By Peter Barry Chowka
Writer, editor, investigative journalist (author bio)
QUOTE
(August 15, 2006)
The Hoxsey therapy is the oldest continuously used unconventional or alternative nontoxic cancer therapy in North America. Ironically, from the 1920s until fairly recently, it was routinely vilified by the powers that be as a – if not the – leading example of medical quackery in modern times.
Gradually that situation is changing, especially as more and more Americans realize the value in traditional, nontoxic, and especially herbal therapies.
As the recent debate and media coverage about sixteen year-old Abraham Cherrix’ treatment choice – the Hoxsey therapy – have shown, however, many people refuse to seriously consider the potential and the promise that are represented by something like Hoxsey
This article attempts, then, to provide a concise overview of the Hoxsey therapy.
Among the Hoxsey therapy's major distinctions:
It is the leading example of an herbal or botanical medicine for cancer
It has a remarkable and unique cultural and political history
Even more remarkable are the reports about its successful clinical history in the face of daunting opposition and odds
It represents a leading example of an uncompromising, primary natural or holistic therapy for cancer
It was the first North American alternative cancer therapy to set up a base in Mexico, in 1963
It was decades ahead of its time in many ways – particularly in its underlying theory that cancer is a systemic condition that might be successfully treated by natural chemotherapy, in this case of a nontoxic herbal origin
It has made contributions to the empirical use – and our understanding of the importance – of group therapy, attitudinal healing, and nutritional support.
For over four decades, from the late 1950s until her death in 1999, the principal proponent and clinical practitioner of the Hoxsey therapy was Mildred Nelson, R.N. Nelson, born in 1919 in Texas, was educated and trained as a conventional registered nurse in the early 1940s in Dallas-Fort Worth. By the time of her death, after working for over fifty years “with Hoxsey,” she was recognized internationally as a pioneer in the field of herbal or botanical therapies and cancer.
In 1946 Nelson joined the staff of the Hoxsey Cancer Clinic in Dallas, Texas as a nurse, and eventually rose to the position of head nurse. She learned natural approaches to treating cancer from Harry Hoxsey, a charismatic, folksy, populist-oriented entrepreneur whose family of farmers, ranchers, and veterinarians had over a century's worth of experience with non-toxic cancer treatments for both animals and humans. From the 1930s through the 1950s Hoxsey's Dallas clinic was a flashpoint of controversy as orthodox allopathic medicine solidified its hold on the healing arts and actively worked to stamp out the last examples of American folk medicine, of which the Hoxsey approach was an archetype.
By the early 1960s, despite widespread popular support for Harry Hoxsey and his herbal treatments, medical-political pressures resulted in the Hoxsey therapy effectively being banished from the United States. Harry Hoxsey retired from the medical business.
In 1963, Nelson, with Hoxsey's blessing and in possession of his original herbal formulas, took the radical move of establishing the first alternative medical treatment facility outside of the United States and beyond the regulation of federal authorities that was designed to cater to American citizens. Nelson named the facility, located in Tijuana just across the international border from San Diego, the Bio-Medical Center, and she was its owner and director until her death. Bio-Medical was devoted to natural medicine and the use of the Hoxsey therapy, and many people simply called it the "Hoxsey Clinic." Despite the challenges that faced a North American woman establishing a business in a conservative, male-dominated, Third World nation in the early 1960s, Mexico, in the view of Nelson and other alternative medicine pioneers, was a comparative haven for medical freedom of choice because of the more laissez faire political climate of the country.
Over the next thirty-five years, working quietly from her secure base south of the border, Nelson oversaw the treatment of several score thousand cancer patients, many of them with reported success, until the time of her death. Never one to promote herself, and therefore less well-known than many others in the emerging field of alternative medicine, Nelson left a legacy that is substantial.
The Hoxsey therapy consists of internal liquid and external topical medicines derived from a dozen or so native American plants and herbs, supplemental vitamins and minerals, dietary modification, and a positive attitude or "mind body medicine." Nelson’s, and Harry Hoxsey's, clinical use of these treatments preceded by several decades conventional mainstream medicine's interest in these areas.
Since the 1960s, the Bio-Medical Center with Mildred Nelson at the helm has treated tens of thousands of people – probably as many as fifty thousand, total – with cancer and other serious conditions from all over North America and many foreign countries. Over the years Nelson gained a reputation as a uniquely knowledgeable, "hands on" healer and a dedicated humanitarian who was always available in person or by phone to assist and counsel people in need. She took on many late stage cases of cancer considered hopeless by conventional physicians and developed a loyal and diverse following of patients, friends, and supporters all over the world. Interestingly, Nelson never advertised or promoted her clinic – for most of its existence it maintained a decidedly "underground" status -- and most of her patients said they chose the Bio-Medical Center based on the personal recommendation of a relative or friend who had been treated and helped by Nelson or by Harry Hoxsey himself years earlier. Stories of people with terminal cancer who survived or recovered after employing the Hoxsey therapy achieved near mythic proportions.
