Yes, even 50 years ago people were skeptical of chemo, radiation, and surgery to treat cancer!

Seems the more things change, the more they stay the same …

Humble beginnings with Cecile Hoffman

You’ve probably never heard of Cecile Hoffman. She wasn’t a First Lady, or a groundbreaking scientist, or even a jet-setting businesswoman.

No, Cecile Hoffman was a schoolteacher – and a cancer patient, just like many people today.

In 1959, doctors performed a radical mastectomy on Cecile. She was assured her cancer was gone.

It wasn’t. Three years later, the breast cancer had metastasized. She was given no hope; the doctors told Cecile it was only a matter of time.

Funny how Mother Nature doesn’t follow man’s timeline.

“My experience is the same as that of countless thousands of other women. I had a radical mastectomy [amputation of a breast tumor] in 1959. A period when I was assured ‘they got it all,’ so I was lulled into a false complacency, by false counsel,” Cecile said.

Cecile’s husband, a chemist, discovered the book Laetrile: Control for Cancer by Glen Kittler. The science behind the book made sense to Mr. Hoffman.

Enter the McNaughton Foundation in Montreal, Canada, an early leader in Laetrile Therapy for cancer patients.

Laetrile is a partly man-made form of the natural substance amygdalin, found naturally in raw nuts and the pips of many fruits, particularly apricot, or kernels.

Laetrile works by targeting and killing cancer cells and building the immune system to fend off future outbreaks of cancer.

While laetrile is a good cancer treatment it should not be the primary cancer treatment for any cancer patient. It is an effective supplemental treatment.

Cecile began the Laetrile Therapy, which uses amygdalin (also called Vitamin B-17) and other non-toxic natural substances to attack cancer.

And she began to recover.

When the Hoffmans returned home to California, her family physician was advised by his attorney not to treat Cecile with laetrile.

(After all, it is not a government-approved therapy. It’s natural – and Big Pharma cannot patent and sell nature.)

But the Laetrile Therapy worked – right?!

Still, Cecile’s doctor refused – so she began searching for a doctor who would be focused on her continuing to live.

Her prayers were answered by Dr. Ernesto Contreras Sr., a pathologist and oncologist, in Tijuana, Mexico.

Dr. Contreras opened Oasis of Hope Hospital in 1963. A pioneer in body, mind, and spirit medicine, Dr. Contreras’s philosophy was rooted in “do no harm and love your patient as you love yourself.”

“Dr. Contreras agreed to administer laetrile to me, and promised to keep accurate technical records and data to give to the McNaughton Research Foundation,” Cecile said. “He also agreed to help others, who had been seeking me out for information.”

He explored hundreds of treatment modalities – including laetrile – in the quest to help patients.

By March 1964, X-rays showed that Cecile’s tumors had disappeared. The Laetrile Therapy was successful.

Today, Dr. Contreras is remembered for his model for integrative medicine for the advancement of cancer research, treatment, and control.

Said Cecile: “I owe my life to my friends and kind, forward-thinking professionals in Canada and Mexico.”

Indeed, she did owe her life to those who were forward-thinkers.

Launch of the Cancer Control Society

To share her story and to help thousands of others, Cecile founded the International Association of Cancer Victims and Friends in July 1963. Today, the IACVF is known as the International Association of Cancer Victors and Friends.

Although Cecile died in 1969 – 10 years after orthodox medicine left her for dead – her legacy still thrives.

From the original IACVF, the Cancer Control Society was launched in 1973 as a non-profit charitable organization.

Since 1973, the Cancer Control Society has brought life-saving information to thousands of patients and their families.

Every Labor Day Weekend since 1973 more than 40 speakers, six movies, and 80 exhibits are presented – this year, at the Glendale Hilton Hotel, in Glendale, Calif.

Among the topics to be discussed at the 45th annual conference in 2017:

• What are alternative cancer therapies?

• How are alternative cancer therapies different from conventional or allopathic treatments?

• What does non-toxic cancer therapy mean?

• Can cancer really be cured?

• How do I know if I really have cancer?

• Does a biopsy spread cancer?

• Does a mammogram detect early breast cancer and increase my chances of survival?

• Can I visit some alternative cancer clinics?

Learn more

The CCS has evolved into one of the leading alternative cancer voices.

Betty Lee Morales, the “First Lady of Nutrition” and a proponent of natural foods, and Lorraine Rosenthal were co-founders of the Cancer Control Society.

Betty Lee was a lecturer at conventions and a guest on TV and radio programs.

Lorraine also believed nutrition was the primary source for maintaining health and preventing disease.

Together, these women championed natural answers to the toughest cancer questions – answers as relevant and true today as they were 50 years ago.

Another CCS co-founder was Norman Fritz, who met Cecile Hoffman in 1964.

Norman was a board member for the original IACVF and helped plan the inaugural convention on alternative therapies.

He also helped Charlotte Gerson republish A Cancer Therapy, a watershed book written by her father Max Gerson, and helped established the first Gerson Hospital in Tijuana, Mexico.

Think about it: These were common people brought together by uncommon circumstances. They were truth-seekers who wanted to learn and share.

“When I’m at the Cancer Control Society convention and I give a summary,” Norman said,  “I say, ‘If you do anything to help the body’s metabolism, you’re going to get some results. But the more good things that you do, the more results you’re likely to get.’ ”

At its core, Norman was discussing nutrition and the immune system – two aspects of today’s common sense approach to cancer!

From the 1960s until his death in January 2007, Norman was instrumental in establishing both the IACVF and the Cancer Control Society, serving as president of both organizations.

Today, Frank Cousineau and Lorraine Rosenthal keep the flame for the CCS.

Lorraine met Cecile Hoffman in 1965 and became an active member of the International Association of Cancer Victims and Friends.

Lorraine’s roles with the Cancer Control Society have included being the organization’s convention director since 1973.

The CCS convention features doctors and researchers from around the world – natural health care advocates speaking to the latest controls and treatments for cancer and other degenerative diseases.

The convention also includes a Doctors’ Symposium, which allows medical professionals to exchange ideas and learn from one another.

Just as Cecile wanted to share her experience with others, the Cancer Control Society brings together people to share their insight.

And since 1995, the Cancer Control Society has supported a Japanese chapter.

Yes, a natural approach to cancer therapies reaches beyond the U.S. and Mexico.

CCS wants to share what it knows

Lorraine’s interest in natural treatments and prevention led her to help produce two films: Nature’s Answer to Cancer – the story of laetrile – and the documentary Action for Survival, which focuses on freedom of choice issues.

(Obviously with the strict FDA regulations, simply knowing alternative therapies exist is not enough. You also can choose alternative treatments!)

Frank has been president of the Cancer Control Society since 2007, and he also has ties to Dr. Contreras.

After conventional medicine – chemo and surgery – did nothing to help his mother’s cancer, Frank took her to Tijuana for care under Dr. Contreras.

(Frank also fell in love with Dr. Contreras’s secretary and married her!)

The decision to undergo treatment under the watchful eye of Dr. Contreras paid off. Frank’s mother lived for an extended time and the alternative treatments made her passing more comfortable.

And in the end, isn’t that what we all want – to be able to pass peacefully, comforted by the choices we made?

Instead, too often people die at the hands of toxic chemotherapy and radiation that strip away dignity.

Frank’s journey with his mother changed him. He was committed to doing more – just as Cecile Hoffman was.

In 1980, the Frank and his wife formed Life Support, a company that supplies innovative natural products to alternative doctors, clinics, and hospitals.

Four years later, Frank spurred the Cancer Control Society to begin hosting tours to Mexican medical facilities to showcase natural, alternative, and integrative therapies.

Certainly, the CCS could have traveled across the board, shot some video, taken a few pictures, and put together a VHS tape and sold it to the masses.

But Frank wanted more. He wanted to give cancer patients and their families a first-hand, real-world experience.

On these tours, people see the therapies in action and meet doctors to learn more about available treatment options.

The tours also provide an academic setting where nurses and dentists receive continuing education credit required by their licensing boards and learn how to integrate complementary therapies with conventional approaches.

And there it is again – sharing information with others. Rooted in Cecile Hoffman’s heartfelt desire to give back to the community, the CCS wants to share what it knows with the nurses and doctors who can make a difference in everyday lives.

Frank also is the co-author of Amish Cancer Secret and America’s Best Cancer Doctors, which feature alternative medical facilities in the United States and Mexico.

Each day the Cancer Control Society sends information to patients and their families and friends. The packets offer hope with directions for a better way to approach cancer.

The Cancer Control Society also sends out books and DVDs providing both education and useful examples of complementary medicine.

The influence of the Cancer Control Society is growing. The CCS continues to promote the importance of non-toxic alternative therapies and nutrition.

You can see for yourself how the Cancer Control Society furthers natural, alternative, and integrative medicine in the fight against cancer.

The annual CCS convention is Sept. 2-4, 2017, in Glendale, Calif.

Well-known medical doctors, clinical researchers, nutritionists, and authors will address the prevention and control of cancer.

They will speak to non-toxic therapies, including laetrile, Gerson, Hoxsey, Poly-MVA, enzymes, and immunotherapy.

There also will be discussions on chelation, DMSO, oxygen, herbal, cellular, and electromagnetic therapies.

If you or a family member or anyone you love has cancer – take the time to learn everything about options to fight this disease.

The Cancer Control Society convention is the complete collection of medical minds that you could ask for.

Learn about the most successful natural, alternative, and integrative therapies known to medical professionals from around the world.

Make the decision to take back your health care. Do it today.

Chemo. Radiation. Surgery. Until you choose to do something different, the more things change, the more they stay the same …

The post From humble beginnings, the Cancer Control Society cultivates natural cancer treatment outreach appeared first on Cancer Tutor.

