Source: http://www.alternativemedicine.com/digest/issue21/21700.shtml, Burton Goldberg
Disclaimer: You should always speak with a medical practitioner
before taking any dietary, nutritional, herbal, or homeopathic supplement, or beginning any therapy.

Holding the National Cancer Institute Accountable for Cancer Deaths

Almost from its inception, the National Cancer Institute has staunchly opposed alternative cancer treatments. A class action suit, now proposed, could change all that. Before she died in September 1997, Kathy Keeton set in motion something that could eventually alter the nature and politics of cancer treatment in the U.S. She was planning to sue the National Cancer Institute (NCI) for opposing worthwhile cancer remedies and thereby causing cancer deaths. Even after her sudden death at age 58 from surgical complications, Keeton’s initiative is moving forward. The NCI has consistently suppressed information about and scuttled reputable research on hydrazine sulfate, an anticancer agent that, for several years, was primarily responsible for extending Keeton’s life. She wanted other Americans to have the right to choose hydrazine sulfate and she wanted them to join her in staging a class action suit against the U.S. government. Who are the players in this remarkable development? Kathy Keeton, a nationally recognized science journalist, co-founder of Omni and Longevity magazines, was vice president and chief operating officer of General Media International. She was married to Bob Guccione, the publisher of General Media’s Penthouse, Omni, and Longevity. Since the 1980s, Penthouse has published articles informing the public about alternatives in cancer treatment and the politics that have kept this information in the dark. Kathy Keeton fought off what her doctors had called terminal Stage IV breast cancer with a life expectancy of a mere six weeks. Refusing chemo-therapy and defying her doctors, she extended her life for another two years with a nontoxic substance—hydrazine sulfate—that cost only $3 a week . The second player in this drama of cancer cures and their suppression is Joseph Gold, M.D. In the late 1960s, Dr. Gold, an independent physician working in Syracuse, New York, and now director of the Syracuse Cancer Research Institute, pursued an insight he had about why and how people die from cancer. It seemed to him that cancer cells rob the body of its nutrition, producing steady weight loss. Often, patients die from malnutrition rather than from the tumor itself. After considerable research, Dr. Gold identified hydrazine sulfate as an experimental synthetic chemical capable of inhibiting the loss of protein or body mass caused by cancer and, thus, preventing extreme weight loss. Early research supported Dr. Gold’s supposition. A study of 740 cancer patients (200 with lung cancer, 138 with stomach cancer, 66 with breast cancer, 63 with Hodgkin’s disease, and 31 with melanoma, among others) reported tumor stabilization or regression in about 51% of patients, while 46.6% of the patients reported symptomatic improvements, such as fewer respiratory problems, pain reduction, and a decrease in fever. Research at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, showed that hydrazine sulfate extended survival rates of lung cancer patients. The antagonist and third player in this story is the National Cancer Institute. Not only did they consistently obstruct clinical research in this country, but in the late 1970s, the NCI managed to interfere with the research at the Petrov Institute in Russia where scientists, receiving NCI grants, were steadily validating Dr. Gold’s claims and findings. In the U.S., a number of American cancer patients participated in a clinical trial of hydrazine sulfate sponsored by the NCI from 1989 to 1993. While the NCI presented itself as being interested in "scientifically" evaluating this novel substance, apparently their real agenda was to discredit it decisively. "The NCI failed to inform patients that the concomitant use of certain medications, tranquilizers, barbiturates, or alcohol during the test could deactivate the therapeutic action of hydrazine sulfate and induce morbidity and mortality in patients," Keeton told the Digest a few weeks before her death. Not only is this bad science, it is potentially criminal because some patients died as a result of their participation in the trials, she added. Following the debacle, the FDA withdrew its "had compassionate use" proviso which allowed physicians to oversee patients taking hydrazine sulfate. According to Guccione, who is now spearheading the drive to file the class-action suit against the NCI, the agency has known about the effectiveness of hydrazine sulfate for years, long before it agreed to test the substance in 1989. "It then sabotaged the tests of this drug by allowing participants to take incompatible