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Cancer patients desperate for options
(Chicago Tribune (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) GREENWOOD, Miss. _ Abraham Cherrix never set out to be an advocate for alternative medicine. He is just a 16-year-old with cancer who refused to undergo a second round of chemotherapy and went to court to fight for his right not to have it.
In a court-ordered compromise, the Virginia teenager landed at the North Central Mississippi Regional Cancer Center, one of a new breed of cancer facilities in the United States that integrate conventional medicine and alternative therapies.
Cherrix's struggle to use herbs and diet supplements to fight Hodgkin's disease, a cancer of the lymphatic system _ rather than have a series of debilitating rounds of chemotherapy _ has brought attention to a growing movement in the U.S. to bring alternative medicine into the mainstream.
Although Americans have been crossing the border into Mexico for more than 40 years in search of cancer treatments illegal in the United States, interest in alternative and complementary healing methods in this country is rising. The move is being fueled by the Internet's ability to provide easy access to information and by personal testimonials of patients.
Advertisements for alternative therapies are everywhere, from highway billboards to health magazines. Clinics specializing in acupuncture, dietary supplements and herbal medicines _ considered unconventional a decade ago _ can be found in almost every U.S. city. To remain competitive, a fifth of U.S. hospitals now offer some type of alternative or complementary therapy such as massage, yoga, homeopathy or mind-body therapy.
"This is a patient-driven effort to access things that are approved by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) or are outside its jurisdiction," said Dr. Arnold Smith, medical director at the Mississippi cancer center. "The desktop computer has become a window to the world of education regarding diseases and treatment."
Americans spend an estimated $36 billion to $47 billion a year on alternative and complementary treatments, either as a substitute for conventional medicine or in conjunction with it, according to national surveys.
A 2002 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine found that 36 percent of Americans use some form of alternative healing. When prayer was included as a means of healing, the figure jumped to 62 percent. The use of herbs, which do not require FDA approval, doubled from 1997 to 2002, researchers said, adding that Americans spend $5 billion alone on herbal products.
"The old mind-set is if you are not doing the conventional method, you are not doing anything," said Barbara Sikes, a 62-year-old chiropractor from Virginia Beach, Va., who is undergoing alternative treatments in Mexico for breast cancer. "But for me, it is much scarier to get cut on or to go through chemotherapy than to just eat healthy and take vitamins."
The FDA categorizes most herbal remedies as dietary supplements, which, like vitamins and minerals, fall somewhere between food and drugs. While it is illegal to label supplements as a cure for any disease or illness, manufacturers are not required to prove they are safe or effective.
With traditional health-care costs rising to $1.9 trillion and 46.6 million people without health insurance, natural remedies have become more attractive to Americans _ especially cancer patients, for example, who sometimes pay up to $50,000 a year for a single medication.
A study published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine in 2001 found that nearly 7 in 10 cancer patients in the U.S. use alternative medicine, though most often in combination with conventional therapies.
"Part of the reason it is growing is because people see there is some progress in conventional cancer treatment, but certainly the answers to most cancer questions have not been found," said Dr. Jeffrey White, director of the National Institutes of Health's Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine. "People want to take responsibility for their health and supplement it with what is available."
Another reason is the concern about side effects of prescription drugs, said Malcolm Johnson, clinical director at Godobe Health Service, an Atlanta clinic that specializes in Chinese remedies.
"Whenever you see a drug commercial on TV, it talks about the positive benefits and at the end, there is a long list of side effects," Johnson said.
After five weeks of treatment, Cherrix returned home to Chincoteague, Va., in early October having undergone immunotheraphy, which strengthens the immune system with supplements and diet and low-dose radiation to shrink the tumor in his neck.
"I'm feeling wonderful," he told The Associated Press after leaving the cancer center.
The first thing most people notice about Cherrix is that he seems to be wise beyond his teenage years.
His doctors notified state authorities after Cherrix refused a second round of chemotherapy, which he said made him deathly ill, and the state took his parents to court alleging medical neglect.
Cherrix, who also has traveled to Mexico for the controversial Hoxsey treatment, a concoction of herbs, vitamins and tree bark, said he believes his case has helped others who seek alternative care, particularly children whose parents could end up in court.
"I had a vision that told me I was to be a teacher," Cherrix said, adding he plans to finish high school and go on to college.
He is optimistic about his recovery, yet he understands the risks.