From The New York Times:

The youngest of six siblings, David Rockefeller was born in Manhattan on June 12, 1915. His father, John D. Rockefeller Jr., the only son of the oil titan, devoted his life to philanthropy. His mother, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, was the daughter of Nelson Aldrich, a wealthy senator from Rhode Island.

Besides Nelson, born in 1908, the other children were Abby, who was born in 1903 and died in 1976 after leading a private life; John D. Rockefeller III, who was born in 1906 and immersed himself in philanthropy until his death in an automobile accident in 1978; Laurance, born in 1910, who was an environmentalist and died in 2004; and Winthrop, born in 1912, who was governor of Arkansas and died in 1973.

David, the youngest, grew up in a mansion at 10 West 54th Street, the largest private residence in the city at the time. It bustled with valets, parlor maids, nurses, and chambermaids. For dinner every night his father dressed in black tie and his mother in a formal gown. [1]

These were the spoils of the family that derailed natural medicine and built what became Big Pharma by usurping the teachings of medical schools in the wake of the Flexner Report.

John D. Rockefeller founded Standard Oil Company in 1870. His fortune made him the first billionaire in the United States.

In the early half of the 20th century, the petrochemical giants organized a coup on the medical research establishments, hospitals and universities. The Rockefellers did this by sponsoring research and donating monetary gifts to U.S. universities and medical schools where research was drug based and further extended this policy to foreign medical establishments via their International Education Board. Those who were not drug based were refused funding and were soon dissolved in favor of the more lucrative pharmaceutical-based projects. [2]

• The Flexner Report

The obituary of David Rockefeller noted, “As an octogenarian, Mr. Rockefeller, whose fortune was estimated in 2012 at $2.7 billion, increasingly devoted himself to philanthropy, donating tens of millions of dollars in particular to Harvard, the Museum of Modern Art and the Rockefeller University, which John D. Rockefeller Sr. founded in 1901.” [3]

However, many on social media did not cast a favorable light on David Rockefeller:

The post Last grandson of Flexner Report backer dead at 101 appeared first on Cancer Tutor.

The Gerson therapy is reported to have helped many cancer patients restore health. However, there is currently no scientific evidence to support these claims. The benefits are anecdotal and only documented in case reports (small-scale observational studies).

Dr. Gerson believed that cancer was a metabolic disease caused by the accumulation of toxins in the body, which damage healthy cells, impair organ function, and lead to metabolic dysfunction. The Gerson therapy uses intensive detoxification methods that are reputed to remove waste, regenerate the liver, activate the immune system, restore the body’s vital defenses and balance enzyme, mineral, and hormone systems [1].

The protocol is based on the philosophy that the body has an extraordinary ability to heal itself under the right conditions. The Gerson therapy consists of three main parts: diet, supplements, and detoxification support [2].

Diet

The specialized diet is plant-based and organic. It is naturally high in vitamins, minerals, enzymes, micro-nutrients and extremely low in sodium, fats and proteins. Fresh pressed juices provide high-quality nutrition and are a staple of the diet. By juicing, a typical patient will consume the nutrients and enzymes from up to 15 pounds of fresh produce per day. In addition to the Gerson juices, patients also have 3 plant-based meals per day [1].

Supplements

The regimen includes specific vitamins and minerals such as potassium solution, Lugol’s iodine, pancreatic enzymes, B vitamins, vitamin A, C, and niacin, flaxseed oil, and pepsin. The therapy previously included raw calf liver juice injections, which Gerson believed offered support and regeneration to the liver, but this is no longer used as it was made illegal by the FDA in 1989 due to bacterial contamination risks [3].

Detox

Regular coffee enemas (4+/day) are the final component of the protocol. Coffee enemas are believed to dilate the bile ducts in the liver, allowing the liver to release waste products more quickly into the intestine and support the elimination of toxins from the body [3]. 

There is currently no scientific research on the specific components of this treatment regimen, therefore safety and efficacy of the protocol is unknown. 

Historical Perspective

Dr. Max Gerson developed the Gerson therapy in the 1920s and 30s in Germany. He first devised the therapy to help manage his own debilitating migraines, but eventually his approach would become a treatment for serious degenerative diseases, and most famously, cancer [1].

His inspiration for developing the Gerson therapy came from his study of the history of medicine and respect for Paracelsus who proposed that diet should be the cornerstone of medical treatment [3]. One of Dr. Gerson’s early patients who followed his “migraine diet” discovered that it had resolved his skin tuberculosis. Under the supervision of famed thoracic surgeon Ferdinand Sauerbruch, Gerson set up a skin tuberculosis treatment program at the Munich University Hospital [1].

Dr. Gerson carried out a successful clinical trial in which 446 out of 450 skin tuberculosis patients treated with the Gerson diet recovered completely [1]. His most famous patient was perhaps the wife of Albert Schweitzer, a Nobel Peace Prize winning philosopher, humanitarian and physician. Dr. Gerson is said to have cured her of lung tuberculosis [3]. The respect and praise he received from Schweitzer brought the therapy into the limelight and garnered the attention of the medical community [3].

Dr. Gerson went on to experiment with his diet and successfully applied it to many other conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, kidney failure, and eventually cancer. In 1938, Dr. Gerson started a medical practice in New York City, USA where he claims to have successfully treated hundreds of cancer patients [1].

Initially, Dr. Gerson did not believe that his diet would work as a cancer treatment in its own right, but rather as a supportive dietary approach. However, in 1958, after treating cancer patients with his regimen for over 15 years, he published his complete theory, including the results of 50 case studies [8]. He declared that his protocol was an “effective treatment for cancer, even in advanced cases” [5].

Nevertheless, there was controversy surrounding the efficacy of the Gerson therapy throughout Dr. Gerson’s life. Articles from the Journal of the American Medical Association came to the conclusion that the therapy was of no value [9] [10]. The National Cancer Institute cast a shadow of doubt over Dr. Gerson’s case studies stating that basic criteria for demonstrating clinical benefit were not met [11].

Dr. Gerson passed away in 1959 without leaving a systematic way of offering his treatment. However, his daughter Charlotte Gerson Straus continued to give lectures about the Gerson therapy and went on to set up the Gerson Institute in 1979. To this date The Gerson Institute maintains licensing programs so treatment facilities can offer the Gerson therapy to patients [3].

Research 

There is currently no peer-reviewed scientific research on the Gerson therapy. To date there have not been any animal or human studies carried out on the approach. Clinical trials would be required in order to ascertain if the Gerson therapy could be recommended for cancer patients.

However, there are case studies published by Dr. Gerson himself and also from the Gerson Institute, which document positive results and report that patients have completely healed while undergoing the therapy.

Dr. Gerson’s own published research paper from 1978 states that 30 years of experimentation has led to an effective holistic cancer therapy, which has successfully treated many cases of advanced cancer [5].

In 1995 The Gerson Research Organization published an analysis of survival rates of melanoma patients treated with the Gerson approach. The results showed considerably higher 5-year survival rates compared to averages reported in the scientific literature. For stage III patients the 5-year survival rate was 71% compared with standard rates of 27% to 42%. The 5-year survival rate for stage IV patients was 39% compared with 6% in the published literature [3] [6].

A case study from 2007 on six people with aggressive forms of metastatic cancer showed (despite the presence of some confounding variables) that the patients benefited both physically and psychologically from the Gerson therapy. They survived longer than expected and had an improved quality of life [7].

Given that no controlled studies on the use of the Gerson therapy in cancer patients have been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, there is not sufficient scientific evidence to support claims that the therapy is an effective cancer treatment. Further research is still needed [3].

Potential Applications

The Gerson therapy has been applied for patients with many different cancer types, including advanced cases of metastatic cancer. However, The Gerson Institute states that brain cancer and pancreatic cancer after chemotherapy do not respond well to the therapy. The Gerson Institute claims that the therapy has achieved good results with the following cancer types:

• Melanoma
• Lymphoma
• Breast cancer
• Ovarian cancer

There is not currently any published scientific research on the Gerson therapy to be able to outline any scientifically validated benefits for cancer patients or determine any potential therapeutic applications for the diet. However, from case reports and studies published by Dr. Max Gerson and The Gerson Institute, the potential benefits of the regime are listed below.

• Eliminate toxins from the body
• Provide high levels of nutrients and antioxidants
• Improve organ function (especially liver and kidney)
• Boost the immune system
• Support mental and physical wellbeing
• Remove excess sodium from the body
• Restore damaged cells to a healthy normal state
• Heal damaged tissues
• Support the natural healing of a diseased system
• Help to restore healthy metabolic function
• Increase survival rates
• Improve quality of life

How the therapy is believed to work:

The Gerson therapy’s all-encompassing holistic approach sets it apart from most other cancer treatment methods. It aims to restore the body’s incredible innate ability to heal itself, rather than treating the symptoms of any specific disease [1]. It is rooted in the belief that cancer is a disease of the entire organism. Dr. Gerson believed that the manifestation of a tumor is merely a symptom of a systemic imbalance in a diseased body [3].

Dr. Gerson believed that cancer was caused by a combination of damaging factors, notably the accumulation of toxins, which in turn results in the breakdown of the entire metabolic system. The goal of the Gerson therapy is to restore normal metabolic function and keep the metabolism in balance [3].

Dr. Gerson discovered that cancer patients often presented with severely degenerated organs, especially the liver. He attributed this to an increase in toxic materials, such as tumor breakdown products, which needed to be cleared from the body via the liver. Dr. Gerson’s regimen therefore focuses heavily on supporting liver detoxification and restoring optimal liver function.

An integral part of the therapy is an abundance of potassium in the diet and tight restrictions on sodium. Gerson studied early cancer cell biology and realized that healthy cells had a high ratio of potassium to sodium, while diseased cells had a low ratio of potassium to sodium [3]. When patients began the diet they excreted large amounts of sodium in their urine and the cells in the patients’ bodies, which had initially been bloated, began to shrink as the fluid was released. Dr. Gerson came to the conclusion that the diet was correcting tissue damage caused by excess sodium [3].

