20. DO THE AMA & THE FDA SUPPRESS NEW CANCER TREAMENTS?

In 1924, Harry Hoxsey introduced a new treatment for cancer. He claimed he could cure both internal and external forms of the disease. He opened a clinic in Dallas, Texas, and began treating cancer patients. Before the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the American Medical Association (AMA) shut him down, he had built clinics in 17 states and reported an 80% success rate. After years of controversy, the FDA and AMA were forced to admit that his external therapy could cure some forms of cancer. Neither agency tested his tonic for internal cancer saying it was a waste of time and tax money.

The Hoxsey Cure is not the only alternative treatment which has been ignored, overlooked, or rejected as "quackery" by the AMA. The film, "Hoxsey, How Healing Becomes a Crime," explores the darker side of the medical profession's method of dealing with cancer and alternative methods of treatment. It makes several points.

For example, the film points out there are only three "acceptable" treatments of cancer used by doctors today -- surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. The acknowledged survival rate is one out of three and despite years of research, the medical field admits it is losing the "war on cancer." About one million people are diagnosed as having cancer every year and, on average, spend an estimated $50,000 for treatment, per person, per year. It is estimated that cancer is an industry worth more than $50 billion annually. There are more people working in the cancer field than die of the disease.

Given these bleak statistics, why are alternative methods of treatment systematically ignored? With two out of every three people with cancer dying, the average person would think that the medical profession would be receptive to new ideas and methods. In fact, the Hoxsey film points out that the opposite is true. The film charges there is a medical monopoly, controlled by the AMA, which is opposed to any cancer cure which would not sustain the current $50 billion medical/pharmaceutical industry.

The Hoxsey treatment, like many others, uses natural herbs and roots in its formula. It is not expected that pharmaceutical companies, which produce the drugs used in chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation treatments, would spend millions of dollars to test such herbs and roots only to discover that anyone could grow and use them without buying them from the manufacturer. No profit; no cure.

It is suggested that, in the United States, research in homeopathic treatment, such as promoted by Harry Hoxsey, lags far behind other nations as a result of opposition from the AMA and FDA.

Full access to information is particularly critical when it comes to life and death situations. The film argues that alternative treatments for cancer are not well known nor accepted in the United States as a result of historical and traditional censorious attacks by agencies like the American Medical Association, Food and Drug Administration, National Cancer Institute, and the American Cancer Society, all of which have vested economic interests in the medical status quo.

SSU CENSORED RESEARCHER: MANDY FORTUNA

SOURCE: Realidad Productions, PO Box 1644, Santa Fe, NM 87504
TITLE: "HOXSEY: How Healing Becomes a Crime," 96-minute film, 1987;
produced, written, and directed by Ken Ausubel

SOURCE: NEW AGE JOURNAL, 342 Western Ave., Brighton, MA 02135, DATE: September/October 1989
TITLE: "Cancer Cures: An Outbreak of Controversy"
AUTHOR: Ken Ausubel
SOURCE: Ken Ausubel, personal correspondence
6/25/90

COMMENTS: Author and producer Ken Ausubel charges that "Despite a major 1990 federal Office of Technology Assessment report recommending further testing and investigation of unconventional cancer therapies, these treatments continue to be ignored or ridiculed in the media." In fact, Ausubel says, "The report is the longest and most expensive in OTA history at 4 years and $500,000. It has been marked throughout by controversy and charges of suppression. The end product is very significant, and one would expect it to have received appropriate media coverage. But not a peep!" Meanwhile, Ausubel points out that "using conventional cancer therapies, mortality rates have not improved since the 1950's, as two of three patients still die within five years of diagnosis. Neverthe-less, the media is constantly promoting supposed advances in conventional treatment and branding everything else as quackery." The limited coverage given alternative methods benefits certain sectors of organized medicine, doctors, insurance companies, drug companies and medical equipment suppliers who stand to make a material gain from these expensive medical technologies and procedures, according to Ausubel. He predicts that "recent developments in the medical field indicate that the 21st century will bring a `collaborative model' which integrates conventional with holistic and natural medicine. Therapies based more on natural products, as well as on diet and psychological attitudes, are becoming increasingly prominent. The real beneficiaries of this cooperation will be patients."