The Other War on Drugs

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The Other War on Drugs

Most people know about the U.S. government's " war on drugs, " so the fact that

federal agents arrested T. Kimball last fall for supplying drugs

doesn't sound remarkable. However, Mr. Kimball was not selling any type of

illegal " street " drug. His crime was distributing a botanical product that

has been proven effective in treating symptoms of Parkinson's disease. This

bust was an example of another kind of drug war that the government is

waging: a war on nontoxic substances that compete with products of the

pharmaceutical industry.

Make no mistake: this is a classic turf war, with government agencies

protecting the hugely profitable prescription drug trade.

by Haley

------------------------------------------------------------------------

As a member of the New York State Legislature from 1970 to 1976, I became

intimately acquainted with the political patterns--the harassment of American

citizens and the suppression of information--that characterize this war. My

experiences led me to record ten examples of them in my book, Politics in

Healing: The Suppression and Manipulation of American Medicine.

An evolving battlefield

An essential way in which alternative medicine differs from conventional

medicine is the latter's reliance on invasive procedures and toxic drugs to

suppress symptoms, while alternative medicine treats the patient as a whole

and goes to the greatest lengths to " first do no harm. " Those attracted to

alternative medicine have been voting with their pocketbooks to show their

preference for gentler approaches. According to a recent study by Harvard

University, last year, Americans made an estimated 600 million office visits

to practitioners of alternative medicine and spent $30 billion on treatments.

For " official medicine to maintain its current sovereignty, therefore, it

must suppress nontoxic medical techniques and treatments. It does so by

spreading misinformation; by sabotaging clinical trials or ignoring the

positive results; by preventing patient reimbursement for alternative

treatments; and/or by outlawing the practice and use of nontoxic techniques

or even health claims for nutritional supplements. Most brutal, however, is

the persecution of alternative physicians, researchers, product manufacturers

and distributors through the legal system--whether or not any laws have been

broken, and when no one has been harmed.

What is " official medicine? " It is the American Medical Association (AMA),

major hospitals and medical schools, medical philanthropic and research

institutions, and the FDA--all of whom are dominated by the pharmaceutical

industry, which funds most of the medical research, buys the most advertising

and makes the largest campaign contributions and lobbying efforts. In their

May 19, 2001 issue, the British medical journal The Lancet published an

editorial in which it accused the FDA of having become a " servant of the drug

industry. "

As for Kimball, the FDA arrested and prosecuted him for distributing

liquid deprenyl, calling it an unapproved drug and charging him with

misbranding and fraud. In fact, many of the charges were contradictory,

aiming to catch him in the net of definitions of " nutritional supplements "

and " unapproved drugs " with all the conflicting restrictions that go with

each.

Parkinson's Disease is correlated with a deficiency of the neurotransmitter

dopamine, manifesting in decreased mobility, energy and cognitive function.

Conventional treatment has used a precursor of dopamine, L-dopa, to raise

dopamine levels.

However, some complex conditions in the brain that might cause a dopamine

deficiency in the first place prevent such a simplistic solution from

working. Dopamine is degraded by an enzyme called monoamine oxidase type B.

Liquid deprenyl citrate (LDC), also known as selegiline, works by

specifically inhibiting this enzyme from destroying the brain's dopamine.

Research by C.W. Olanow, M.D., Chairman of the Department of Neurology at the

Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York, has shown that liquid deprenyl had

favorable results in Parkinson's disease, compared with L-dopa, which is

known to have adverse side effects. In fact, some patients found that liquid

deprenyl was the only thing that, in the words of many, " gave them back their

lives. "

LDC's components are extracted from natural sources and therefore the

compound is classified as a botanical nutritional supplement, as defined by

the Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act (DSHEA). But the problem

wasn't that the FDA had reports of adverse effects of LDC. In fact, during

the trial, the government could not produce a single witness to testify that

any harm was done to even one of the thousands of people who used liquid

deprenyl.

Kimball is currently serving a 13-year sentence for distributing a

nontoxic botanical supplement found to provide significant relief for

Parkinson's disease patients. The FDA managed to confuse the facts and the

jury.

