dr. Gerson, and his reluctance to reveal the details of his treatment, in an
editorial in The Journal for Nov. 16, 1946.

We are sorry we do not have tear-steets or reprints available.
Therein it was pointed out that although Dr. Gerson
had been requested to do so, he had failed or refused to acquaint the medical profession with the details of his treatment.
"For a time after that, Dr. Gerson was employed by an organization calling itself the Madison Foundation for Biochemical Research, Inc., of New York. The
10 Foundation, however, advised this Association that a report had been made during the years 1948 and 1949 of the findings observed in cases of cancer in which the Gerson dietary treatment was used. It was stated: 'The Medical Advisory Board finds that insufficient evidence has been presented to warrant any claim that the Gerson dietary treatment is a cure for cancer. . .'

"Your reference to 'who judges which man is a quack — and how?' is answered, we believe, in the enclosed leaflet entitled 'Mechanical Quackery'."
I gathered from the tone of this letter that the AM A couldn't come right out and say that Dr. Gerson was a quack, but they could let the facts speak for themselves. And in this case, the facts spoke volumes.

I had no doubt that the AMA had handed me a weapon of considerable potency to use in my investigation. Unconsciously, perhaps, I was glad that they had so quickly and conveniently prepared a road for me. It's human nature to prefer the smooth, the even-, and the direct way. No one likes to go chasing down a hundred by-ways and back roads searching for what may be only an illusion of truth.
But there are little things — seemingly insignificant at first — that grow into monsters when you look closely at them.
Two phrases in the AMA letter, ostensibly unrelated, caught my attention — "use of a radio interview to discuss his work in the treatment of cancer" and "failed or refused to acquaint the medical profession with the details of his treatment.

Why, I wondered, would a doctor neglect to acquaint the medical profession with the details of his treatment and at the same time appear on a radio program to discuss them? If he had something to hide, if he was a quack, I could understand his reluctance to reveal his methods. But on the other hand, why would he place himself in jeopardy on a radio program?

A legitimate question? I decided to find out.
In answer to my query about Dr. Gerson, the American Cancer Society sent me a printed resume. Apparently they had received inquiries before.

Dated July, 8, 1957, the statement read:

"Dr. Max Gerson came to this country from Austria in the early 1940's. His work in the 'treatment* of cancer by dietary methods had previously been used in Austria for the management of both cancer and tuberculosis. From 1946 to 1950 he used this treatment at the Gotham Hospital in New York City until, during the latter year, his affiliation with that hospital was terminated. At present he treats patients in his own nursing home outside the city. He also maintains an office at 815 Park Avenue. Although, to our knowledge, Dr. Gerson has never been indicted or expelled from any Medical Society, it is our understanding that he is at present under surveillance by the Licensing Board of New York State and that his malpractice insurance has been discontinued.

"Dr. Gerson's proposed method of treatment and the method of treatment that he is using in his sanitorium near New York City is essentially that of diet. The principal ingredients being stressed are liver, vitamins and fresh vegetables, with emphasis on cabbage. The food is not to be prepared in aluminum utensils, and glass utensils are preferred. The vegetables are chopped up and made into a juice by means of special chopping and juicing machines which are offered to his patients for sale at around $150.00. Frequent and copious enemas are also used as a feature in the treatment. Patients are usually treated as in-patients at the sanitorium and allowed to return to their homes under treatment after Dr. Gerson thinks their condition permits their so doing.
They are taught to give their own injections of liver at home and he has advocated that the treatment be continued for a period of one year. As you undoubtedly know, there is no evidence at the present time that any food or any combination of foods specifically affects the course of any cancer in man.

"In 1947 a Committee of the New York County Medical Society reviewed Dr. Gerson's work thoroughly, including the study of histories of patients who were said to have benefited by the treatment. This study failed to disclose any scientific evidence of objective improvement in patients which could be attributed to the treatment of Dr. Gerson. I should like to refer you to the report of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry of the American Medical Association appearing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, January 8, 1949, a part of which is concerned with Gerson's work.

"Dr. Gerson received a good deal of publicity five or six years ago when the son of John Gunther, suffering from recurrent brain tumor, underwent the treatment. Pressure symptoms were apparently temporarily relieved, but the brief remission has been attributed by competent authorities to dehydration. Another young boy in whom we were interested was brought to Gerson by his parents after an amputation had been advised for a bone tumor. Following a prolonged stay at the Gerson place, the youngster was returned home in a pitiable state of malnutrition.

