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From: novikoff@tesla.UUCP (Eric A. Novikoff)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: Unconventional Cancer Therapy
Message-ID: <532@tesla.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 31-Jan-85 17:26:29 EST
Article-I.D.: tesla.532
Posted: Thu Jan 31 17:26:29 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 2-Feb-85 11:03:07 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: Cornell University, Electrical Engineering Dept.
Lines: 38


Is there anyone out there following the Gerson Cancer Therapy method?
My mother, diagnosed as having CUPS (Cancer of Unknown Primary Source)
is going through the treatment now, after having been told by her doctors
at Kaiser Permanente (An HMO in California) that there was nothing that
could be done.

The Gerson therapy is a nutritional therapy in which the patient drinks
pressed vegetable and liver juices on an hourly schedule, and can eat
only cooked vegetables, baked potatoes, fruit, salads, etc.  All salt
and fats are forbidden, and five daily coffee enemas are also taken.
The Gerson doctors claim a cure rate of over 60% - for people who are
in advanced stages of cancer, having been through the rounds of conventional
doctors.  My mother, upon returning from the Gerson hospital, claimed that
she saw amazing cures in which people's tumor masses shrunk visibly over
a period of days.  The diet is relatively innocuous (if one doesn't
consider the work and willpower required to remain on it) and should
not interfere with other therapy methods.  The basic idea is to restore
the patient's imuune system to full function by eliminating the bodily
(metabolic ?) poisons which preoccupy the liver, allowing it to function
at far above normal levels.

Most conventional M.D.'s my mother has seen have been violently antagonistic
towards her and the therapy.  (Apparently they have heard of it.)
Most of today's M.D.'s, especially oncologists, have not had any in-depth
training even in standard nutritional principles, so I find it hard to
understand why they are so against a treatment with such a possibility
for success.  Also amazingly enough, the AMA is so strongly against the
Gerson therapy (and others like it) that they are currently sponsoring
legislation to make it illegal to promulgate or engage in such therapies.
As of now, it is illegal for the Gerson Center to mail Dr. Gerson's 
(Yes, he was a *real* M.D.) book in the United States, even though
it does not advertise the treatment.  Can't we decide what to do with
our own bodies?  Especially, as in my mother's case, when the doctors
don't know what to do?

Eric Novikoff
(tesla!novikoff@Cornell.ARPA)