The real problem was its competition with other patented drugs, including

Eldepryl (selegiline hydrochloride), distributed in the U.S. by Somerset

Pharmaceuticals, which is jointly owned by Mylan Laboratories and

Pharmaceuticals. According to Kimball, testing of Eldepryl in Switzerland in

the late 1980s, prior to FDA approval, revealed impurities (that were later

identified as methamphetamines and other neurotoxins) which resulted in

serious adverse side effects. Not so for liquid deprenyl, with its very high

standards of purity. Studies by the Parkinson's Disease Research Group in

Britain in the 1990s also showed adverse and sometimes fatal side effects

when combining selegiline hydrochloride with L-Dopa in treating Parkinson's.

This had nothing to do with Kimball's liquid deprenyl citrate product, which

was molecularly unique. Nevertheless, during the trial the FDA refused to

distinguish Kimball's product from these others. He was found guilty and

sentenced to 13 years. He is presently incarcerated while his case is being

appealed.

Documents available for viewing on Kimball's website

(www.liquid-deprenyl.com) prove that the coordinated, multi-jurisdictional

task force that led to his arrest was instigated by the maker of Eldepryl:

Somerset Pharmaceuticals. Eldepryl is still on the market.

For Kimball, and for all the families counting on this remedy to bring some

normalcy back to their lives, the raid, trial and verdict were devastating.

What is especially disturbing is that this is not an isolated incident. In

fact, there is a long history of interference by the federal government in

the development, distribution and use of nontoxic, alternative remedies.

Scary scenarios

Nowhere is the suppression of nontoxic therapies a sadder commentary on the

medical system than in treating cancer. Those facing this frightening disease

must also face toxic radiation and chemotherapy--despite the fact that there

are nontoxic options for which there is anecdotal evidence that thousands

were helped and no one was hurt. No one, that is, except those who became

scapegoats of a corrupt system, as revealed in these stories.

The Hoxsey Story

In 1840, the Hoxsey family observed that a horse which had been afflicted

with cancer had been cured after eating certain herbs in its pasture in

Illinois. Those herbs became the basis for the Hoxsey tonic and salves. They

were kept for family use until the 20th century, when Harry Hoxsey used them

at a series of clinics, the final one being in downtown Dallas. In the 1920s,

Hoxsey refused to sell his formulas to a powerful AMA doctor. Shortly

afterward, Dr. Fishbein, editor of the Journal of the American Medical

Association (JAMA) and de facto head of the AMA, began to denounce Hoxsey as

a quack in his JAMA editorials. The battle reached its zenith when Hoxsey

succeeded in suing Fishbein for libel, forcing him to admit under oath that

he had never practiced medicine one day in his life; in other words, the head

of the AMA was a bogus doctor.

During the trial, Fishbein granted that the Hoxsey treatment was effective

for external cancers, such as the skin cancers melanoma and basal cell

carcinoma. In 1962, the Hoxsey Clinic was finally driven out of the U.S. by

the AMA and the Texas Medical Board, and moved to Tijuana, Mexico, where it

remains as the Centro Biomedico. With consistent success, it needs only word

of mouth to maintain a constant flow of patients.

Although the Hoxsey herbs were once denounced as worthless, all have recently

been shown to have anti-cancer activity. For example, one ingredient, an

arsenic compound, has since been shown to reverse a rare form of leukemia

called APL (acute promyelocytic leukemia) when a version of a Chinese

formulation was tested. It has since been approved by the FDA and is being

used at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in

Boston and other " official " American cancer centers.

The Koch Story

Just how far we have regressed in treating cancer becomes apparent when we

review the story of Dr. F. Koch (pronounced " Coke " ) of Detroit, who

was curing cancer with one shot in the 1930s and 40s. Koch had theorized that

cancer formed as a result of a metabolic defect brought on by a toxin or

injury and related to an inability to burn off such toxins. His anti-toxin,

glyoxylide, made use of an oxidizing catalyst to burn off toxins that might

otherwise become cancerous. This writer personally knows one such former

patient. Now 50 and quite healthy, she had been diagnosed--at the tender age

of three months--with terminal liver cancer. It took just one shot of Dr.

Koch's glyoxylide to cause the tumor to disappear in six months.