This hypothesis was later echoed by the findings of laboratory studies carried out by Gilbert Ling on the function of sodium and potassium in living cells [4]. According to Ling’s research using frog muscle cells, the proteins of a cell are able to exist in two different configurational states: either healthy or damaged. In a healthy cell the proteins have a normal structure and a strong affinity for potassium rather than sodium [4]. However, in a damaged cell the protein structure is altered. Proteins lose their affinity for potassium and their ability to structure water. The result is that potassium leaves the cell and is replaced by sodium. The cell then swells up with water [4].

Studies by Ling have shown that high potassium and low sodium environments can restore damaged cell proteins to their normal healthy state. This is believed to be the mechanism of action by which damaged tissues are repaired when a patient follows the Gerson regimen [4]. However, this hypothesis on the mechanism of action of the Gerson therapy is not backed up by any clinical research in humans to confirm if it is accurate or not.

Risks and Side Effects

Patients may report benefits from the Gerson therapy, but there are potential risks and some reported side-effects. The cases reported where patients have experienced side-effects are mainly related to highly frequent or contaminated coffee enemas, which can cause:

• Dehydration
• Electrolyte imbalances
• Infections
• Heart and lung problems
• Mineral imbalances
• Constipation or diarrhea
• Loss of appetite
• Abdominal cramps
• Aching, fever and sweating
• Dizziness and weakness

There have been a handful of cases where quite severe adverse effects have been reported, but these cases are rare. It is always advised to speak to your doctor before starting any new dietary regime.

FAQs

What is the Gerson therapy?

The Gerson therapy is a regimen developed by Dr. Max Gerson, which consists of three main parts: diet, supplements, and detoxification support. It is based on the principle that the human body can heal itself when toxins are removed from the system.

Is the Gerson therapy effective for cancer?

There is currently not enough scientific evidence to determine if the Gerson therapy is beneficial for cancer patients. There have been cases reported of the therapy helping cancer patients in terms of increased survival rates and improved quality of life. However, there is a lack of scientific evidence and clinical data to know if the therapy is safe or effective.

How long do patients normally follow the Gerson therapy?

18 months is the recommended duration stated in Dr. Gerson’s book. In more recent times, patients at The Gerson Institute often follow the protocol for 2 to 3 years depending on the stage and type of cancer. For other diseases aside from cancer, the duration of the protocol can be shorter. For advanced cancer cases patients are often reported to be on the diet for 3 to 5 years.

References

[1] The Gerson Institute. How it Works. https://gerson.org/how-it-works/

[2] National Cancer Institute. Gerson Therapy (PDQ®) – Patient Version. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/cam/patient/gerson-pdq

[3] National Library of Medicine. Gerson Therapy (PDQ®) – Health Professional Version. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK66029/

[4] Freeman W. Cope, M.D. A medical application of the Ling Association-Induction Hypothesis: the high potassium, low sodium diet of the Gerson cancer therapy. Gerson Research Organization. September 8, 1978. http://gerson-research.org/research/medical-application-ling-association-induction-hypothesis-high-potassium-low-sodium-diet-gerson-cancer-therapy/

[5] Gerson M. The cure of advanced cancer by diet therapy: a summary of 30 years of clinical experimentation. Physiol Chem Phys. 1978;10(5):449-64. PMID: 751079. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/751079/

[6] Hildenbrand GL, Hildenbrand LC, Bradford K, Cavin SW. Five-year survival rates of melanoma patients treated by diet therapy after the manner of Gerson: a retrospective review. Altern Ther Health Med. 1995 Sep;1(4):29-37. PMID: 9359807. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9359807/

[7] Molassiotis A, Peat P. Surviving against all odds: analysis of 6 case studies of patients with cancer who followed the Gerson therapy. Integr Cancer Ther. 2007 Mar;6(1):80-8. doi: 10.1177/1534735406298258. PMID: 17351030. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17351030/

[8] Gerson M: A Cancer Therapy: Results of Fifty Cases and The Cure of Advanced Cancer by Diet Therapy. The Gerson Institute, 2002.

[9] Gerson's cancer treatment. JAMA 132 (11): 645-6, 1946.

[10] CANCER and the need for facts. J Am Med Assoc. 1949 Jan 8;139(2):93-8. PMID: 18101918. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18101918/

[11] US Congress, Office of Technology Assessment: Unconventional Cancer Treatments. U.S. Government Printing Office, 1990. OTA-H-405.

Top Five Facts about Gerson Therapy

1. Gerson Therapy is suggested to be a metabolic therapy, using a special diet, plus supplements and a coffee enema, to fight cancer.
2. The Gerson diet is naturally high in vitamins, minerals, enzymes, micro-nutrients, and extremely low in sodium, fats, and proteins.
3. The Gerson diet is more than just what to eat and what not to eat, it is when the foods are eaten, how often they are eaten, how they are prepared, how not to prepare them, what to cook them in, how to package them, and more.
4. One of the main benefits of the Gerson Therapy is its theorized rapid elevation of the pH, or alkalinity, of the body.
5. Dr. Gerson’s research suggested that degenerative and chronic diseases are caused by toxicity and nutritional deficiency.

The Gerson Therapy was one of the first natural cancer therapeutics and has been used by patients for more than 80 years. Rooted in an organic, plant-based diet, raw juices, coffee enemas, and natural supplements, the Gerson Therapy is said to restore the body’s ability to heal itself.

The Gerson diet is naturally high in vitamins, minerals, enzymes, micro-nutrients, and extremely low in sodium, fats, and proteins. A typical daily diet for a Gerson patient on the full therapy regimen features glasses of fresh, raw carrot-apple and green-leaf juices prepared hourly from fresh, organic fruits and vegetables; plant-based meals, freshly prepared from organically grown fruits, vegetables, and whole grains; and fresh fruit and vegetables available at all hours for snacking, in addition to the regular diet. [1]

Generally, a meal will include salad, cooked vegetables, baked potatoes, Hippocrates soup, and juice.

The Gerson Institute, a non-profit organization in San Diego, is dedicated to providing education and training in the Gerson Therapy. The institute provides referrals to licensed clinics, practitioners, and home set-up trainers. There are two licensed Gerson clinics: the Gerson Clinic in Mexico and the Gerson Health Centre in Hungary.

The Gerson Institute, a non-profit organization in San Diego, is dedicated to providing education and training in the Gerson Therapy. The institute provides referrals to licensed clinics, practitioners, and home set-up trainers. There are two licensed Gerson clinics: the Gerson Clinic in Mexico and the Gerson Health Centre in Hungary.

The Gerson diet is extremely detailed. It is not just the foods that are included and excluded; it is when the foods are eaten, how often they are eaten, how they are prepared, how not to prepare them, what to cook them in, how to package them, etc.

About Dr. Max Gerson

Dr. Max Gerson was born in Wongrowitz, Germany, in 1881. He attended the universities of Breslau, Wuerzburg, Berlin, and Freiburg, and graduated in 1909.

With Germany in the grip of Adolph Hitler's Nazi regime, Dr. Gerson left the country for Vienna in 1933. He also lived for a short time in France and England. Arriving in the United States in 1936, Dr. Gerson was licensed to practice in the state of New York in '38 and became a U.S. citizen in 1942.

In 1946, Dr. Gerson appeared before the Pepper-Neely Congressional Subcommittee, during hearings on a bill to fund cancer treatment research:

Case history of 10 cancer patients clinical observations theoretical considerations and summary

In 1958, after 30 years of clinical experimentation, Dr. Gerson published A Cancer Therapy: Results of 50 Cases to detail his theories, treatment, and results.

Dr. Gerson's research included soil issues, the electricity of cells, how cancer cells ferment glucose, oxidizing enzymes, sodium/potassium balance, connective tissue, and other technical issues related to cancer. His treatment and approach were a “whole body” approach.

He was focused on treating the liver. Several chapters of his book deal with various aspects of the organ. Dr. Gerson saw a parallel between the deterioration of the liver and the growth and progression of cancer. Because of his concern for liver problems, he did not favor fasting.

Dr. Gerson was also interested in the potassium group of minerals versus the sodium group. He favored the potassium group for treating cancer and his diet forbids adding salt to foods. The ratio of potassium to sodium was something he emphasized several times.

Howard Straus, the grandson of Dr. Gerson, chronicles the trailblazer’s life and development of his therapy in Dr. Max Gerson: Healing the Hopeless. The biography discusses the development of Dr. Gerson’s dietary therapy and the struggles he faced in challenging orthodox medicine with a nutritional protocol.

Even in the 1950s, Dr. Gerson was aware of the importance of organic foods. He felt that general farming practices left the plants — such as carrots — without enough nutrients, and that damage was done to foods by the way they were processed and packaged.

“Stay close to nature and her eternal laws will protect you.”

— Dr. Max Gerson

Dr. Gerson emigrated to the United States in 1936 and passed the medical board examination. Ten years later, he was front and center on Capitol Hill. Dr. Gerson appeared before the Subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the U.S. Senate.

He addressed the Pepper-Neely subcommittee on behalf of S. 1875, a bill ostentatiously set forth to “authorize and request the President to undertake to mobilize at some convenient place in the United States an adequate number of the world’s outstanding experts, and coordinate and utilize their services in a supreme endeavor to discover a means of curing and preventing cancer.”

Dr. Gerson began his testimony with a recap of his background and his credentials — a member of the AMA, Medical Society of New York State, and Medical Society of New York County — and then addressed his approach to treating patients.

