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"If thou art privy to thy country's fate
Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid,
Oh, speak!" --Hamlet, Act I. sc. i.
I am up early this morning, wrestling with ghosts. Today's New York Times carries its ̃rst-ever story about the "mainstreaming of alternative medicine." Truly the new era has arrived. We have arrived. Dan Rather calls us the "new rage."
Why then am I troubled by ghosts? I am haunted by two dear friends, NCI's Dean Burk and Sloan-Kettering's Kanematsu Sugiura, who put their awesome reputations on the line to speak the truth about unconventional therapies in the 1970s. "I write what I see," Sugiura said with eloquent simplicity. "Laetrile is not a cure for cancer but a good palliative drug."
Next comes Andrew Ivy, MD, dean of the University of Illinois medical school, who tumbled from top conventional doctor to outcast. His crime? Advocating a non-toxic serum, Krebiozen, in the 50s. NCI scoffed at his claims and refused to do the clinical studies that would have proved him wrong, or right.
And here's the wraith of Memorial Hospital bone surgeon William B. Coley, MD who, 100 years ago, cured still incurable cancers through the use of bacterial toxins. As the fevers went up, growths often disappeared. So, too, did Coley's toxins.
Ghosts, when will you speak?
Coordinator Anne Beattie
@ 144 St. John's Place,
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Phone 718-636-4433
Fax 718-636-0186