Eleonore Thun-Hohenstein WHO’S AFRAID OF A CURE FOR CANCER?
Patients Struggle in Vain
It can only be supposed that with great probability Austrian cancer specialists not only are unaware of the medical literature about Ukrain but also that they either do not attend international cancer congresses or that, out of prejudice, they boycott the many short talks or even whole sessions. There is no other way to explain the irritable disapproval which arises as soon as the word Ukrain is mentioned.
The civil servants at the registration authorities have shown the same refusal to pay attention to the results of international research into Ukrain. Their eagerness always to demand new documentation and then to reject it as unsatisfactory is obviously not the same when it comes to the drugs of powerful international companies, as previously seen in the case of Taxol.
If it was only a question of importing a product of merely financial significance, it would be of no importance. However, it is a question of the lives and the quality of life of people who are suffering and whose deaths conventional medicine cannot prevent in so many cases. On ethical grounds, insofar as there is scientific evidence, even the smallest glimmer of hope should be investigated: and specialist publications in renowned medical journals, even if these were sponsored by the (obviously ‘opposing’) Ministry of Trade, should not be brushed aside as ‘paid advertisements’.
The
many hundreds of case records of patients who have been able to survive
thanks to Ukrain, or at least experienced a great improvement in the quality
of their lives, has at any rate resulted in over 160 doctors in
The ministry seems untiring in pursuing this tactic. When doctors ordered Ukrain, they almost automatically received notification of this ‘decree’ which sometimes even arrived before or at the same time as the ampoules. Since this ‘decree’ was found only in the letterboxes of doctors who had ordered Ukrain and those of nobody else, Nowicky was puzzled how, in view of the secrecy of the postal service and the ban on tapping telephones, the names of customers could have arrived at the ministry. Coincidence can be ruled out: there have been 258 doctors so far who have been notified of this illegal ban and threatened with consequences.
In contrast
to the hospitals, for whom Ukrain appears to
be not worth trying or researching, general practitioners in
All these cases are too recent for there to be a final report. However, his summary concurs with reports from other doctors. He reports: ‘In my observations I concluded that Ukrain is a real help and a positive supplement to other forms of treatment. In addition to the remissions achieved it should be noted that patients feel comfortable during and after treatment and their lives have become more worth living.’
A general practitioner in Vienna who has treated patients with Ukrain for more than twenty years, and as a result of his experience is in favour of low doses, stated, ‘Ukrain definitely has a tumour-inhibiting effect.’ Even with patients in advanced stages. ‘Since in these cases,’ he reports, ‘there is naturally a very unfavourable prognosis, I find it extremely remarkable that the vast majority of patients have lived far longer than could be expected from the prognosis and at the same time the quality of their lives has been improved. They had far fewer pains and felt stronger and often existing pains noticeably reduced in the course of treatment.’
In conclusion he also comes down in favour of the rapid registration of Ukrain since, ‘a considerable improvement in the general prognosis in relation to the length and quality of life is to be expected. This is all the more important because the currently common aftercare for tumours with chemotherapy and radiotherapy has negative effects on the immune systems of patients which in the long run decisively worsens the prognosis.’
It was also emphasised that Ukrain prevents the formation and further growth of metastases.
A general practitioner with many years’ experience at a hospital abroad can only confirm these findings. For the last seven years she has mainly been treating patients, ‘who have been given up by conventional medicine and desperately look for a last chance of treatment. It should be said in advance that with all these patients an unexpected subjective and objective improvement both in their physical and mental conditions came about after the first injection with Ukrain, which I can in no way define as a placebo effect. Patients improved their eating and sleeping habits and reported that pains had been relieved so that in many cases it was unnecessary to administer strong analgesics. They lost their general malaise and their initially depressed basic mood brightened up. It should be noted that most of the patients reported their better feeling for life on their own initiative.’
In her report the doctor presents some ‘remarkable therapeutic successes’. A 66 year-old woman came to her with a malignant melanoma on her lower leg with massive lymphatic oedema (concentration of water) in her leg and multiple metastases in the cerebrum (brain) and in the spinal canal. She had been discharged from hospital as untreatable. After the third series of Ukrain therapy the massive primary tumour and the lymphatic oedema reduced in size. The tumour could now be operatively removed and the metastases in the central nervous system were reduced. After the seventh series of Ukrain treatment no more metastases could be detected. The patient has been free of recidivisms for three years, feels healthy and receives Ukrain at longer and longer intervals.
The doctor also reported the case of a 60 year-old man who was also discharged from hospitable as untreatable with lung cancer with metastases. The hospital had not been able to suggest any possible type of therapy. ‘Extremely short of breath, can only walk a few metres without having to rest. During treatment with Ukrain the patient experienced an improvement in his condition which was almost a miracle. His difficulty in breathing disappeared almost completely and he can go for hour-long hikes. He died three months later during an examination in hospital shortly after he had been injected with morphine.’