“The dietetic treatment, which has for many years been known as the ‘Gerson diet,’ was developed first to relieve my own severe migraine condition,” Dr. Gerson said. “Then it was successfully applied to patients with allergic conditions such as asthma as well as diseases of the intestinal tract and the liver pancreas apparatus. By chance, a patient with lupus vulgaris [skin tuberculosis] was cured following the use of the diet. After this success, the dietetic treatment was used in all other kinds of tuberculosis — bones, kidneys, eyes, lungs, and so forth.”

Dr. Gerson added that his first cancer patient (bile ducts) was treated in 1928 with success. Seven favorable cases followed out of 12 and remained free of symptoms up to 7½ years.

During testimony Dr. Gerson noted that his diet protocol is condensed into three components:

• The elimination of toxins and poisons and returning of the displaced “extracellular” Na-group, connected with toxins, poisons, edema, destructive inflammation, from the tissues, tumors, and organs where it does not belong, into the serum and tissues where it belongs — gall bladder with bile ducts. connective tissue, thyroid, stomach mucosa, kidney medulla, tumors, and so forth.
• Bringing back the lost “intracellular” K-group combined with vitamins, enzymes, ferments, sugar, and so forth, into the tissues and organs where it belongs — liver, muscles. heart, brain, kidney cortex, and so forth. On this basis, iodine, ineffective before, is made effective, continuously added in new amounts.
• Restoring the differentiation, tonus, tension, oxidation, and so forth, by activated iodine, where there were before growing tumors and metastases with de-differentiation, loss of tension, oxidation, loss of resistance, and healing power.

“The great number of chronic diseases which responded to the dietetic treatment showed clearly that the human body lost part of its resistance and healing power, as He left the way of natural nutrition for generations,” Dr. Gerson surmised.

Dr. Max Gerson’s testimony to the Pepper-Neely Subcommittee

Today, the National Cancer Institute contends Gerson Therapy is “advocated by its supporters as a method of treating cancer patients based on changes in diet and nutrient intake. An organic vegetarian diet plus nutritional and biological supplements, pancreatic enzymes, and coffee or other types of enemas are the main features of the Gerson therapy. The regimen is intended to “detoxify” the body while building up the immune system and raising the level of potassium in cells.” [2]

The NCI also notes, “the regimen is empirically based on observations made by Max Gerson, M.D., in his clinical practice and on his knowledge of research in cell biology at the time (1930s–1950s). No results of laboratory or animal studies are reported in the scientific literature contained in the Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online database. Few clinical studies of the Gerson therapy are found in the medical literature.”

But that is only part of the story …

“I see in him one of the most eminent geniuses in the history of medicine.”

— Dr. Albert Schweitzer

Maybe it was a coincidence

While speaking to the Pepper-Neely subcommittee in 1946, Dr. Gerson contended, “The fundamental damage starts with the use of artificial fertilizer for vegetables and fruits as well as for fodder. Thus the chemically transformed vegetarian and meat nourishment, increasing through generations, transforms the organs and functions of the human body in the wrong direction.”

Conversely, Dr. Charles Thomas was named to Monsanto’s board of directors in 1942 and became a vice president the next year. By 1947 he was executive vice president. Dr. Thomas became president in 1950 and was named the chairman of the board in ‘60. He retired in 1970. It was this 30-year stretch of growth for Monsanto that laid the groundwork for today’s leading biotech behemoth.

• History of Monsanto: What’s past is prologue

Consider this: Between the pharmaceutical industry — buoyed by the Flexner Report and backed by the deep pockets of John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie — and the agri-biotech industry — led by Monsanto — it’s not hard to surmise Dr. Gerson’s opinions were stomping on some mighty big toes. He even wrote in A Cancer Therapy, “Our modern agriculture decreased potassium and iodine in our nutrition, precisely the minerals essential for prevention of cancer.”

During the 1920s, Raymond Gram Swing migrated to radio, a burgeoning platform for journalists. After covering the 1932 presidential election, he was offered a job at CBS. Swing turned down the job and it was given to Edward R. Murrow. During the early 1950s, the now-legendary Murrow hired Swing to write news copy for him.

When the Congressional Subcommittee concluded it’s work on July 2, 1946, Sen. Pepper recognized Raymond Gram Swing, “one of our distinguished radio commentators in this country.” Swing said, “I think this bill is one of the most encouraging expressions of intelligent democracy. I hope that it gets the full approval of Congress. It has an inspired work to do, and I want to say in particular that before I came here today I have seen some of the cancer patients of Dr. Gerson, and I believe that research along these lines is so necessary and so hopeful that I am delighted that you, Senator, have had the heart and the courage to bring the doctor here, and some of his patients; and I thank you for it.”

The next day, Swing addressed the Pepper-Neely hearing on his ABC radio broadcast:

“Let me first say that I well appreciate that one of the basic virtues of the modem medical profession is its conservatism. For without the most scrupulous conservatism in the statement and application of medical knowledge, there can be no confidence in the integrity of medical science. But for the very reason that the practice of medicine must be conservative, medical science must be bold and unceasingly challenging. Otherwise, medical science will not progress as it can and must, and will lose its integrity.

“A bill is before Congress, the Pepper-Neely bill, to appropriate a hundred million dollars for cancer research under Federal control. It proposes that the government go in for cancer research with something like the zeal and bigness with which it went for the release of atomic energy, turning the job over to the scientists with resources generous enough to solve the problem.

“This alone would make a good theme for a broadcast, just as an example of the use a great democracy can make of its intelligence and wealth. But the subject has been made peculiarly gripping by unprecedented happenings yesterday before the subcommittee which is holding hearings on this bill, and of which Senator Pepper is chairman.

“He invited as a witness a refugee scientist, now a resident of New York, Dr. Max Gerson, and Dr. Gerson placed on the stand, in quick succession, five patients. They were chosen to represent the principle prevailing types of cancer, and in each instance, they showed that the Gerson treatment had demonstrated what is conservatively called ‘favorable effect on the course of the disease.’ That in itself is remarkable, but it is all the more so because Dr. Gerson’s treatment consists mainly of a diet which he has evolved after a lifetime of research and experimentation. To say that Dr. Gerson has been curing cancer by a dietary treatment is medically impermissible, for the reason that there must be five years without [a] recurrence before such a statement is allowed. Dr. Gerson has cured tuberculosis and other illnesses with his diet, but he has only been working on cancer for four and a half years.

“Let me say right away that I am not discussing this Gerson diet as a cancer cure-all. It has produced remarkable results. It also has the failures in its records, which anything as yet unperfected is bound to show. It is not something that offers release from the most rigorous and conservative medical observance in its acceptance and application. Whenever something new and promising comes up in medicine, the temptation of the outsider and even some physicians is to run to glowing superlatives and expect too much from it. But anything that offers even a possibility of treating successfully at least some of the four hundred thousand existing cancer cases in this country is stirring news, no matter how conservatively it is formulated.

“There would be no Pepper-Neely bill to appropriate a hundred million dollars for cancer research if the existing research were coping with the need.”

Less than two weeks later, Swing was out of a job. Politics — not the kind on Capitol Hill but the even seedier corporate greed of pay-for-play politics — were his undoing.

According to Dr. Gerson’s daughter, Charlotte, “The executive directors of pharmaceutical companies producing cytotoxic agents for cancer treatment — members of the PMA [Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association] — threatened to cancel all radio advertising contracts for their drugs sold over the counter, an annual loss in revenue for ABC amounting to tens of millions of dollars.” [3]

It begs the question: What happened to the Senate’s 277-page Pepper-Neely anticancer bill of 1946 (Document No. 89471)? Augustus E. Giegengack, the Public Printer as head of the then-Government Printing Office, boxed up and stored the paperwork. No copies of the report were distributed to the press. Few medical journals have even attempted to follow up on Dr. Gerson’s testimony. Document No. 89471 now resides in the bowels of the Government Publishing Office with little hope of seeing the light of day.

Dr. Gerson died on March 8, 1959. “My father, aged 78, was in perfectly good health when, from one day to the next, he felt awful. They tested his blood and found a high level of arsenic,” Charlotte Gerson said. The family did not notify the police. “We had our suspicions,” she said, “but knew from experience that justice would not be done.”

“While writing the story of Gerson, I couldn’t help feeling it was too shocking to believe.”

— S.J. Haught

Like father, like daughter

When Dr. Gerson died in 1959, Charlotte vowed his work would not die with him. She has continued Dr. Gerson’s work through the Gerson Clinic in Mexico and the Gerson Health Centre in Hungary. In 1977 she founded the Gerson Institute with Norman Fritz, president of the Cancer Control Society. The Gerson Institute established treatment centers and trained holistic physicians, nurses, and kitchen help in the facets of Dr. Gerson’s treatment.

Dr. Gerson’s research showed that degenerative and chronic diseases are caused by toxicity and nutritional deficiency. Toxicity is accumulated from the pollution in the food, water, air and numerous chemical substances absorbed from your environment. Deficiency is the result of a diet that consists of artificially raised, chemically treated, processed and flavored foods. After a lifetime of chemical accumulation and low nutritional support, your body’s defenses break down and the result is the manifestation of “chronic” disease.

According to the Gerson Institute, toxicity results from the “better living through chemistry” philosophy of our modern world, where …

• Bug killer, weed killer, and chemical fertilizers are sprayed onto the plants we eat.
• Pollution is pumped into the air we breathe.
• Chemicals of all kinds are dumped into our oceans, lakes and water supplies.
• People are fed hazardous Fluoride waste under the pretense of being good for their teeth.
• Farm animals are given growth hormones so they produce a greater profit and antibiotics so they can survive their harsh lives.
• Pre-made Industrial foods are filled with chemicals that enhance taste so that you will buy more and turn off the “I’m full” switch in your brain so that you will eat more.
• Preserve and extend shelf life so their “merchandise” will survive longer on the shelf.
• Drugs are given for every ill, pain and strain.
• Soaps, shampoos, deodorants and almost all personal hygiene and cosmetic products contain degreasers, alcohols, parabens, fragrances, stabilizers, solvents and numerous other chemicals.