In the 1980s and '90s, with interest in natural medicine growing exponentially, the Bio-Medical Center and Mildred Nelson, once considered questionable if not outright fraudulent by conventional medicine, finally began to receive greater attention and credibility. An award-winning 1987 documentary film, Hoxsey: Quacks Who Cure Cancer? a.k.a. How Healing Becomes a Crime, investigated Nelson and the Hoxsey therapy and portrayed the story -- and the treatment's results -- in a very dramatic and mostly favorable light. A Congressionally-mandated five year long investigation of leading alternative cancer therapies by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) of the U.S. Congress (1985-90) included positive independent reports about the Hoxsey therapy, Mildred Nelson, and the Bio-Medical Center. In the early 1990s, the Bio-Medical Center was on the short list of promising non-toxic clinical approaches seriously discussed in meetings by various panels of experts advising the National Institutes of Health's new Office of Alternative Medicine. In 1996 the University of Texas at Houston's Center for Alternative Medicine Research in Cancer began a study of the clinical results of Bio-Medical Center's treatments.
To date, however, despite remarkable anecdotal reports spanning many decades, clinical research studies to objectively evaluate the Hoxsey therapy as it is used at the Bio-Medical Center (prospective or retrospective) have been nonexistent. However, an interesting historical and literature review of the Hoxsey therapy was written in 1988 by Patricia Spain Ward, Ph.D., the historian of the University of Illinois at Chicago, as part of the OTA study (above). In her paper, Ward writes, “Hoxsey treated external cancers apparently with considerable success, even in the judgment of his critics. . . More recent literature leaves no doubt that Hoxsey's formula, however strangely concocted by modern scientific standards, does indeed contain many plant substances of marked therapeutic activity. In fact, orthodox scientific research has by now identified antitumor activity of one sort or another in all but three of Hoxsey's plants and two of these three are purgatives, one of them (Rhamnus purshiana) containing the anthraquinone glycoside structure now recognized as predictive of antitumor properties.”
A preliminary, or pilot, study of treatment results at the Bio-Medical Center (and the Livingston Clinic in San Diego, CA, an alternative treatment center founded by the late Virginia Livingston-Wheeler, M.D.), conducted by the University of Texas at Houston's Center for Alternative Medicine Research, was published in February 2001 in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine (Vol. 7, No. 1: 19-32). The study examines a series of records of new patients who sought treatment for cancer at the Bio-Medical Center during the 1990s. The study was funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through the National Center for Complementary Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
According to the study, at a point five years after the new group of Bio-Medical Center cancer patients began their treatment in 1992, 11.4 percent of them were alive, 34.9 percent were deceased, and 42.9 percent were lost to follow-up. These results are conservative, but, in contrast to the outcomes of most standard forms of cancer therapy for late stage patients, they seem promising. The inability of the authors to evaluate a greater number of patients and to contact more of them after five years in order to assess outcomes prevented any definitive conclusions about the Hoxsey therapy's ultimate validity from being reached. Nonetheless, the authors conclude, "Historical, widespread use of clinics such as these with anecdotal reports of extraordinary survival merit prospective, systematic monitoring of patient outcomes. . . A best-case series or prospective monitoring of patients is justified not only because of the public health issue and investment of many patients in this course of treatment, but also because of several noteworthy cases of survival. One such case involved a patient from Australia who met with the research team while being treated for recurrent melanoma of the leg. For the past 7 years, she had used the [Hoxsey]tonic and powder only.”
Mildred Nelson, the key proponent and practitioner of the Hoxsey therapy during the second half of the 20th century, whose work I reported on extensively from 1980 until 1999, recalled a history that included a kind of medicine and a commitment to healing that are becoming a distant and obscure memory and are all but extinct today. Among other things, Nelson embodied an extreme dedication to patients, a radically close attention to their clinical signs and symptoms, and a willingness to be open to using whatever methods might help a sick person get better. Whatever one thinks of the therapies Nelson employed, the high standards that she set as a clinician are something that any clinical professional could learn from.
Article permalink:
http://members.aol.com/pbchowka/081506hoxsey-summary.html
The Hoxsey therapy is the oldest continuously used unconventional or alternative nontoxic cancer therapy in North America. Ironically, from the 1920s until fairly recently, it was routinely vilified by the powers that be as a – if not the – leading example of medical quackery in modern times.
Gradually that situation is changing, especially as more and more Americans realize the value in traditional, nontoxic, and especially herbal therapies.
As the recent debate and media coverage about sixteen year-old Abraham Cherrix’ treatment choice – the Hoxsey therapy – have shown, however, many people refuse to seriously consider the potential and the promise that are represented by something like Hoxsey
This article attempts, then, to provide a concise overview of the Hoxsey therapy.