A similar end was met by Frau S. from Waidhofen who had been suffering from stomach cancer and was treated with Ukrain after being discharged from hospital. A letter from her daughter describes what happened: ‘She was doing very well until last October. She could eat everything and was not in pain. Then she went to the next examination at the hospital. Gastroscopy was carried out again. The doctor who had carried out the previous two examinations was not there so another doctor performed the gastroscopy. He took three tissue samples, which was very painful for my mother. After this examination she could no longer keep down her food, she always had to be sick and was in great pain. From Christmas she sometimes couldn’t keep down fluid food. In the last months she also brought up blood. In the last three weeks before her death my mother could neither eat nor drink. We think that our mother would still be alive today if computer tomography had been used.’
Among the many case histories, which in most cases are of patients with very advanced cancer, there are naturally many in which Ukrain brought about a subjectively improved general condition but could at best slow the disease but not prevent its fatal outcome. Most remissions were seen in cases which had not gone beyond stage II. There were also cases where Ukrain had no effect at all. The reason for this has not yet been explained. It seems that Ukrain is particularly effective against small-cell lung cancer, colonic cancer and melanomas as well as against forms of cancer producing metastases in the liver and intestines.
I myself observed an astonishingly rapid improvement in two relatives suffering from lung cancer. Both patients were tormented by agonizing coughs and could get through the day only by lying down for most of the time. One of them frequently had to use an oxygen flask. After a few weeks both of them could once again begin to lead normal lives, after two months the coughs had disappeared and their quality of life was returned almost to normal. A beneficial ‘side effect’ of Ukrain seems to be a favourable, partly curative effect on arthritic and rheumatic complaints.
This sensational aspect is surprisingly overlooked in an expert report by Professor G. Hitzenberger, specialist for internal medicine and expert appointed by the court in Vienna. He was asked by the court in Innsbruck to draw up a specialist report on the case of Gerlind Schöpf from Lienz who had applied to the health insurance authorities for compensation for the costs of Ukrain treatment before and after she was operated on for breast cancer.
The report on the operation speaks of a ‘cancer in the right breast in stage T3. Histologically, it is a moderately differentiated invasive ductal carcinoma, malignancy stage II with penetration of the lymph ducts. One year before she was diagnosed with cancer the patient had to apply for early retirement because she could no longer do her job. This was granted due to her rheumatic complaints, degenerative changes in the spine and varicose veins. These complaints had tormented Frau Schöpf since 1989, which was confirmed both by the doctor treating her and a physiotherapist. The latter remembers that she had ‘never treated a patient in such a bad condition’, which is also noted in the specialist report. However, the report ‘with a probability bordering on certainty’ refutes a connection between rheumatic complaints and breast cancer (a suspicion which had been expressed by an internist in Lienz Hospital).
In his negative report the internist Hitzenberger comes to the conclusion that it could not be proved that Ukrain had any effect and that the costs should therefore not be refunded. The specialist took no notice of the fact that the patient, the ‘plaintiff’, expressly stated that her state of health had improved considerably, ‘so that many movements which would have been impossible before could now be made without any trouble although I had taken no anti-rheumatica or painkillers’. However, what he himself wrote is clear enough to bring Ukrain into connection with rheumatic complaints which torment so many people who then become unable to work and who place a heavy burden on social insurance funds. He expressly remarked that ‘the patient can once again completely stretch her right arm above her head, sitting and driving are no longer a problem, she finds walking easy and she feels really light-footed’.
Among his reasons for rejecting Ukrain the specialist states, ‘the patient was already in a bad state of health a long time before breast cancer was diagnosed and grew successively worse. Her complaints were however primarily to do with the spine and were always described as degenerative’. He goes on to say that no metastases appeared: ‘It therefore also cannot be proved that treatment with Ukrain achieved any kind of success since also without this treatment and without any other chemotherapy metastases do not appear inevitably.’ He concludes: ‘Whether or not the improvement in the patient’s general state of health can be attributed to Ukrain is a question which also cannot be answered. After all, Ukrain is not used for the treatment of degenerative spinal disorders or disorders of a degenerative nature in the region of the finger joints. As far as the undersigned specialist knows, registration has not even been applied for as an anti-rheumatica.’
Since, as an internist, Professor Hitzenberger is doubtlessly continually confronted with extremely painful rheumatic diseases, it would perhaps have been more to the point if he had concerned himself with Ukrain as a possible anti-rheumatic drug. If what cancer patients with rheumatism or arthritis often report should prove to be true (after several series of Ukrain therapy my sister also reported that she had no more problems with her periarthritis) it would in fact be a sensational ‘side effect’ of Ukrain which should, without any connection to cancer, immediately be thoroughly investigated. Instead, the specialist writes as though only through registration can a drug be effective. He sticks to his point that ‘the success of Ukrain treatment cannot be proved’. The fact that the patient was in good health was obviously irrelevant in this context.