Nutritional deficiency comes from eating nutritionally depleted, genetically engineered, pesticide laden, salted and sugared foods, loaded with preservatives, dyes, artificial flavors, sweeteners, and thousands of chemicals.

The process of restoring your natural defenses and rebooting your immune system is simple:

• Drink flavorful organic juices throughout each day. The prescribed Gerson juices, made from organic fruits and vegetables, bathe your 100 trillion living cells in a constant stream of health-giving vitamins, minerals, nutrients, and enzymes.
• Follow an organic plant-based diet, with lots of raw and cooked foods. This floods your body with more vitamins, minerals, nutrients along with the critical health promoting enzymes necessary to repair your body.
• Detoxify your body at the cellular level using a powerful natural process that flushes chemicals and toxins from the liver.
• Prevent depletion of your organs and interruption of critical biological processes by eliminating industrial foods with chemicals, preservatives, dyes and additives, animal protein, alcohol, smoking, drugs, sugars, salts, fats, oils, dairy products, fluoride, chlorine.
• Eliminate further poisoning of your body by removing the sources of chemicals and toxins in your environment such as household cleaners, fabric softeners, non-organic soaps and shampoos, perfumes and deodorants, and air fresheners.

One of the claimed benefits of the Gerson Therapy is its rapid elevation of the pH, or alkalinity, of the body. Cancer is theorized to not survive an alkaline environment, and the proteolytic (protein-digesting) pancreatic enzymes that normally keep cancer in check are reactivated in an alkaline environment. Additionally, the red blood cells that supply every one of our cells lose their ability to carry oxygen at low pH (acidic) values. When the vegan diet raises the pH of the blood stream, disease processes become disabled while the body’s immune system, deactivated by an acidic environment, begins to become active again, attacking the disease-causing organisms. [4]

In April 2007, Alex Molassiotis, Ph.D., of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, wrote, “A considerable number of patients with cancer have used or are using the Gerson Therapy, an alleged anticancer metabolic diet. However, there is almost no scientific support for this regimen. Hence, the present case review study of six patients with metastatic cancer who used the Gerson Therapy aims at critically evaluating each case to derive some valid interpretations of its potential effect.

“All six cases had a cancer diagnosis with poor prognosis. Despite the presence of some confounding variables, it seems that the Gerson regimen has supported patients to some extent both physically and psychologically. More scientific attention needs to be directed to this area so that patients can practice safe and appropriate therapies that are based on evidence rather than anecdotes.

“Although the effectiveness of the Gerson regimen has not been rigorously proved, equally it has not been disproved either. … A definitive trial on the efficacy of the Gerson regimen is long overdue. Information from such a trial would be of great value as it would assist patients to make informed decisions, protect their safety, and add to the patients’ choices in improving their survival chances and quality of life in their fight against cancer.”

Surviving against all odds: Analysis of 6 case studies of patients with cancer who followed the Gerson Therapy

The National Cancer Institute notes that in 1990, a study of a diet regimen similar to the Gerson Therapy was done in Austria. The patients received standard treatment along with the special diet. The authors of the study reported that the diet appeared to help patients live longer than usual and have fewer side effects. The authors said it needed further study. In 1995, the Gerson Research Organization did a retrospective study of their melanoma patients who were treated with the Gerson Therapy. The study reported that patients who had Stage III or Stage IV melanoma lived longer than usual for patients with these stages of melanoma.

And yet, there have been no clinical trials that support the findings of these studies. Clearly, this begs the question: Why? The short answer: Drug companies are not interested in medicines that cannot be patented — and nature cannot be patented.

However, there have been curricular suggestions for U.S. medical schools, including:

• Teach holistically — Students should be required to take courses in nutrition, exercise, stress management, and sleep hygiene.
• Test for nutritional knowledge — Med schools should consider competency examinations that cover factual knowledge and students’ ability to give sound advice on nutrition and wellness. These classes can operate as prerequisites for professional certification.
• Use teaching kitchens as laboratories — Can combining anatomy with culinary lessons actually teach students about the dietary impact of foods? This question has been the impetus for medical schools across the country that are taking students from the classroom to the kitchen for a taste of experiential learning.

If they get busy now, they only have about a century of work to catch up on Dr. Gerson …

“They have more money, they lobbied more, and got the law passed in their favor.”

— Dr. Richard Schulze

To Gerson or not to Gerson

What are the Gerson Therapy merits? Keeping in mind that choosing a dietary and lifestyle protocol is highly specific to your situation, the Gerson Therapy may — or may not! — be right for you.

From the time you are diagnosed with cancer, you have a myriad of options. Your oncologist will explore these with you, and you may seek a natural-minded physician on top of that counsel. The location of cancer and stage will influence treatment options no matter who you go to. Other lifestyle factors like accessibility to natural healthcare professionals, budget, and how much assistance you’ll have will play into it as well.

Background also factors into your cancer treatment options. Certain things, like stopping smokeless tobacco when you have mouth cancer, are obvious. But it can go further than that. If you’ve got stomach cancer, dietary needs may be different than that for bone cancer.

As you learn about and weigh protocol options, Gerson included, know that your options are not limited to your neighbor’s or friend’s options. Consider the evidence for and against it, and weigh what will be best for your situation.

Dr. Gerson developed his protocol on the premise that nutrient deficiency and toxic overload combined to create chronic and severe diseases, cancer included. These factors have only increased through the years, with both toxin exposure and cancer increasing in prevalence substantially since he began his studies.

In response, the Gerson protocol begins by completely eliminating sodium — a nutrient we have consumed in excess for years in processed, packaged, and canned foods — and bombards the body with organic fruits and vegetables, usually juiced, to the tune of 15-20 pounds every day. Supplements also are added.

Toxicity is a bit more challenging, as environmental pollutants are essentially impossible to completely eliminate. Rather than relying on avoidance only, Dr. Gerson hypothesized that the liver — our body’s main detoxification organ — could be supported. His method utilizes a coffee enema, intended to stimulate the liver to expel toxins into the intestines and feces to be eliminated.

Little has changed in the Gerson protocol through the years, with practitioners and patients claiming great success in strict adherence. This, of course, requires a great deal of support from those around the patient, as well as a financial commitment. As with any protocol, it is intended to be observed without modifications or combination with another dietary regimen.

With more than 50 years of application, Gerson’s website claims successful treatment of more than 50 severe illnesses. Dr. Gerson was not comfortable implementing his remedy until he had some solid experiential evidence, so their long track record of success has buoyed Gerson practitioners.

Formal evidence, however, is not as clear. A 2010 review in Oncology details the Gerson protocol, notes claims of 70-90 percent success rates, but also notes that formal case reviews have found little to no scientific basis for Gerson therapy success. One of the studies reviewed had analyzed patients with pancreatic cancer. Some chose a protocol very similar to Gerson, and some chose chemotherapy — with chemotherapy patients actually faring better. [5]

The commitment involved in adherence to the Gerson protocol is intense — but most alternate remedies will be difficult. If you choose to amend your diet and supplements to pursue Dr. Gerson’s remedy, be sure you have a strong network of support around you, preferably with a trained holistic cancer practitioner. They can help you monitor your progress, keep you accountable, and advise you along the way.

Cancer protocol is as varied as the individuals they treat, and this could be the remedy that you need while your neighbor or friend needs something else. Working with a holistic professional can help you determine the path that’s right for you.

The post The Gerson Therapy for Cancer appeared first on Cancer Tutor.

In 1891, Coley injected streptococcal organisms into a patient with inoperable cancer. Coley, a bone sarcoma surgeon, thought that the infection he produced would have the side effect of shrinking the malignant tumor. He was successful — and this was one of the first examples of immunotherapy.

During the next 40 years, as head of the Bone Tumor Service at Memorial Hospital in New York, Coley injected more than 1,000 cancer patients with bacteria or bacterial products. These products became known as Coley's Toxins. He and other doctors who used them reported excellent results, especially in bone and soft-tissue sarcomas.

Despite his reported good results, Coley's Toxins came under a great deal of criticism; many doctors did not believe his results. This criticism, along with the development of radiation therapy and chemotherapy, caused Coley's Toxins to gradually disappear from use.

“Those who have scrutinized Coley’s results have little doubt that these bacterial toxins were highly effective in some cases,” said Dr. Lloyd J. Old, former associate director of Memorial Sloan Kettering, and also the Cancer Research Institute’s medical director from 1971-2011.

However, the modern science of immunology has shown that Coley's principles were correct and that some cancers are sensitive to an enhanced immune system.

In 2014, scientists injected innocuous strains of C. novyi bacteria into 16 dogs who had soft-tissue sarcomas and even one person with a rare type of cancer. The bacteria shrank the size of the tumors; in a few of the animals, the tumors completely disappeared. [1]

In 2015, scientists modified a strain of salmonella to attack tumors in mice. [2]

Not only is Coley known as the “Father of Immunotherapy,” he also became the model for the present-day clinician-scientist. Born in 1862, Coley went to Yale and graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1888.

“Those who have scrutinized Coley’s results have little doubt that these bacterial toxins were highly effective in some cases.”

Dr. Lloyd J. Old

Memorial Sloan Kettering

He was dismissed by the scientific community because his methods of treatment and patient follow-up were not consistent, and many colleagues could not believe his good results. Again, in light of recent discoveries in immunology, some of his observations were correct — and his theories may have much to offer today.

Now, 126 years after Coley's Toxins made its mark, scientists are using salmonella in immunotherapy research. A study, Two-step enhanced cancer immunotherapy with engineered Salmonella typhimurium secreting heterologous flagellin, was published in Science Translational Medicine, in which mice were injected with a strain of engineered salmonella that infiltrated the tumors. [3]

Salmonella thrives in environments with no oxygen, and tumors have no oxygen and a lot of dead cells the bacteria can feed on. The tumor is “a very favorable home for salmonella,” said Roy Curtiss III, a professor at the University of Florida’s College of Veterinary Medicine, who also has studied the use of salmonella as a cancer therapy. “It’s a good food supply.”

