THE POLITICS OF CANCER: PART SIX Although three independent studies have confirmed the unique value of his treatments, the medical establishment has subjected Dr. Isseis to continuous personal and professional harassment. SUPPRESSION OF ALTERNATIVE CANCER THERAPIES: DR. JOSEF ISSELS BY GARY NULL and LEONARD STEINMAN with special assistance by Kalev Pehme Reprinted from August 1980 PENTHOUSE THE POLITICS OF CANCER: PART SIX Although three independent studies have confirmed the unique value of his treatments, the'medical establishment has subjected Dr. Isseis to continuous personal and professional harassment. Tucked among the foothills of the Bavarian Alps, close to West Germany's border with Austria, lies Rottach-Egern, a SUPPRESSION OF tiny Bavarian town that would go completely unnoticed by the Western world-if it were not for the fact that it happens to be ALTERNATIVE the place where Dr. Josef Isseis, perhaps the world 's most controversial cancer specialist, has his cancer clinic. Seventy-two years old now, Dr. Isseis is tall, with deep-set CANCER THERAPIES: eyes and a receding, silver-white mane. More than 30 years have passed since he began specializing in the treatment of cancer after clearly formulating his concept, based on the DR. JOSEF ISSELS scientific evidence, of what cancer is. As a British Broadcast­ ing Corporation television documentary about Isseis, com­ BY GARY NULL and LEONARD STEINMAN pleted in 1970, stated: " The Isseis concept is that a healthy with special assistance by Kalev Pehme body cannot develop cancer. Therefore he believes the entire metabolism of the body must be treated. Cancer cells which caused among its audience-a near record of 14 million Brit­ may lie dormant in everybody become active only when the ish viewers-so alarmed the pillars of the British medical es­ body is no longer capable of destroying them. Conventional tablishment that they redoubled their efforts, through the treatment is not enough. He says that often surgery and radi­ government, to prevent any reruns. They were successful: ation only stop the cancer temporarily. It can return later as the film has never again been shown. secondary tumors. To him cancer is a local symptom of a Ten years earlier the German medical establishment al­ general body deficiency, a sort of red alert that the whole most succeeded in destroying Dr. Isseis. Through their influ­ body is in danger.. " ence and pressure, some of its leaders managed to The BBC documentary "Go Climb a Mountain," encapsu­ persuade the public prosecutor to bring a criminal indictment lating the results of some two and a half years of research falsely charging Dr. Isseis with manslaughter and fraud. The and investigation of the Isseis clinic, was aired amid contro­ two trials in this case, among the most celebrated in German versy on November 3, 1970, after repeated attempts by pow­ medical and legal history, not only resulted in his complete erful members of the British medical community to block its exoneration in 1964 but also exposed the sole reason for production and, that failing, its broadcast. The sensation it framing him: he had refused to conform to conventional med- 1cine's narrow concept about how cancer orthodox or conventional medicine. In the mor without affecting the underlying should be treateci. Un1ted States the termmally ill cancer VIC­ cause" that enables the tumor to develop Since the :ate fortie-s . thousands of ter­ t:m has virtually no char1ce to survive five in the first instance. "There is need," he minal cancer patients have sought out Dr. years, let alone be rid of his ca11cer. For wrote then , "to examine into the question Isseis and his !reatment. pnmary cancer-cancer that has not yet whether cancer. rather than being a local Three independent studies of Dr. is­ spread to other sites of the body- the derangement, may be a general condi­ seis's medical records. conducted by overall odds for survival after convention­ tion of the whole body, of ·which the tu­ qualified experts of h!gh reputation, have al treatment are one in three. Once the mor is a symptomatic expression." confirmed a 16.6 percent cure rate last­ cancer has begun to metastasize, how­ Isseis subsequently found that cancer ing more than f1ve years among all the ever, the five-year-survival-rate odds fall is not a localized disease limited to the terminal cancer patients treated by Isseis off sharply. When the metastasized or particular part of the body where it with his combined therapy. No other doc­ spreading cancers become untreatablc, erupts. but is rather the result of a break­ tor or hospital in the world comes close inoperable, or incurable, the patient is down in the body's ability to destroy can­ to th1s cure rate. said to be terminal. In the case of cancer cer cells and prevent