The JAMA denounced Koch as a quack after he refused to sell his protocol to

the AMA. At the instigation of the AMA, the FDA put him on trial in 1942 and

1946. They did not succeed in getting a conviction, but neither could Dr.

Koch secure an acquittal: in the atmosphere of the U.S. struggle against the

Nazis, some jurors could not conceive that their government was lying. When

the FDA finally dismissed the indictment in 1948, Dr. Koch lost little time

moving to Brazil before the FDA could trump up another indictment. He never

revealed his manufacturing process. Dr. Koch's one-shot cancer therapy died

with him. Today researchers have shown the value of many oxygen-yielding

protocols (such as hydrogen peroxide and ozone therapy) for treating various

disease processes.

Dr. F. Koch refused pressure from the AMA in the 1940s to sell his

nontoxic one-shot cancer therapy protocol, and was brought to trial by the

FDA. In the atmosphere of the U.S. struggle against the Nazis, some jurors

could not conceive that their government was lying.

The Rife Story

In the 1920s and 30s in San Diego, Royal Rife built a light microscope

capable of seeing viruses in their live state. (An electron microscope only

sees microbes after they are dead.) Rife found microbes that he hypothesized

caused cancer, and, indeed, found that when he injected the microorganisms

into mice, the mice developed cancer. Rife noticed that the microorganisms,

which he called Bacillus X, or the BX virus, were a purplish-red color,

corresponding to an electromagnetic frequency. He hypothesized that they

could be killed by being exposed to another frequency that would resonate

with the vibratory rate of the microbe. Rife then spent years searching for

the proper frequencies and at last he found them. Rife began human trials,

monitored by such medical stalwarts as Dr. Arthur Kendall, Director of

Medical Research at Northwestern University; Dr. Milbank , Medical

Director of the Pacific Mutual Life insurance Co. and former President of the

Los Angeles Medical Association; and Dr. Alvin Foord, Head of Pathology at

Pasadena Hospital. Rife broadcasted these frequencies to terminally ill

cancer patients, in five-minute exposures every third day. After six weeks of

exposures to these frequencies, 15 of 16 patient's cancers went into

remission.

Rife's fame grew and he was brought to the attention of the same

Fishbein of the AMA. Soon, corporate interests attempted to buy the Rife

technology, and when Rife refused to divulge his proprietary technology,

trouble started. First there were lawsuits as to who actually owned what.

Then, in 1939, the San Diego Medical Society warned that any doctors who used

Rife's instruments would lose their licenses. Rife's company had to shut

down. The instruments that survived had parts stolen or eventually broke

down. Rife died in 1971.

Today there are techniques, usually called bioresonance therapies, similar to

Rife's work, that are being used medically--mostly outside the U.S. But the

Rife microscope and the exact frequencies he developed are lost.

Krebiozen

In the 1950s, Dr. Ivy, then Vice President of the University of

Illinois, and one of the most respected scientists in the world, came upon

Krebiozen (pronounced " kreb-I-o-zen " ), an important, nontoxic cancer

treatment attributed to Yugoslavian doctor, Stefan Durovic. Krebiozen was

made in response to animal tumors believed to be caused by a fungus. After

injecting the same fungus into a horse to create an immune response, the

researchers extracted and diluted the blood product, which quickly healed

sick animals. In human studies, it rapidly eliminated pain and dissolved

tumors. The substance immediately attracted the attention of prominent

figures in the medical world. Some powerful doctors, however, didn't just

want to use Krebiozen, they were determined to own and control it.

Sworn testimony presented to a special investigating committee of the

Illinois Legislature in 1952 detailed a scheme by the AMA treasurer, J. J.

, to secure the distribution rights for Krebiozen. Failing that,

intended to destroy it, as well as the career of its chief proponent, Dr.

Ivy. did not secure distribution rights for Krebiozen, but did

manage to get Dr. Ivy fired from his University of Illinois post, and from

other positions as well.

Royal Rife designed microscopes capable of viewing live viruses. He theorized

that viruses contributed to cancer and could be killed with the right

electromagnetic frequency. Above left: The first of the microscopes. The

airgaps between the lenses were filled with glycerine. Right: A more complex

later model, one of many he used to successfully combat cancer. None of these

survive intact.

Krebiozen was later denounced by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and

outlawed by the FDA.