The tumor is “a very favorable home for salmonella,” Roy Curtiss III, a professor at the University of Florida’s College of Veterinary Medicine, told The Verge. Curtiss also has studied the use of salmonella as a cancer therapy. “It’s a good food supply.”

“It shows that what was done 120 years ago with Coley’s Toxins deserves to be revisited again today, using bacteria as an adjuvant to stimulate the immune system to fight cancer,” Saha said. “I think it’s a very important modality, and one that we should continue pressing forward on to learn more about.”

The post Coley’s Toxins returning to forefront of immunotherapy appeared first on Cancer Tutor.

Finding your passion is a seminal moment in life. Webster Kehr found his passion in the early 2000s — and parlayed it into the Internet's leading website for natural cancer treatments and prevention.

“More than a decade ago I was working for the U.S. Army, in Fort Leavenworth. I was assigned to go to Germany and before I could go to Germany I had to have a physical exam.”

Kehr was diagnosed with hypertension, he was prescribed drugs, and he did not like the side effects. This led Kehr to research for natural treatments for hypertension.

“The average person on the street thinks that cancer is incurable because it’s caused by DNA damage. They have no clue what the truth is.”

Webster Kehr

Founder, CancerTutor.com

“I would also see websites about natural treatments for cancer. Some of the websites said natural treatments for cancer were very effective and other websites said it was all quackery, you need to avoid it.”

Spurred by a desire to learn as much as possible about the ongoing cancer treatment debate, Kehr launched cancertutor.com in 2003. He also founded the Independent Cancer Research Foundation.

“If a person knew the real cause of cancer — that microbes inside the cell cause low adenosine triphosphate [ATP] — they could say, ‘OK, how do I kill those microbes inside the cancer cells?' ” Kehr surmised. “The average person on the street thinks that cancer is incurable because it's caused by DNA damage.

“They have no clue what the truth is. They have been fed lies all their lives. They believe it, of course. Anybody would believe something they are told 100 times a month.

“Except for really advanced cases where they were diagnosed very late,” Kehr added, “cancer is fairly easy to control and take care of.”

Kehr, who retired in December 2015, remains passionate that research has proven what causes cancer — and remains committed to pushing forward with fact-based science.

Otto Warburg was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1931. His research at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute led to the discovery that the flavins and the nicotinamide were the active groups of the hydrogen transferring enzymes. This, together with the iron-oxygenase discovered earlier, gave a complete account of the oxidations and reductions in the living world.

The discovery opened up new ways in the fields of cellular metabolism and cellular respiration. He showed, among other things, that cancerous cells can live and develop, even in the absence of oxygen.

“[Warburg] determined the definition of a cancer cell is one with low adenosine triphosphate,” Kehr said. “Every cell in your body creates an enormous amount of ATP every second; the ATP is the energy of the cell.

“The definition of a cancer cell is that something is blocking the creation of ATP energy in the cell.”

There are those in orthodox medicine who contend DNA damage is the cause of cancer. “They have no interest in curing cancer,” Kehr noted. “Any cell biologist who thinks DNA damage can block the production of adenosine triphosphate should change careers.”

After more than a decade researching natural cancer treatments, Kehr said that if he were diagnosed with cancer, “Literally, I would laugh.”

“The Independent Cancer Research Foundation Reference Manual has hundreds of things that kill cancer cells, kill the microbes inside the cancer cells, a list of things to build the immune system.

“The reason I don't fear cancer is that natural medicine can be unlimited in power.”

The post Kehr’s curiosity launched natural medicine benchmark appeared first on Cancer Tutor.

1. Abraham Flexner was not a doctor, but a school teacher and educational theorist from Louisville, Kentucky. In 1910 he published the Medical Education in the United States and Canada, known as the Flexner Report, which elevated the importance of German educational methods in the teaching of medicine.

2. There is a connection between the robber barons and medicine. John Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and others saw this as a progression of peddling pharmaceuticals, which began as byproducts of oil refinement.

3. There were no real effective governmental agencies in place monitoring the state of affairs within the medical community, so what Flexner did at the behest of the robber barons, he did so in favor of profits rather than the long-term care of patients. He effectively created a culture that enabled the monetization of medicine.

4. Drugs are created to treat symptoms and only rarely treat the actual cause. Plus, drugs create their own symptoms, sometimes requiring additional drugs to offset their ill effects. We live in a quick-fix culture where we crave immediate gratification.

5. For the most part, medicine has become tone deaf to the oath it claims to uphold — the Hippocratic oath. We believe Flexner paved the way for this overthrow of whole-body health by making scientific research and training alone the only desirable and credible approach to human wellness.

If you’ve ever wondered how modern-day medicine got to where it is today, you should begin by learning about Abraham Flexner. He’s probably one of the most influential men no one has ever heard of.

In 1910 he published the book-length report Medical Education in the United States and Canada which is now known as the Flexner Report. And, the rest, as they say, is history.

Abraham Flexner was not a doctor, but this school teacher and educational theorist from Louisville, Kentucky, has had a more significant impact on modern medicine than just about anyone else.

Though institutions such as Johns Hopkins were already implementing “modern principles” into their work, most medical schools had yet to subscribe to these paradigms.

So what Flexner did was to attempt to align medical education under a set of norms that emphasized laboratory research and the patenting of medicine — both of which would serve to further enrich the estates of the entrepreneurs who funded Flexner’s 1910 report: John Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and others.

Sounds like a win-win, right? … Well, not exactly.

In fact, chances are that if Flexner had not submitted his report that audited medical schools in the United States and Canada, we would not have a society heavily biased in favor of many inhumane and unnatural medical practices that we have today.

Should there have been more accountability for medical practitioners in North America? Probably. Should that accountability come from the oil industry and others who saw the domination of medicine as another way to amass wealth? That seems to be a conflict of interest, to put it mildly.

Dr. Thomas P. Duffy in the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine offered this analysis of Flexner’s approach:

“There was maldevelopment in the structure of medical education in America in the aftermath of the Flexner Report. The profession’s infatuation with the hyper-rational world of German medicine created an excellence in science that was not balanced by a comparable excellence in clinical caring. Flexner’s corpus was all nerves without the life blood of caring. Osler’s warning that the ideals of medicine would change as ‘teacher and student chased each other down the fascinating road of research, forgetful of those wider interests to which a hospital must minister' has proven prescient and wise.”

But isn’t this sort of what you’d expect when an evil genius — all intellect, no compassion — like Rockefeller determines the future of medical education and care?

Of course, it's not just the research that modern medicine is after. While notoriety for the latest “breakthroughs” certainly drives most medicine, money is the ultimate determiner of access and availability of treatments.

And getting back to the connection between the robber barons and medicine, why did Rockefeller et al have such an interest in medical education? One possible reason could’ve been their interest in peddling pharmaceuticals that began as byproducts of oil refinement.

Health journalist S.D. Wells notes in the eBook 25 Amazing (and Disturbing) Facts About the Hidden History of Medicine, “Five score and two years ago, a man named Abraham Flexner was hired by John D. Rockefeller to evaluate the effectiveness of therapies being taught by medical colleges and institutions, with the ultimate goal of dominating control over pharmaceuticals.

“With partnerships including Andrew Carnegie and JP Morgan, a new “doorkeeper” would exist to influence legislative bodies on state and federal levels to create regulations and licensing “red tape” that strictly promoted drug medicine while stifling and shutting down alternative, inexpensive natural remedies. Those medical colleges and institutions that did not submit to this superpower of regulation were crushed and put out of business.

“The Flexner report was conveniently titled Medical Education in the United States and Canada and the 22 page control ‘mechanism' was more or less a teamsters union, and medical schools in the U.S. were cut in half by the Flexner Report in less than 15 years, from 160 to 80, and then down below 70 by World War II. This concentrated control is the direct cause of the majority of problems with health care today.”

Flexner elevated the importance of medical research to a status of near infallibility as he helped import and institute German educational methods in the teaching of medicine.

This brought many needed improvements to medical students’ practical field experience through hands-on learning, but it also built in a strong bias in favor of empirical science (i.e. pharmaceutical drugs) to the exclusion of whole-patient care or any of the more natural treatment options.

Sound familiar? Have you ever experienced this in your journey of medical care? A doctor who threw you a bottle of science while only skimming the surface of your overall health?

Flexner helped pave the way for a medical monopoly that persists to this day. Modern medicine has become such a systemic force that none of this is really shocking to you, right? Of course, drugs are patented. Of course, they’re expensive and controlled by a select group of companies and government agencies. Of course, we can’t use plants as medicine. That’s quackery!

“So the stage was set for the ‘education' of the American public, with a view to turning it into a population of drug and medico dependents …”

Hans Ruesch

Addressing John D. Rockefeller's end-goal

What is the Flexner Report?

Turn of the century technology such as the automobile and the airplane were capturing the imaginations of Americans and respect was growing for specialists in every field. In this frenzy for the latest and greatest, the door was wide open for how new technology might improve our lives in every way. So why not also give our health over to science and technology and see if they can also improve and lengthen our lives?

This proverbial search for the fountain of youth that seems to emerge in different ways in every generation appeared in the form of medical advances in the early 1900s. So when educational theorist and celebrity Abraham Flexner caught the attention of American aristocracy, who saw advances in education as a way to build their empire, they (Rockefeller, Carnegie, et al.) approached Flexner.

“Rockefeller’s goal was to dominate the oil, chemical, and pharmaceutical markets, so his company [Standard Oil of New Jersey] purchased a controlling interest in a huge German drug/chemical company called I.G. Farben,” Ty Bollinger said.