"The American Cancer Society can find no acceptable evidence that the treatment proposed by Dr. Max Gerson produces any objective benefit in the treatment of cancer/'
Well, they ought to know, I thought. A few more pieces of such information would provide me with the basis for an expose on cancer quacks, how they deceive the public and cause untold harm by preying on the ignorance of cancer sufferers.

I found the report referred to by the American Cancer Society and read:

"Another 'treatment' for cancer involving dietary restrictions is that of Dr. Max B. Gerson of New York City, who has been reported by the Journal to be using a dietary and salt-controlled method that is said to be supported by a Robinson Foundation for cancer research located at 14 Wall Street, New York. The Journal pointed out that Gerson had been previously connected with a diet method falsely proposed as an advance in the treatment of tuberculosis and that the research 'foundation’ for cancer was actually financed by two business enterprises.

"The diet was said to make the body highly hypersensitive, so that ordinary anesthesia might be fatal, a conjecture that is wholly unfounded and apparently designed to appeal to the cancer victim already fearful of a surgical operation, which might offer the only effective means for eradication of the disease. However, there is no scientific evidence whatsoever to indicate that modifications in the dietary intake of food or other nutritional essentials are of any specific value in the control of cancer."

Next I sought out the Nov. 16, 1946, edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association to read the editorial they'd mentioned. It was the "Kiss of Death" for Dr. Gerson.

"Some years ago a technique called the Gerson-Sauerbruch-Hermannsdorfer diet was claimed to be a notable advance in the treatment of tuberculosis. Gerson proposed, by the use of these diets, to change the nature of the soil in which the tubercle bacillus lives. According to the reports, Gerson had discovered accidentally some improvement in a patient with lupus who was on a salt free diet. The good results
in many types of tuberculosis reported by Gerson were apparently not susceptible of duplication by most other observers . . .

"For several years now the Journal has been receiving requests from people all over the United States for information about Dr. Max Gerson, who is said to be using a dietary and salt-controlled method for treating cancer patients at the Gotham Hospital in New York. The Journal has on several occasions requested Dr. Gerson to supply information as to the details of his method of treatment but has thus far received no satisfactory reply. A preliminary report, 'Dietary Considerations in Malignant Neoplastic Diseases,’ appeared in the Review of Gastroenterology, November-December 1945, page 419.

"In the meantime occasional references have appeared in the press to the Robinson Foundation for cancer research, located at 14 Wall Street, New York, which is said to be supporting the Gerson method. In the last session of Congress, hearings were held on a bill to appropriate $100,000,000 of federal money for research on cancer. Dr. Gerson is said to .have presented 5 of his patients to these public hearings. Fortunately for the American people this presentation received little, if any, newspaper publicity. However, Raymond Swing, radio commentator, in a broadcast over A.B.C. July 3,1946 told the world that the Gerson cancer treatment was producing remarkable results. People who sent for a copy of the broadcast were referred to Dr. George Miley at the Gotham Hospital.

"Now there has come to hand through a prospective patient of Dr. Max Gerson a schedule of diets alleged to be beneficial in such cases. The patient was a man aged 83, with cancer of the stomach and multiple metastases, whom Dr. Gerson had never seen. Nevertheless he provided a complete diet for a period of four weeks, given in minute detail. The diet, which, resembles that given in the Review of Gastroentero-logy, forbade tobacco, spices, coffee, tea, chocolate, alcohol, white sugar, white flour, pastries and sausages; in short no canned, preserved, sulfured, frozen, smoked, salted, refined or bottled food.

It specified that there must be no salt, soda, sodium bicarbonate, fats or oil. It forbade also for some time the use of meat, fish, eggs, milk, butter, cheese, and bread. It permitted fruit but nothing from cans. It specified a mixed fresh apple and carrot juice and other fruit juices and vegetables all freshly prepared and saltless. It forbade the use of aluminum utensils and pots, and it forbade the use of pressure cookers. Basis of the diet was a special soup, of which the unfortunate victim is supposed to take 1 quart a day.

The formula included a large parsley root, 3 or 4 leeks, 1 large celery knob, 4 or 5 tomatoes, 3 to 5 large potatoes, 2 or 3 large onions and 3 to 5 carrots. Also permitted was some oatmeal. The medication included Lugol's solution daily, niacin in large amounts daily, liver powder with iron daily, lübile — dried bile salts — one capsule four times a day, brewers' yeast three times daily, dicalcium phosphate with viosterol one tablet eight times a day, phosphorous compound 1 teaspoon dissolved in each glass of juice, 3 cc. of crude liver extract intramuscularly several times a week and also some injected vitamin K.