It would be interesting to know how the professor explains the disappearance of the widespread rheumatic disorders since none of the drugs used for this purpose were administered and he never talks about ‘spontaneous healing’.
After this report the health insurance authorities certainly did not need to refund the costs for Ukrain, as in many other cases. One of these is currently at the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
The plaintiff, Frau J.H., underwent surgery in July 1988 for colonic cancer (adenocarcinoma of the right colon flexura C1). ‘Colonic cancer in stage Dukes C undoubtedly has an unfavourable prognosis,’ as Professor Dr. Christoph Zielinski from the Oncological Department of the Vienna General Hospital remarked in his (negative) report. ‘which fortunately did not apply to the patient in this case.’
She is convinced that this luck can be attributed to several series of Ukrain therapy, and two doctors confirm this. Between the operation and the Zielinski report, seven years went by. In any case, Frau H. received no chemotherapy, which is why the specialist also suggested that one of the normal forms of chemotherapy could have proved ‘extremely effective’. However, after the operation – a tumour the size of a child’s head had been removed, but not all lymph node metastases – she was in such bad condition that no chemotherapy was carried out and she was discharged with the gloomy prognosis that there was no hope and she had only a few months to live. At least this is what her husband was told. She was therefore in a life-threatening condition in which paragraph 12 of medical law allows an unregistered drug to be used.
However, the Vienna health insurance authority rejected the application to pay the costs for Ukrain treatment on the completely fictitious grounds that, apart from the fact that the medical effect of Ukrain had not been proven, ‘serious side effects’ had to be reckoned with. In answer to Frau H.’s question what these side effects were, she received the reply that according to the Ministry of Health Ukrain ‘is currently undergoing clinical trials’ and it is forbidden to release interim results such as effects and side effects before those trials have been completed. The fact that this hopeless case had already been sent home from hospital seven years previously and was still alive did not appear to be worth a thought for the bureaucrats.
Frau H. appealed against this decision to a local appeal tribunal. Specialist reports were ordered including that of Professor Zielinski who seven years after the event wrote that the unfavourable prognosis in stage C ‘luckily did not apply to the patient in this case’. He endorsed the decision ‘not to refund to the patient the costs for the preparation Ukrain. In conclusion, in this case there is no indication whatsoever for the anyway questionable effectiveness of the preparation.’
This contradicts the conclusions of a Vienna general practitioner who had used Ukrain for many years and was asked for an opinion:
The patient J.H. was most certainly in danger of her life, both before and after the operation. I have treated a very similar case myself with Ukrain. A 30 year-old woman with colonic cancer and lymph node metastases who had a hemi-colectomy like Frau J.H. and also widespread bone and especially liver metastases. After three months of treatment with Ukrain the liver metastases disappeared. This was demonstrated by computer tomography several times and by MRI and ultrasound.’
‘Since I have worked with Ukrain for a long time,’ continued the doctor, ‘and increasingly see the unbelievably positive effects it can have, both on tumour activity and on the immune system, in this special case of Frau H. I can imagine no other reason for the patient’s survival than the effect of Ukrain. I would be pleased to present the numerous, medically proven cases where patients have the efficacy of Ukrain to thank for their survival.’
As may have been expected, nobody was interested in taking up this offer.
Two other doctors who had experience of Ukrain also gave their opinions. Dr. P.K. reminded the tribunal that according to data from the World Health Organisation the five-year survival time for adenocarcinomas of the intestine with lymph node metastases in stage Dukes C1 was only 7 percent. And that according to clinical experience recidivisms could also be expected after this period. Preventing this was he said ‘of the greatest importance’. A colleague also confirmed that in this life-threatening case paragraph 12 of medical law should be applied.
‘When Professor Zielinski stresses (after seven years) that the patient was luckily not affected by the unfavourable prognosis for colonic cancer Dukes C1, he is taking no account of the fact that this can indeed be attributed to Ukrain. In addition, since according to Professor Zielinski’s statement the patient’s chances at the time of the operation were so bad, it is even most probable that the reason that the unfavourable prognosis did not apply to Frau H. can be attributed to Ukrain.’
Since in the meantime, there was a case in progress at the Constitutional Court about the ‘decree’ from the Ministry of Health which forbade the use of Ukrain, the proceedings in Frau J.H.’s case were adjourned. Her lawyer, Dr. Michael Graff raised an objection.
On 19 June 1996 the Constitutional Court concluded ‘that the improperly announced orders have no basis in law and that these should not have been applied by the courts from the outset, and also without appeal to the Constitutional Court.’ Whereby the health insurance authorities could no longer claim in court that there was a ‘ban’ on the use of Ukrain.