Hans Ruesch also drew the connection between this and the need for an educational component, “So the stage was set for the ‘education' of the American public, with a view to turning it into a population of drug and medico dependents, with the early help of the parents and the schools, then with direct advertising and, last but not least, the influence the advertising revenues had on the media-makers.

It makes sense that if you’re going to make products that alleviate symptoms, but that are potentially dangerous and that could create dependency, then you should create professionals who can help mitigate some of the life-threatening effects while also extolling the benefits.

Obviously, there are plenty of highly trained doctors who aren’t interested in helping fuel the pharmaceutical propaganda machine, but there’s a system in place that virtually ensures that we take the bait.

Is Cancer Tutor anti-science?

Cancer Tutor is not an anti-science / anti-medicine website. One of our roles though is to challenge assumptions and the status quo. Just because a lot of really smart people have done the same things for decades doesn’t mean they’re doing the right things.

Galileo would agree with us on this.

And speaking of assumptions, we make a few of our own. We assume that the body has an amazing capacity to heal itself if given a chance. And we assume that the deification of modern medicine and the quick-fix addiction of western culture have taken our health out of our own hands and put it in the hands of a money-hungry system that cannot make a profit if people aren’t sick.

While this system has done many good things, we believe we have given it too much power. It is a system that is, for the most part, blind to its own sins and shortcomings.There are many good doctors and other medical professionals who seek to do their best for their patients and who know and seek to challenge the status quo.

But for the most part, medicine has become tone deaf to the oath it claims to uphold — the Hippocratic oath. We believe Flexner paved the way for this overthrow of whole-body health by making scientific research and training alone the only desirable and credible approach to human wellness.

Much like Galileo’s critics, the medical industry has, in a lot of ways, created a list of heretics that they’d like to get rid of. Natural medicine practitioners would be on that list.

How did we let this happen?

Keep in mind there were no real effective governmental agencies in place monitoring the state of affairs within the medical community, so what Flexner did at the behest of the robber barons, he did so in favor of profits rather than the long-term care of patients. He effectively created a culture that enabled the monetization of medicine like never before. This might not have been his intent, but the outcome speaks for itself.

Flexner threw out the baby with the snake oil. And while some good came out of the Flexner Report, what really came out was a new as-of-yet untapped way to turn a profit through medical science without the competition of medical professionals outside the fold. In short, the Flexner Report enabled a monopoly on healthcare.

Medical professionals who leaned heavily toward natural healing posed the greatest threat to this standardization because they continued to demonstrate that nature has provided what’s necessary to treat or prevent just about any illness.

After all, you can’t patent a plant or an essential oil, but you can patent a lab-created molecule that strongly resembles that of the plants. If profits are what you’re after and it all seems rather harmless, why not make some money while you’re making people well.

But here’s one problem with that. Drugs, on the whole (there certainly are exceptions), don’t really make people well. Pharmaceutical success is not based on the effectiveness of the drug. It’s based on the amount of profit it can generate. That’s what “blockbuster” in “blockbuster drug” means.

Drugs do a masterful job of making us feel well, and often pretty quickly. But only temporarily, because drugs are created to treat symptoms and only rarely treat the actual cause. Plus, drugs create their own symptoms, sometimes requiring additional drugs to offset their ill effects. We live in a quick-fix culture where we crave immediate gratification. We certainly have more drive-thru restaurants than we have home gardens.

And let’s be honest. If we’re given a choice between life changes that would solve root causes or take drugs that can make us believe that our health is under control, our convenience-craving minds will choose drugs almost every time.

But all convenience comes at a cost and with a long-term loss.

Question: When was the last time a doctor encouraged you to forego a medication in favor of a significant lifestyle adjustment?

The truth is, doctors are humans, too, and they’re working under the same pressures and status quo seeded by the development of the Flexner Report — thus the need for this examination. The problem with our thinking is systemic and nearly impossible to pinpoint, but if we could start challenging our assumptions we could get somewhere.

And we firmly believe that the origin of all of our assumptions about how the medical industry should operate can be encapsulated in works like the Flexner Report and their ilk.

Our perspective

First of all, we would never tell you to take our advice over that of a medical professional. Our role in this conversation is to question assumptions, challenge the status quo and encourage curiosity.

A lot of knowledge has been suppressed in favor of lab-based synthetic treatments and quick fixes. What the Flexner Report did is not nearly as powerful as what we do every day when we choose a poor lifestyle.

A vital life will not come from solely from pushing against conventional medicine. True vitality comes as a result of your decisions right now to detoxify your life. Food and the natural world around you can be medicine; proper nutrition can heal the causes, rather than merely treating the symptoms of poor health and a lifetime of abuse.

The post How the Flexner Report hijacked natural medicine appeared first on Cancer Tutor.

Named after Queeny's wife, Olga Mendez Monsanto, the company eventually expanded to other products such as caffeine and aspirin, as well as synthetic rubbers and fibers.

Sports fans are familiar with the most popular synthetic fiber use — AstroTurf, patented by Monsanto in 1965 and originally sold under the name “ChemGrass.” It was re-branded after it was installed as the playing field at the Houston Astrodome in 1966.

Now, Monsanto is one of the “Big 6” biotech corporations — along with BASF, Bayer, Dow Chemical, Dupont, and Syngenta. They dominate the world's seed, pesticide, and biotechnology industries.

Monsanto is the mother of agricultural biotechnology. The company produces biotechnology, genomics, and herbicides for corn, cotton, oil seeds, and vegetables. It also produces genetically-altered seeds to tolerate it's most notable product, Roundup. Other products manufactured under the Monsanto umbrella have included:

• Agent Orange — The U.S. military sprayed millions of gallons of Agent Orange — a mixture of two herbicides (2,4-D and 2,4,5-T) — and other herbicides on trees and vegetation during the Vietnam War. From 1965 to 1969, Monsanto Company was one of nine wartime government contractors that manufactured Agent Orange. Decades later, concerns about the health effects from these chemicals continue.
• Polychlorinated biphenyls — PCBs are manufactured organic chemicals that contain 209 individual chlorinated chemicals (known as congeners). There are no known natural sources of PCBs. Some commercial PCB mixtures are known by their industrial trade name, Aroclor. The manufacturing of PCBs stopped in the U.S. in 1977 because of evidence that they build up in the environment and cause harmful health effects
• Dichloro Diphenyl Trichloroethane — DDT was developed in the 1940s as the first of the modern synthetic insecticides. It was initially used to combat malaria, typhus, and the other insect-borne human diseases. It also was effective for insect control in crop and livestock production, institutions, homes, and gardens.
• Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone — In order to increase milk production, Monsanto developed genetically engineered rBGH. The FDA approved the synthetic hormone use in 1993, and today about a third of U.S. dairy cows are injected with rBGH, which boosts milk production by about 10 percent. The World Health Organization, the FDA and numerous medical associations believe milk from rBGH-treated cows is safe — but many nations have banned rBGH, including all 25 European Union nations, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.
• Aspartame — FDA approved aspartame in 1981 for uses, under certain conditions, as a tabletop sweetener, in chewing gum, cold breakfast cereals, and dry bases for certain foods. In 1983, the FDA approved the use of aspartame in carbonated beverages and carbonated beverage syrup bases, and in 1996, it was OK'd for use as a “general purpose sweetener.” A study in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, which treated six groups of mice with aspartame from before their birth until their deaths, found that this toxic artificial sweetener induces cancers of the liver and lungs in male mice.

In 1926, Dr. Charles Thomas and an associate, Dr. Carroll A. Hochwalt, formed an independent laboratory in Dayton, Ohio. The laboratory did wide-ranging research, from developing a synthetic rubber to devising smoked salt for the curing of hams and bacon, and attracted attention for its creativity.

One of those who took notice was Queeny's son Edgar, the president Monsanto with a reputation for snatching up companies (and their talent). Monsanto bought Thomas and Hochwalt Laboratories, and not long after Dr. Thomas was drawn into wartime research. By 1940 he had developed a synthetic resin that was supplied to the British to sabotage their gasoline supplies if the Germans mounted a successful invasion.

In 1943, the Manhattan Engineer District tasked Dr. Thomas (and Monsanto) with separating and purifying the radioactive element Polonium, which was to be used as the initiator for the atomic bombs. (Yes, Monsanto was a key player in the Manhattan Project, which ushered in the nuclear age.)

Dr. Thomas was named to Monsanto's board of directors in 1942 and became a vice president the next year. By 1947 he was executive vice president. Dr. Thomas became president in 1950 and was named the chairman of the board in '60. He retired in 1970. It was this 30-year stretch of growth for Monsanto that laid the groundwork for today's leading biotech behemoth.

During the time Thomas and Hochwalt Laboratories began making a name for itself, a farmer in Arkansas was actively promoting soybeans to growers. Jacob Hartz and Alfred Ralph Thorell formed Hartz-Thorell Supply Co., a McCormick-Deering dealership, in 1925.

Hartz founded Jacob Hartz Seed Co. as a division of Hartz-Thorell Supply Co. In 1927, Hartz-Thorell owned the first seed cleaner in Arkansas, and in 1936, the company built its first seed processing plant. The Hartz-Thorell partnership dissolved in 1942, and Hartz became president of Jacob Hartz Seed Co. Forty years later, it would be a key acquisition for a burgeoning biotech company.

Monsanto launched its Agricultural Division in 1960. Ramrod, a herbicide that inhibits cell division, was released in 1964, followed by Lasso in '68, and Roundup in 1976.

‘Probably carcinogenic to humans'

While Monsanto was promoting it game-changing biochemical products, it was hiding a life-changing secret.