them from There is a considerable difference be­ of the kidney, for example, the five-year multiplying into cannibalistic colonies. tween cure and five-year survival. Con­ survival rate is 34 percent. But if it metas­ This breakdown, a process that may oc­ ventional medicine considers the latter to tasizes, the rate drops off to five percent; cur over a short period or take decades, be the equivalent of a cure. That this con­ and once the cancerous condition be­ begins with the gradual weakening of the ception is a myth becomes clear when comes untreatable by surgery, radiation. body's immune system , its key defense we consider the distinction between cure chemotherapy, and other conventional against cancer. and survival. In cure rates we are dealing means. the rate drors to zero. In other A healthy body, says Isseis, has an im­ with the number of cases ou t of the total words, the five-year survival rate cited by mune system that can destroy cancer treated in which, because of the therapy conventional medicine does not mean cells and prevent them from multiplying. given , cancer completely disappears disease-free survival, nor does it mean But if the immune system is weakened from the body or continues to remain in remission. In Dr. Isseis's definition the below a certain threshold, "it can no complete or prolonged rem:ssion without five-year survival rate means. for the longer kill cancer cells or prevent their recurrence or relapse. Survival rates, on most part. the patient has lived for at multiplication into cannibalistic colonies. tl"le other hand, have to do only with the least five years with no trace of cancer in From a single cancer cell, undisturbed in ability of the patient to survive for a peri­ the system. In fact, some of Dr. Isseis's its mitosis-cell division-a tumor even­ od of years despite the recurrence, re­ patients are alive and well 25 years after tually forms. We therefore see in the low­ lapse, or continuing presence of cancer receiving his therapy, without a single ered resistance of the body the cause of in his body. sign of cancer recurrence. the primary tumor, recurrence after sur­ In 1959 Dr. Arie Audier of Leiden Uni­ Yet, the old guard in the cancer estab­ gery or radiation, and all secondary tu­ versity in Holland alerted the world that lishments of the United States, Great Brit­ mors (metastases) . The tumor is only the Dr. Isseis was actually curing terminai ain, and West Germany contend that Dr. tip of the iceberg, the clinically observ­ cancer patients who had been declared Isseis is a charlatan. Instead of objective­ able result of the body's impaired resis­ incurable. That, at least, was the clear im­ ly looking at his work, they attempt to dis­ tance and inability to protect itself against plication of his study of 252 terminal can­ credit his work and his character. the proliferation of cancer cells into colo­ cer patients trea.ted by Dr. Isseis more The remarkable 16.6 percent cure rate nies. The tumor is the symptomatic ex­ than five years previously. The cases he Isseis has achieved in terminal cases is pression of a disease which involves the analyzed involved more than 35 d1tferent perhaps the most dramatic evidence of whole body-cancer disease." types of cancers, from metastasized the effectiveness of his therapy. He em­ The relation between cancer and the breast and progressive liver cancers to ploys the same therapy to prevent cancer weakening of the immune system is illus­ metastasized prostate and progressive recurrence after surgery, irradiation, or trated by what happens in the case of a colon-rectal cancers. In each case the di­ both, and his results in this area appear donor skin graft. The body rejects the agnosis had been independently estab­ even more impressive. graft because of the action of the immune lished and microscopicf!lly confirmed In 1970 a follow-up study was made of system. For the graft to " take hold, " the prior to the patient's admission to Dr. Is­ 370 such patients treated by him up to immune system must be suppressed by seis's clinic. 1960. They had received his therapy the injection of certain toxic drugs. An The Audier study, published on Octo­ after undergoing surgery and Irradiation analogous phenomenon, Isseis points ber 3, 1959, in Die Medtzimsche, a prin­ by their prior physicians. The results: 15 out, takes place in the genesis of cancer. cipal German medical Jou rnal , found that years afterward 322 or 87 percent (as he Effectual " suppression," or chronic of these 252 terminal patients, 42, or reported in Clinical Trials Journal, a Brit­ weakening of the immune-defense sys­ 16.6 percent, were alive, well, and com­ ISh medical publication) were still " alive tem , occurs, in the Isseis hypothesis, as pletely free of cancer five years after re­ and well ..