The formula says that there should be no other medication because it can be harmful and dangerous, and it warns particularly against the use of anesthesia, because it says that the body becomes highly hypersensitive through this diet and that the usual anesthesia might become fatal. As part of the routine, Dr. Gerson insists that a patient have at least one copious bowel movement a day, preferably two, and he has provided a formula for an enema to secure this activity .. ."

It took no great imagination to draw the conclusion that the medical profession looked with disfavor upon Dr. Gerson. But what worried me most was that a man like this should be allowed to continue his practice. How would the average person, stricken with cancer know that this M.D. was a charlatan? Suppose they should go to him in good faith, believing that they would receive the same treatment from him as from any other doctor? When your very life is at stake, wouldn't it be important to know?

Apparently no such protection existed. The American citizen and taxpayer, confused with dread and anguish in the darkest moment of his life, might easily stumble into the clutches of a quack and forfeit his life. Sad to say, the old principle of caveat emptor — let the buyer beware — seemed to obtain here. There was no Better Business Bureau to protect him.

I had the time to investigate, and even if nobody had actually come right out and called Dr. Gerson a quack, the letters and articles had been suffused with a heavy sarcasm which served the purpose of putting him in a ridiculous light. It was warning enough to any person with time enough to seek it out.
But time is one commodity cancer sufferers can not spare. They suspect they have only a little of it left, and they are disinclined to expend it checking into the background of a doctor — especially if he comes highly recommended by a friend.
Dismayed by this state of affairs, I wrote to the Medical Society of the County of New York, asking if they would approve or disapprove Dr. Gerson's cancer treatment.
Their answer, "It is not within the province of the
Medical Society of the County of New York to pass
upon the efficacy or adequacy of any doctor's treat-
ment of his own patients.

"Doctor Gerson is a member of this Society but is presently under suspension from the rights and privileges of membership, as a result of personal publicity."
There it was again, the reluctance to condemn but the willingness to add a "dig" on the end as though a businessman, asked about his partner's character, should say, "Oh, John is all right, I guess — if he can just stay away from that liquor!"

But there were undoubtedly many things I did not know about the medical fraternity. There were, perhaps, certain ground rules to observe. There was the matter of ethics. Still, the cancer sufferer cannot be concerned with those. He needs — he must have — protection.
More pressing than my story, however, was the immediate plight of the woman who had written me. I called her on the telephone. "They tell you to go home and die," she said.

"The doctor prayed that I would pass away the third day after the operation. It would be a blessing, he told my mother. He said that I had a malignant blood vessel tumor and had only two to six months to live anyway. When the lump returned, mother begged him to tell her of any other specialist. She pleaded with him, saying she would sell her house — anything to pay. The doctor replied that there was no one else. That was all they could do; it was up to God now. With this type of tumor, he said, you go quick.

"I wrote to Dr. Gerson, telling him of my difficulty in getting money to continue my treatments and how I had been refused by the Red Cross, the Welfare Department, and all the other charitable organizations. Even the minister of my own church turned me down! The Cancer Society was ready to help me with the payments that I owe the hospital for surgery and treatments until they found out I was going to Dr. Gerson. Then they refused. Now I guess the hospital is going to sue. It's big business!
18

"I was almost evicted from my home when The Foundation for Cancer Treatment sent me $150, to be repaid at $5 a month, with no interest. The Foundation is a non-profit organization founded by ex-patients of Dr. Gerson's out of gratitude.
"I guess society wants me to die of cancer. They would rather I died than to be cured the 'wrong' way!"

Next I called a very famous cancer research organization which has collected untold millions of dollars in gifts from the American people.
"On the thousand to one chance that this woman is right/' I suggested, "that she is supposed to be dead and that, contrary to medical science, she remains alive through the treatment of this Dr. Gerson, couldn't you see your way clear to give her $50 a week for a year?"

They denied that Dr. Gerson's treatment was. of any value. If the woman wanted to go to a bona fide hospital and receive bona fide treatments, they would help her, they said.
"But she already has," I said, "and they can do no more for her. They sent her home to die!"
They were sorry, they said, but that's the way things were. My informant took me into his confidence, buddy-to-buddy style. He was very jovial, and he spoke patronizingly of Dr. Gerson. "The thing is," he said, "Dr. Gerson doesn't talk about the ones he doesn't cure!"
That was a strange statement to make. It presupposes that Dr. Gerson has cured people of cancel But everybody knows you can't cure cancer with a diet.
Or can you?
Armed with the results of my investigation, I decided to confront Dr. Gerson with the evidence.

sunburst77 at gmail.com

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