Three jailed in Germany for selling a fraudulent cancer cure to terminally ill patients

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Published 18 July 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a875

Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a875

Three jailed in Germany for selling a fraudulent cancer cure to terminally ill

patients

Annette Tuffs

1 Heidelberg

A court in the central German town Kassel has sentenced three men to jail for

fraud because in 2000-1 they sold and administered a food supplement, which they

claimed was a cure for cancer, to more than 150 terminally ill cancer patients.

All the patients subsequently died. The verdict was given this week after a 16

month trial.

A doctor, a businessman, and a journalist had persuaded dying people that a

Russian food supplement, Galavit, was able to stop their cancer. Patients had to

pay about 8500 (£6800; $13 500) for the treatment course, which was administered

in a rented ward of a rehabilitation hospital near Kassel in Bad Karlshafen.