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