From The Sun Sentinel on Jan. 6, 2002:

In 1966, Monsanto managers discovered that fish submerged in that creek turned belly-up within 10 seconds, spurting blood and shedding skin as if dunked into boiling water. They told no one. In 1969, they found fish in another creek with 7,500 times the legal PCB levels. They decided “there is little object in going to expensive extremes in limiting discharges.” In 1975, a company study found that PCBs caused tumors in rats. They ordered its conclusion changed from “slightly tumorigenic” to “does not appear to be carcinogenic.”

Monsanto enjoyed a lucrative four-decade monopoly on PCB production in the United States, and battled to protect that monopoly long after PCBs were confirmed as a global pollutant. “We can't afford to lose one dollar of business,” one internal memo concluded.

In the trial of Owens v. Monsanto on April 4, 2001, the company's lawyers acknowledged only one health threat posed by exposure to PCBs: chloracne, a serious skin condition. However, a 1996 study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found that “occupational studies show some increases in cancer mortality in workers exposed to PCBs” and “significant excess mortality from cancer of the liver, gall bladder, and biliary tract in capacitor manufacturing workers exposed to Aroclors 1254, 1242, and 1016.”

The study noted, “Based on these findings, some commercial PCB mixtures have been characterized as probably carcinogenic to humans.”

In 2003, more than 20,000 plaintiffs in federal and state trials reached a $700 million settlement to resolve all outstanding Anniston, Ala., PCB litigation. The agreement included $600 million in cash payments. Costs for cleanup, prescription drug, and other programs put the total past $700 million. Monsanto agreed to pay $390 million, while Solutia was to pay $50 million over 10 years in equal annual installments. The remaining $160 million would be provided through Monsanto's, Solutia's and Pharmacia Corporation's commercial insurance.

The jury found that “Monsanto had engaged in outrageous behavior, and held the corporations and its corporate successors liable on all six counts it considered — including negligence, nuisance, wantonness and suppression of the truth.”

Solutia, which was formed as a divestiture of Monsanto, filed for bankruptcy on Dec. 17, 2003, citing litigation, unsustainable debt structure, and a downturn in the economy. Solutia emerged from bankruptcy on February 2008 and was bought by Eastman Chemical Company in 2012 for $4.8 billion.

Today, Monsanto makes note that it is focused on agriculture, distancing itself from its sordid past in the chemical business. However, it remains indemnified with Pharmacia and Solutia.

‘A product of human ingenuity'

Diamond v. Chakrabarty was a U.S. Supreme Court case in 1980 that dealt with whether genetically modified organisms can be patented. It was genetic engineer Ananda Chakrabarty's “product of human ingenuity” that ultimately set in motion a collision course between GMOs and Monsanto.

Chakrabarty, while working for General Electric, filed a patent for a genetically modified bacterium capable of breaking down multiple components of crude oil. However, the application was rejected; under patent law at that time, living things were generally understood to not be patentable under Section 101 of Title 35 U.S.C.

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Chakrabarty, holding that “A live, human-made micro-organism is patentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Respondent's micro-organism constitutes a ‘manufacture' or ‘composition of matter' within that statute.” Chief Justice Warren Burger judged that Chakrabarty's “micro-organism plainly qualifies as patentable subject matter. His claim is … to a non-naturally occurring manufacture or composition of matter — a product of human ingenuity.”

“Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA’s job.”

Phil Angell

Former dir. of corporate communications

In 1982, the Jacob Hartz Seed Co. was acquired by Monsanto, and its scientists became the first to genetically modify a plant cell. Five years later, Monsanto conducted the first U.S. field trials of plants with biotechnology traits.

Monsanto bought the plant biotechnology assets of Agracetus in 1996 and purchased biotech research company Calgene a year later. Calgene had put the first consumer GMO fruit on grocery shelves in 1994 — the Flavr Savr, a delayed-ripening tomato that had a longer shelf life than conventional tomatoes.

Continuing to push its biotech agribusiness, Monsanto also introduced Roundup Ready Soybeans in 1996, a bioengineered seed that provided farmers with in-seed herbicide tolerance to Roundup and other glyphosate-based herbicides. Roundup Ready Canola and Roundup Ready Cotton hit the market the next year.

While GMOs were becoming part of the agricultural vernacular in the late 1990s, Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications in 1998, famously declared: ”Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA's job.”

About Monsanto and the FDA …

Jeffrey Smith, the author of Seeds of Deception and Genetic Roulette, has documented the health risks of GMOs. His Institute for Responsible Technology launched a campaign for healthier eating, designed to achieve the tipping point of consumer rejection of GMOs to force them out of the food supply.

The IRT went nose to nose with Monsanto over Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH), and produced the documentary Your Milk on Drugs — Just Say No! Among the information uncovered:

• An FDA scientist who demanded more safety studies on rbGH, but was fired for holding up its approval.
• A FOX TV investigative reporter whose news series linking rbGH to cancer was canceled after the station received letters from Monsanto's attorney threatening “dire consequences for Fox News.”
• Canadian government scientists who wrote a scathing critique of the FDA's flawed and biased evaluation of rbGH, and then testified about political pressure, stolen evidence, and an alleged bribe offer from Monsanto.
• Rigged research from the drug's maker, meticulously designed to cover up health problems.
• A scientist who did rbGH research for Monsanto, and then became the drug's lead reviewer at the FDA.
• Michael Taylor, Monsanto's former attorney, was in charge of FDA policy when rbGH was approved. He later was a Monsanto vice president (1996-2000) before returning to the FDA. In 2010 he was appointed the deputy commissioner for foods.
• Also: The World According to Monsanto

Monsanto created rBGH to stimulate milk production in cows. The use of rBGH stimulates the production of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), a naturally occurring hormone in both cows and humans that regulates cell growth, division, and differentiation. Cow's milk that is treated with rBGH has higher levels of IGF-1. In addition to breast cancer, increased IGF-1 levels have been associated with prostate, colon, and other cancers.

In 2007, Dr. Samuel Epstein exposed the dangers of rBGH in What’s in your Milk? This book reveals the science, politics, and corporate greed behind the creation and approval of rBGH. Since then, many milk producers have decided to sell only rBGH-free milk. Monsanto also sold its rBGH business unit (Posilac) to Eli Lilly in 2008.

• Also: Dr. Epstein on cancer prevention with Dr. Joseph Mercola
• More: 8 Shocking Facts about Bovine Growth Hormone
• More: Monsanto Corporate Rap Sheet

The Monsanto GMO monolith

Roundup remains Monsanto's bell cow in the consumer marketplace. However, the herbicide is under increased scrutiny. A study published in Biomedical Research International shows that Roundup is 125 times more toxic than its active ingredient glyphosate studied in isolation. Roundup also was linked to cancer recently by the WHO:

There is convincing evidence that glyphosate also can cause cancer in laboratory animals. On the basis of tumors in mice, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) originally classified glyphosate as possibly carcinogenic to humans. A US EPA report and several more recent positive results conclude that there is sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals. Glyphosate also caused DNA and chromosomal damage in human cells, although it gave negative results in tests using bacteria. One study in community residents reported increases in blood markers of chromosomal damage (micronuclei) after glyphosate formulations were sprayed nearby.

While diverging from a chemical company to an agribusiness / biotech model, Monsanto has gobbled up, among others: Holden's Foundation Seeds, Corn States Hybrid Service, DeKalb Genetics Corp., Channel Bio Corp., Fontanelle Hybrids, Stewart Seeds, Trelay Seeds, Stone Seeds, Specialty Hybrids, NC+ Hybrids, Stoneville, Seminis, Diener Seeds, Sieben Hybrids, Kruger Seed Company, Trisler Seed Farms, Gold Country Seed, Heritage Seeds, Campbell Seed, De Ruiter Seeds Group, Semillas Cristiani Burkard, Aly Participacoes Ltda., Beeologics, and Divergence.

In 2007, Monsanto formed International Seed Group, an investment holding company that provides specialized, regional vegetable and fruit seed companies with access to capital and technology.

According to Food and Water Watch, Monsanto held an overwhelming monopoly on the seed market in 2013:

• 95 percent of the U.S. GE corn seed market containing Monsanto’s traits.
• 93 percent of U.S. soy grown from Monsanto-patented GMO seeds.
• 89 percent of the U.S. GE cotton seed market containing Monsanto’s traits.
• 80 percent of U.S. corn grown from Monsanto-patented GMO seeds.
• 27 percent of Monsanto profits came from the sale of Roundup herbicide.
• 1,676 — number of seed, plant, and other applicable patents owned by Monsanto.
• 282 million — number of acres Monsanto products are grown worldwide (up from 3 million in 1996).
• 151.4 million — number of acres Monsanto’s GE crop traits are grown in the U.S. (40 percent of total cropland).

Monsanto cornered the markets on genetically-modified corn, cotton, soybean, and sugarcane through its biotechnologies. It also spent millions on lobbying Congress to protect its patent-seed business. … If history repeats itself, it's merely a matter of time before those “specialized, regional vegetable and fruit seed companies” become part of the Monsanto GMO monolith.

On Sept. 14, 2016, Bayer announced it has offered $66 billion to take over Monsanto. In 2018, the companies were successful in getting the merger past regulators around the globe.

Bayer's website notes “Advancing health and nutrition is what we do best and care most about at Bayer. Strengthening our position in agriculture accelerates the pursuit of our purpose: Science for a better life. Together, we’re shaping agriculture to benefit farmers, consumers and our planet.

“Bringing together biology, chemistry and digital tools, we’re accelerating innovation. Across more than 35 research sites and more than 175 breeding sites, we invest more in research and development than any other company in the industry.”

However, in January 2019, Bayer's share price had fallen by more than a third since the deal was concluded in June and languished near a seven-year low.

Whatever benefits the Monsanto deal will ultimately deliver, for now, they remain obscured by the legal troubles that Bayer inherited from the U.S. group. Barely two months after the deal was completed, a California jury ruled that two key Monsanto products — both weedkillers based on the chemical glyphosate — were linked to cancer.

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