Eleonore Thun-Hohenstein WHO’S AFRAID OF A CURE FOR CANCER?
An Uninvited Guest in Vienna
Now that he was in Vienna, Nowicky felt more lonely than he had ever imagined. People were far less communicative than in his home country, where it was much easier to make contact. In Vienna people wanted to keep to themselves and were not open to a newcomer.
One of Nowicky's first visits was to Chancellor Kreisky who he thanked for his assistance and presented with a small gift. He had also brought his first patent with him, which he and a colleague had taken out in Lvov for research into a particular alkaloid. This patent already contained the words, ‘The drug demonstrates a considerably greater inhibition of the growth of various carcinomas than the alkaloids used in the production of adducts.’
‘I have very important work to do,’ Nowicky told the Austrian Chancellor. ‘Please help me.’
Once again, Kreisky came to his assistance. Thanks to his intervention, Nowicky was able to begin research at the Boltzmann Cancer Research Institute. The head of the institute at the time was Professor Heinrich Wrba, who assigned him to a laboratory run by Georg Sauermann, the current head of the institute.
It was here that the first harassment began, much more was to follow. At the institute, Nowicky became friends with the student, Walter Hiesmayr. One day, as they were having lunch together in the canteen, Professor Wrba walked past and brusquely demanded to know what Nowicky was doing there. The canteen was for employees only, he said, and threw Nowicky out.
That was the first, but by no means the last, kick in the teeth which the immigrant researcher had to take.
Seeing Nowicky's overflowing work-space in the laboratory, the later Professor Sauermann allowed himself an especially nasty joke at Nowicky's expense.
‘You don't have enough space here,’ he said. ‘I'll put you opposite on the eleventh floor.’
Nowicky thanked him. However, as he later asked the cleaning lady what was over there on the eleventh floor, he discovered that it was the psychiatric department.
Soon afterwards, on the orders of Professor Wrba, he was forced to leave the institute. He was never told why.
He was then allowed to work for a short time under Professor Karlheinz Kärcher at the Institute for Radiotherapy after the autofluorescence of his drug had been discovered. This could be seen in cancer tissue under ultraviolet light, enabling malignant growths and metastases to be localized.
In the long
term, the radiotherapy institute was not the most suitable for him. Since
there were no other offers he took his things and continued working at home.
His wife Anna had provided him with a small flat and he made ends meet by
selling stamps, coins and first editions of books which he had brought with
him from
It very soon became apparent that Nowicky’s work mania made any sort of togetherness impossible. He was not only researching in the laboratory like a man possessed – in 1975 he took out a new patent - he also registered to study pharmacology at the university. The head of pharmacology then was Professor Jentzch, the father of the civil servant who is today responsible for the registration of drugs at the Ministry of Health. Nowicky contacted all scientists who had published articles about greater celandine. It was inevitable that he would run across Professor Kubelka, who allowed the first-year student to work in his laboratory. At the Institute of Pharmacology he also met the since deceased alkaloid specialist Professor Friedrich Kuffner, who further helped him with his research. In his home laboratory, Nowicky had a whole collection of alkaloids.
One day as he returned home he found his flat door had been forced and the police, who had been called by a neighbour, in his flat. Everything had been stolen. The thief was never found.
However, once in a while there were also rays of hope. One of these came from the Ministry of Trade where the head of the research department, Dr. Norbert Rozsenich, became aware of this ‘student’. He supported his work with a commission worth € 22,000, which came to Nowicky via Professor Kuffner for further research into greater celandine alkaloids.
Nevertheless, there was also resistance at the Institute of Pharmacology. Nowicky was forbidden to carry out in vitro experiments because, as he found out from a colleague who wanted to write his thesis on the preparation developed by Nowicky, the Ministry of Health had intervened - despite the fact that it was not responsible for university matters.
Then once again he had to leave his laboratory table within two hours without explanation. He later discovered from the laboratory assistant Walter Oparski that he had been reported as a spy.
Professor Kuffner, who obviously did not have the power to retain his talented protégé, found a place for him with Professor Bancher, a botanist, at the Technical Academy, where he was able to work for a while before he was once again sent away from the laboratory without explanation.
During this period, the pharmaceutical company La Roche offered him space at their Vienna laboratory. However, Nowicky was not prepared to accept the condition that everything he discovered there would belong to La Roche.
Nowicky could not explain the continuous harassment to which he was subjected. He thought back in vain, looking for connections. The only thing he could think of was about the time when his difficulties had begun. That was very soon after his arrival in Vienna. The Chancellor had not only put him in touch with Wrba, but also with the Minister of Health, Ingrid Leodolter. In 1976 there had been a meeting at the ministry where, besides Nowicky and the minister, a civil servant from the registration department and the doctor, Professor Karer, who carried out clinical studies for the pharmaceutical industry, were present. The subject of the discussion was Nowicky’s ‘discovery’.