Hundreds of cancer patients--kept alive by Krebiozen--demonstrated, demanding

access to the drug, lest they die. They were ignored, and they died.

The FDA announced that its scientists had found that Krebiozen was only

creatine, an amino acid. But Senator of Illinois revealed,

during testimony in the Senate, that his own independent researchers had

discovered that FDA scientists had falsified data: moving a graph by 8% to

make it appear that Krebiozen and creatine were identical. Subjected to

cross-examination under oath in a trial a few years later, the FDA scientists

admitted their deceit. But by then, Krebiozen had disappeared.

U.S. Department of Justice investigator Benedict Fitzgerald confirmed in his

report to a Senate committee that the " alleged machinations of Dr. J. J.

, Treasurer of the AMA, could involve the AMA and others in an

interstate conspiracy of alarming proportions. "

A thing of the past?

Is this kind of harassment a thing of the past? Hardly! It is happening right

now. Within the past two years, readers of Alternative Medicine have learned

about the ongoing persecution of two pioneer cancer researchers: Dr.

Stanislaw Burzynski, for his antineoplastin therapy (Alternative Medicine,

issue 35, May, 2000), and Dr. ph Gold, for his work with hydrazine

sulfate ( " If it were any good, my doctor would tell me about it... "

Alternative Medicine, issue 37, September, 2000).

A recent case involves amygdalin, or laetrile, extracted from apricot pits.

Discrediting and outlawing laetrile was the FDA's big crusade 20 to 25 years

ago. A pretty thorough job was done of equating laetrile with quackery in the

minds of many Americans. In the minds of many others, however, laetrile was a

useful and nontoxic cancer therapy, and if it didn't help you, at least it

didn't sicken you and make your hair fall out. A number of states legalized

laetrile at that time.

In 1990, a 19-year-old boy named Vale in Queens, New York, developed a

tumor on his kidney. The tumor went away under chemotherapy, returned the

next year and went away once more with chemo. When the cancer returned a

third time when he was 25, he decided to try something else--apricot pits, a

source of laetrile. They worked: The tumor went away and stayed away.

With the zeal of an evangelist, set up a website to tell others how

he'd conquered cancer with apricot pits, and also started a business to

supply them to interested parties. He included a picture of himself, a husky,

healthy young man of 30, now a champion arm wrestler. As clients reported

success, added their stories to his website.

Vale found himself the subject of an FDA raid for selling apricot pits,

which he had used successfully to heal a tumor on his kidney. Prior

conventional chemotherapy treatments had not put the cancer into remission.

In his zeal to spread the word, created a website and distributed

e-mails that attracted the attention of the FDA.

In 1997, however, he was notified by America Online (AOL) that he was in

violation of the law for sending unsolicited e-mails-- " spamming. " This

brought Vale to the attention of the FDA, which raided his home in November,

1997. Vale watched FDA inspectors collect samples of his products and

acknowledged full responsibility for marketing them.

The FDA also ordered products through Vale's website and in October, 1998,

sent Vale a letter warning him that his laetrile products were unapproved new

drugs, and that he could no longer make health claims for them or sell them.

Vale's lawyer responded that the laetrile products were food for special

dietary use by virtue of their ingredients, and Vale continued to sell them.

In February, 1999, the FDA again raided Vale's home; again Vale insisted that

his products were not drugs and he would not voluntarily shut down. Finally,

in November, 1999, the FDA filed a complaint for a permanent injunction

against Vale for selling unapproved new drugs. In April, 2000, a U.S.

District Court granted the motion, and Vale was ordered never again to sell

laetrile products.

Another case came to my attention when my book was published last year. I was

informed that the phone number in the Appendix for Donna Schuster, a longtime

supplier of hydrazine sulfate (HS), was disconnected. I learned that she was

out of business. The FDA had closed down her supplier, Ken is,

indicting him on 16 counts, including defrauding the FDA by failing to

register as a drug manufacturer.

This turns out to be a game of semantics. Ken was not manufacturing anything,

but simply repackaging both HS and amygdalin in smaller batches for

distributors. The FDA informed him that it considered repackaging to be the

same as manufacturing. His brother told me that Ken is under an FDA " gag

order " not to talk about the details of his case--and not to talk to his

customers. (Editor's Note: The trial is scheduled to start as we go to press.