"I don't claim to work miracles, and I am not claiming to cure him," said the cancer center's Smith, a certified oncologist. "I am claiming he may be curable."
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Cherrix said he likely will return to Mexico for additional treatments.
Despite warnings by U.S. health officials that the unproven therapies and unsanitary conditions at some foreign facilities can be dangerous or even fatal, about 10,000 Americans a year flock to the two dozen clinics in the Tijuana area that operate with little or no government oversight.
Travel to foreign countries has waned since the 1970s, however, as Americans are looking for nontraditional remedies closer to home. Still, hundreds of Web sites provide information on treatment centers in countries such as Mexico, Thailand and Germany.
The Mexican clinics bill themselves as facilities run by Americans for Americans, but in most cases the founders are not medical doctors, and some fled the United States after facing criminal charges for operating without a medical license or dispensing medications that were not approved by the FDA. At most facilities, the attending physicians are Mexican.
Some clinics specifically market to religious groups that advocate natural healing such as Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses and the Amish. But a vast number of their clients are the most desperate patients, whose U.S. doctors have given up on them.
"No one wants to hear a doctor say, `I'm sorry, there isn't much else we can do except for this pretty darn toxic treatment, and we are not sure how effective it will be,'" said Dr. Maurie Markham, vice president for clinical research at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
"So if someone else comes along and says, `We have a cure and all you have to do is come to Mexico and get this liquid, and the medical community is trying to suppress all this because of money,' you might be susceptible," he said. "These people are not nuts, they are confused and want to believe there is a cure."
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The danger, U.S. health officials said, is that most of the therapies marketed as a cure, including Hoxsey, have never undergone the strict trials needed for FDA approval. Others, such as laetrile _ a chemical found in apricot pits, apple seeds and bitter almonds _ have undergone trials and were found ineffective, they said.
"In some cases, we are not saying all of the treatments don't work, we are saying we don't know because too little research has been done," said the NIH's White. "The problem is that some cancers, such as breast cancer, respond well to conventional care when treated early. If you wait or try something else, it may move to a condition that is no longer curable."
Supporters of alternative treatments claim that the medical industry in the U.S. refuses to consider nontraditional therapies because doing so would mean financial losses for pharmaceutical companies, a powerful lobby they feel is protected by the government.
A study by the American Cancer Society published in August found that 27 percent of Americans believe the medical industry is withholding a cure for cancer to increase its profits.
"This tells me that there is, at least among some Americans, a substantial lack of trust, not necessarily with their personal doctor but more toward the pharmaceutical companies," said Dr. Ted Gansler, director of medical content for the cancer society.
Ralph Moss, president of Cancer Communications Inc., a research publication, said some U.S. drug laws do need rethinking in order to remove huge financial requirements that give large drug companies a monopoly on testing.
"The whole system by which we test drugs and reward innovation is deeply flawed. The fact that it takes hundreds of millions of dollars to test drugs means that the only ones tested are those that will make hundreds of millions when they are approved," said Moss, who has spent more than a decade documenting the work at alternative cancer clinics. "We are in a cycle where you have to be enormously wealthy to even think of playing in that poker game."
Clinical researchers, however, insist that they continuously seek natural remedies to study and point to an effective breast cancer drug, Taxol, which is derived from tree bark. Many of the clinics in Mexico, they said, don't have or refuse to provide initial studies, such as five-year follow-ups, needed before clinical trials can be conducted.
"This is propaganda for folks to say we won't test anything natural. It's simply bogus and false," said Markham, who runs clinical trials for the NIH. "Our top priority is to come up with better treatments, but we have an obligation to not just market a drug. We have the obligation of proving the benefits and making sure they are safe and effective."
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The Hoxsey tonic, a guarded recipe of herbs, dates to 1840 when an Illinois veterinarian claimed his prized stallion was cured of cancer after grazing on the plants.
The farmer passed the formula down to his grandson, Harry Hoxsey, an Illinois coal miner, who opened his first clinic in Taylorville, Ill., in the 1920s.
Hoxsey eventually ran 14 clinics in 17 states, but pressure by the American Medical Association and the Food and Drug Administration forced him to shut down operations in the U.S.
He moved his operation to Mexico, where a former nurse, Mildred Nelson, an American, ran it for decades. Hoxsey died in 1973 and Nelson's sister now runs the facility.
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(c) 2006, Chicago Tribune.
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