Karer had said that Nowicky’s patent was ‘nothing special’ and that it was not worth undertaking further work on the drug. ‘That’s of no interest,’ he said, as Nowicky still irately remembers – and that he flared up.
‘How can you say that when my substance is three hundred times less toxic than normal cytostatica?’
At that time, Walter Hiesmayr had already tested the substance, which Nowicky had named after his home country ‘Ukrain’, in vitro and on rats and mice and also discovered its fluorescence.
The Minister of Health did not appear impressed by any of this, she merely wanted to calm everybody down. ‘Gentlemen, please stop arguing.’ And that is as far as it went.
Immediately afterwards, Nowicky was forced to leave his first laboratory. His brooding led him to the conclusion that it was the Ministry of Health, of all places, that had begun placing obstacles in the way of his work. If this was true, the auspices were extremely depressing. Nowicky was deeply discouraged.
To take his mind off all this, he booked a cheap bus trip to Paris for Easter. On Easter Sunday he was walking through town visiting churches. That year the Catholic and Orthodox Easters fell on the same day. Nowicky was a member of the United Church. He stayed for a mass in Notre Dame and then wandered through Saint Germain. From the church of Saint Germain he suddenly heard Ukrainian singing, went in and stayed until the end of the service. A woman spoke to him and invited him, as was the tradition, to an Easter meal with many other Ukrainians. Nowicky told his story and also spoke about his discovery of greater celandine alkaloids as an anti-cancer drug.
He was told that he absolutely had to meet Professor Musianowycz. He was extremely interested in Nowicky’s discovery. He had himself written his thesis on greater celandine. He wanted to try out Ukrain on seventeen patients who had been through conventional therapy to no effect and whose conditions were hopeless.
On returning to Vienna, Nowicky sent him the required quantity of the drug and waited.
After six weeks, trembling with excitement, he called Paris. ‘You’re right,’ said Musianowycz. ‘In some patients the tumour has become smaller and the others are at least not in pain.’
Some of the patients from this clinical study are still alive today.
This positive news from abroad was a great encouragement. In 1978, the daughter of the Polish ambassador to Paris was diagnosed with cancer. She had seen her best friend come to a miserable end with breast cancer and refused the normal treatment. Her father turned to Professor Musianowycz who injected Ukrain on the express wish of the patient – with complete success. She is still alive today.
In Lublin, the astonishing effect of Ukrain on a thyroid carcinoma was observed and it was proposed to carry out a clinical study. Nowicky would not have to pay but only to deliver the required amount of Ukrain. Since drugs manufacturers have to pay enormous sums of money for such studies (at that time it was over € 7,200 per patient, today it is over € 70,000) this was an exceptional offer. However, Nowicky was unable to accept because he was not in the financial position to deliver Ukrain free of charge.
Nevertheless, at this time
more and more positive reports about Ukrain began to arrive. The National
Cancer Institute in the
With the product of his research, a semi-synthetic, non-toxic alkaloid derivative, Nowicky believed that he had found a treatment for cancer which would not harm patients and which was more successful than conventional therapies. He then registered Ukrain, this glass-clear injection fluid, as a new pharmaceutical speciality, for a worldwide patent.
He now believed that medical institutes would be very interested in the extremely promising results of his research. After all, the Pharmacological Institute of the University of Vienna had confirmed that his preparation was non-toxic and with Walter Hiesmayr he had discovered its fluorescence when it was intravenously injected. The fact that this made it possible to see the exact limits of cancerous growth would surely make oncologists and surgeons sit up and take notice.
Full of hope he sent his results to the heads of Vienna clinics and consultant surgeons with the words:
‘Please find enclosed a report about my recent discovery that after treatment with this preparation malignant tissue fluoresces under UV light.’
An assistant doctor in Lainz Hospital was the first to confirm the UV light test. After this result, what else could one do (with the knowledge of the head of the clinic and the agreement of the patient) except to inform the head of the Radiotherapy Clinic, Professor Karlheinz Kärcher?
In his most pessimistic times, Nowicky could not have imagined what would now happen.
The head of the surgical department at Lainz Hospital, where this light test had been carried out, Professor Helmut Denk, a well-known surgeon, threatened Nowicky not only that he would report him to the police but also with immediate deportation from Austria. He described the fact that the discoverer of the UV test had shown it to the board of the University Radiotherapy Clinic as a ‘gross illegality’. In a short letter of eleven lines he accused Nowicky of misappropriating an internal letter and, because he had showed it to Professor Kärcher, also of breaking data protection laws. ‘For this reason,’ he wrote in an indeed original closing phrase, ‘allow me to report you immediately to the police.’
He did not do so.
The surgeon did not spare one word for the potentially helpful discovery. There was just as little reaction from all the heads of clinics and consultant surgeons in Vienna to whom Nowicky had sent his report.
With just one notable exception.
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