For more details, go to the website: www.holisticalternatives.net and press

" congressional correspondence. " )

Medical truth or power play?

The persecutions go on and on. Last year the FDA arrested Hoffman for

distributing a concentrated form of aloe vera, one of the oldest herbs known

to man, used by Julius Caesar and the Great's armies for battle

wounds.

DMSO was another persecuted drug. Dr. Stanley , its chief researcher,

found that when antibiotics that were no longer effective were mixed with

DMSO, this remarkable substance rendered bacteria vulnerable to them once

again. Used soon after a stroke, either intravenously or orally, DMSO could

dissolve the stroke. Hailed by The New York Times as the wonder drug of the

1960s, it is now all but forgotten.

Similar stories abound for immune-enhancing products and other nontoxic

therapies. These substances are threats to patented drugs because they are

cheap, effective and don't have adverse side effects. In many instances,

members of the orthodox medical community knew that these therapies were

effective, and had attempted to take over the protocol. After being rebuffed,

they resorted to persecution.

Moreover, in January, 1999, Business Week reported the fourth leading cause

of hospitalizations: damage from FDA-approved drugs, affecting 2.2 million

people a year at a cost of $5 billion. Americans are dying, one every three

to five minutes, from the effects of FDA-approved pharmaceutical drugs, used

as directed! In the face of such FDA dereliction of duty, against such a

dismal background, who orders these raids?

Also, in 1999, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that

the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S. was side effects from properly

administered, FDA-approved drugs. Congress did pass an " FDA Reform Bill, " but

it did nothing to address this issue. With huge contributions from the

pharmaceutical companies, not one congressmen was indelicate enough to

mention the statistic.

For this reporter, a New York State assemblyman in the 1970s, there is a

solution to the drug problem (and I don't mean illegal street drugs, which

kill only 10% as many people as legal drugs kill). The solution is simple:

competition. Get the government out of the regulation of anything nontoxic.

DMSO, aloe vera and other nontoxic substances have been targets of

suppression, while toxic side effects from FDA-approved drugs were reported

to be the fourth leading cause of hospital admissions and the fourth leading

cause of death in the U.S. In the face of such FDA dereliction of duty, who

orders raids on nontoxic substances?

In a free market, where non-toxic therapies can openly compete with toxic

therapies, and information is not suppressed, consumers will make informed

choices. This is exactly what the pharmaceutical companies don't want.

Dancing to their tune, the FDA ferociously keeps off the market effective,

nontoxic therapies that might provide formidable competition for patented,

and often toxic, pharmaceutical drugs.

By keeping these therapies off the market, the FDA is not protecting the

public from harm. It is protecting the pharmaceutical companies from

effective competition. With an average of 65% to 75% of FDA employees working

for drug companies upon their retirement, that's not surprising. Lancet

editor Horton wrote, " The FDA is not only compromised because it

receives so much funding from industry but because it comes under incredible

Congressional pressure to be favourable to industry. That has led to deaths. "

Having freedom of medical choice can be a matter of life or death. Hundreds

of thousands of people suffer and die needlessly every year. Control of

medicine has historically been associated with corrupt or totalitarian

regimes. It's time to separate the politics of wealth and power from the

healing arts.

To take action, visit the consumer activist website Citizens for Health (<A

HREF= " http://www.citizens.org " >www.citizens.org</A>) for updates on current

legislation, such as the Health Freedom of Choice Act and the Access to

Medical Treatment Act; information on how to cntact key legislators and

regulatory agency officials; and links to other activist organizations. Get

involved. Sign petitions or write to your legislators.

Your basic freedoms are at stake -- and quite possibly your life, or the life

of someone you love.

Contact:

Haley devoted years to researching and writing the book, Politics in

Healing: The Suppression and Manipulation of American Medicine (Potomac

Valley Press, ISBN# 0-9701150-0-8). Mr. Haley had been a U.S. intelligence

officer in Asia, an international businessman and a member of the New York

State Assembly where he chaired the Legislature's Joint Commission on Energy.

He authored the Safe Energy Act of 1975, establishing the NYS Energy Research

and Development Authority to focus on renewable energy resources.