substances during the test, and then when everyone died, they claimed the drug was ineffective," he says. "The NCI’s the real culprit at the back of everything," Kathy Keeton stated. "We hope to force them to put up the money for human-based trials on hydrazine sulfate, not under their auspices, but through an independent body." In the September issue of Penthouse (as well as the New York Times and Washington Post), in which a full-page ad announced his intention to sue the NCI, Guccione published an article, branding the war on cancer "the $200-Billion Scam." Jeff Kamen, author of the article, points out that while the U.S. government has spent $200 billion of American taxpayers’ money in the last 25 years on its "war against cancer" and its supposed search for cancer cures, it also spends time and money attacking inexpensive alternatives, such as hydrazine sulfate, despite their proven efficacy. The NCI’s continuing hidden agenda to bury the real cancer cures, and to steadfastly oppose research into hydrazine sulfate, is "a Washington scandal of astonishing proportions," says Kamen. According to him, a Government Accounting Office investigation of sloppy science at the NCI regarding the hydrazine sulfate clinical trials ended up as a genial whitewash of the NCI methods and results. The Digest applauds Keeton and Guccione for their boldness in initiating this suit against the NCI and for their progressive journalism concerning alternative cancer treatments. Without question, the NCI should be held accountable for any malfeasance in running clinical trials on a promising anticancer drug. But we think the stakes should be raised even higher. The NCI should be held accountable for 25 years of protracted, unrelieved opposition to genuine breakthroughs in nontoxic cancer treatments and for wasting $200 billion of taxpayer money on pharmaceutical drugs with little efficacy. It’s not just public money wasted. How many lives lost to cancer could have been saved if using alternative cancer approaches had not been virtually a criminal act for the last 50 years? Despite the many billions spent on research and treatments since 1970, cancer remains "undefeated" and conventional medicine’s war on cancer a "qualified failure," according to the New England Journal of Medicine. The Journal reported that the cancer death rate is not lower, but 6% higher in 1997 than it was in 1970. "The effect of new treatments for cancer on mortality has been largely disappointing," stated the Journal. Serious, probing questions should be publicly raised and debated as to why this extravagantly futile research budget should be extended into the future. If 25 years and $200 billion yielded almost nothing of benefit to cancer patients, why not discontinue the effort today? The Digest agrees with Kathy Keeton that every cancer patient on the planet should have the same chance as she did to use alternative treatments. Hydrazine sulfate gave her two years when her doctors said she would die in six weeks. But we think every cancer patient should have access to all cancer therapies that are nontoxic, nonharmful, and have strong clinical support for their effectiveness. Mounting a crusade to validate a single nontoxic anticancer substance is laudable and it may bring to light much about the NCI’s reprehensible actions against the health of the American public. But we also point out that no single substance, no matter how natural, nontoxic, or well-researched, will ever be a magic bullet for everyone or, probably, even for many people. Cancer is an exceedingly complex disease, compounded by layers of dysfunction, toxicity, and immune compromise. It is also strikingly individualized, with no two patients having the same medical history. Many factors combine to create a cancer and many modalities and substances must be used synergistically to reverse it, dependably and permanently. This is the larger medical view that we hope will emerge and prevail in the wake of Guccione’s lawsuit against the NCI.

For more clinical information about hydrazine sulfate, contact: Syracuse Research Institute, Joseph Gold, M.D., 600 East Genesee Street, Syracuse, NY 13202; tel: 315-472-6616. The general public may obtain hydrazine sulfate from Great Lakes Metabolics, 1724 Hiawatha Court N.E., Rochester, MN 55904; tel: 507-288-2348; fax: 507-285-4475. To receive information about the proposed class action suit against the NCI, send a stamped ($2.39), self-addressed envelope to: General Media Communi-cations, Attn: NCI Class Action Lawsuit, 277 Park Avenue, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10172. For current information about the status of the lawsuit and on hydrazine sulfate, visit this website:http://www.kathykeeton-cancer.com.

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Posted: 06/12/00
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