The proceedings in the case of J.H. were now continued with new specialist reports both pro and contra Ukrain. An internist, Dr. Donatus Pokorny stated on 12 August 1996 – eight years after the operation – that there were no metastases in the patient’s lymph nodes and that it had not been established that Ukrain was used ‘for the treatment of existing tumour manifestations’ or against expected recidivisms. He did not go into the fact that the doctors at the hospital had sent the patient home after the operation with no further treatment and had told her husband that they could do no more and she could only be expected to live a few months. Every part of this report was torn to pieces by another report which accused Pokorny of obvious bias and described his argument that, according to statistics, after an operation for colonic cancer and without further treatment the patient had a thirty percent chance of survival and that Ukrain would therefore not have been necessary as ‘a scandal in itself’.
Pokorny then countered with an ‘interim supplementary report’ in which he claimed that in this case Ukrain had been applied ‘purely speculatively’ and because of this it was unsuitable because after the operation during the regular examinations no recidivism and no metastases could be found. That Ukrain could possibly have been the cause of this welcome consequence, as the doctors in attendance agreed, was not even taken into consideration.
Pokorny thereby passed a devastating judgement on the doctors at the Vienna General Hospital: nine years previously they should not have discharged the patient, who was obviously not really so ill, as moribund and should not have told her husband that she was close to death.
The proceedings dragged on into the following year. On 30 December 1996 the head of the Medical Department of the Wilhelminen Hospital in Vienna, Dr. Heinz Ludwig, was asked to draw up another report. He began by stating that there were no distant metastases ‘so that the stage of the tumour was categorised as Dukes C1’. The cure rate for this is 40 to 50 percent with only surgical treatment. The other patients have recidivisms which ‘then leads to the death of the patient’. Since no studies are available which have been carried out with the ‘required scientific care’ it cannot be assumed that Ukrain is ‘a suitable therapeutic instrument for patients in this stage of disease’.
The general practitioner treating the patient J.H., Dr. Thomas Kroiss, was now asked for his opinion. He was the only one who had followed her suffering over a long period of time, he began treating her six weeks after the operation. He confirms that, ‘there were clear signs that the disease was still present’. She herself knew nothing of this. The doctors at the hospital had told only her husband that there was no point in trying chemotherapy and that she had only a few months to live. Therefore Kroiss said, he began with ‘extensive holistic therapy’, a part of which was Ukrain.
On the basis of the negative reports by the specialists Pokorny and Ludwig, on 14 March 1997 the tribunal rejected the claim for the costs of Ukrain treatment to be refunded. Frau J.H. appealed against the decision. On 5 June she wrote to the European Commission for Human Rights.
‘I have the impression,’ she wrote, ‘that the tribunal is trying to draw out the decision for so long that I might die before the proceedings are concluded.’ She could no longer pay for the medicine. This is one example among many.
Parallel to this, there were administrative proceedings about the way in which the Ministry of Health had been delaying the registration of Ukrain. After the Constitutional Court lifted the negative ‘decree’ Nowicky applied for another specialist report to be commissioned.
This was done, but if Nowicky now hoped for an objective specialist report on Ukrain, he was to be sorely disappointed. The commission which, on 1 September 1997, Ministerialrat Jentzsch gave to the director of the Institute for Clinical Pharmacology of the University of Vienna, Professor Hans Jörg Eichler, as expert witness, consisted solely of justifying the previous negative reports.
In his application Nowicky expressly stated that he would bring forward anything which had previously been lacking; he also offered to bring to Vienna the doctors who had carried out studies of Ukrain abroad with interpreters so that they could be questioned. They had consented to come.
None of all this interested the expert witness – he had only been commissioned to justify the negative reports of the highest health authority. It is no wonder then, that Eichler’s report is miles away from a neutral, objective viewpoint.
An example: Nowicky offered conclusive proof that Ukrain was well tolerated. This was rejected on the astonishing grounds that it was not relevant. It then appeared in the report as ‘unproven’. The report was prepared in just under two months.
On reading the 17 page report it is noticeable that the author is obviously taking care to protect himself in case Ukrain was actually effective, but on the other hand he mainly follows the line of argument of the authorities when he concludes: ‘There is not a single document here which according to present standards in science credibly confirms that Ukrain brings benefits to patients.’ He continues, ‘The good tolerance to Ukrain which is described in almost all reports should be regarded as just as unproven as the efficacy described.’
Then follows the amazing passage: ‘The conclusion of the above-mentioned considerations is that it is impossible to evaluate correctly the benefits and risks of Ukrain. I must expressly state that this negative judgement is not based on the fact that the benefits and the good tolerability claimed for Ukrain are inadequate for the drug to be registered – on the contrary, the benefits claimed for it must be described as spectacular – but that the data provided is dubious.’
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