Among the Hoxsey therapy's major distinctions:
It is the leading example of an herbal or botanical medicine for cancer
It has a remarkable and unique cultural and political history
Even more remarkable are the reports about its successful clinical history in the face of daunting opposition and odds
It represents a leading example of an uncompromising, primary natural or holistic therapy for cancer
It was the first North American alternative cancer therapy to set up a base in Mexico, in 1963
It was decades ahead of its time in many ways – particularly in its underlying theory that cancer is a systemic condition that might be successfully treated by natural chemotherapy, in this case of a nontoxic herbal origin
It has made contributions to the empirical use – and our understanding of the importance – of group therapy, attitudinal healing, and nutritional support.
For over four decades, from the late 1950s until her death in 1999, the principal proponent and clinical practitioner of the Hoxsey therapy was Mildred Nelson, R.N. Nelson, born in 1919 in Texas, was educated and trained as a conventional registered nurse in the early 1940s in Dallas-Fort Worth. By the time of her death, after working for over fifty years “with Hoxsey,” she was recognized internationally as a pioneer in the field of herbal or botanical therapies and cancer.
In 1946 Nelson joined the staff of the Hoxsey Cancer Clinic in Dallas, Texas as a nurse, and eventually rose to the position of head nurse. She learned natural approaches to treating cancer from Harry Hoxsey, a charismatic, folksy, populist-oriented entrepreneur whose family of farmers, ranchers, and veterinarians had over a century's worth of experience with non-toxic cancer treatments for both animals and humans. From the 1930s through the 1950s Hoxsey's Dallas clinic was a flashpoint of controversy as orthodox allopathic medicine solidified its hold on the healing arts and actively worked to stamp out the last examples of American folk medicine, of which the Hoxsey approach was an archetype.
By the early 1960s, despite widespread popular support for Harry Hoxsey and his herbal treatments, medical-political pressures resulted in the Hoxsey therapy effectively being banished from the United States. Harry Hoxsey retired from the medical business.
In 1963, Nelson, with Hoxsey's blessing and in possession of his original herbal formulas, took the radical move of establishing the first alternative medical treatment facility outside of the United States and beyond the regulation of federal authorities that was designed to cater to American citizens. Nelson named the facility, located in Tijuana just across the international border from San Diego, the Bio-Medical Center, and she was its owner and director until her death. Bio-Medical was devoted to natural medicine and the use of the Hoxsey therapy, and many people simply called it the "Hoxsey Clinic." Despite the challenges that faced a North American woman establishing a business in a conservative, male-dominated, Third World nation in the early 1960s, Mexico, in the view of Nelson and other alternative medicine pioneers, was a comparative haven for medical freedom of choice because of the more laissez faire political climate of the country.
Over the next thirty-five years, working quietly from her secure base south of the border, Nelson oversaw the treatment of several score thousand cancer patients, many of them with reported success, until the time of her death. Never one to promote herself, and therefore less well-known than many others in the emerging field of alternative medicine, Nelson left a legacy that is substantial.
The Hoxsey therapy consists of internal liquid and external topical medicines derived from a dozen or so native American plants and herbs, supplemental vitamins and minerals, dietary modification, and a positive attitude or "mind body medicine." Nelson’s, and Harry Hoxsey's, clinical use of these treatments preceded by several decades conventional mainstream medicine's interest in these areas.
Since the 1960s, the Bio-Medical Center with Mildred Nelson at the helm has treated tens of thousands of people – probably as many as fifty thousand, total – with cancer and other serious conditions from all over North America and many foreign countries. Over the years Nelson gained a reputation as a uniquely knowledgeable, "hands on" healer and a dedicated humanitarian who was always available in person or by phone to assist and counsel people in need. She took on many late stage cases of cancer considered hopeless by conventional physicians and developed a loyal and diverse following of patients, friends, and supporters all over the world. Interestingly, Nelson never advertised or promoted her clinic – for most of its existence it maintained a decidedly "underground" status -- and most of her patients said they chose the Bio-Medical Center based on the personal recommendation of a relative or friend who had been treated and helped by Nelson or by Harry Hoxsey himself years earlier. Stories of people with terminal cancer who survived or recovered after employing the Hoxsey therapy achieved near mythic proportions.
In the 1980s and '90s, with interest in natural medicine growing exponentially, the Bio-Medical Center and Mildred Nelson, once considered questionable if not outright fraudulent by conventional medicine, finally began to receive greater attention and credibility. An award-winning 1987 documentary film, Hoxsey: Quacks Who Cure Cancer? a.k.a. How Healing Becomes a Crime, investigated Nelson and the Hoxsey therapy and portrayed the story -- and the treatment's results -- in a very dramatic and mostly favorable light. A Congressionally-mandated five year long investigation of leading alternative cancer therapies by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) of the U.S. Congress (1985-90) included positive independent reports about the Hoxsey therapy, Mildred Nelson, and the Bio-Medical Center. In the early 1990s, the Bio-Medical Center was on the short list of promising non-toxic clinical approaches seriously discussed in meetings by various panels of experts advising the National Institutes of Health's new Office of Alternative Medicine. In 1996 the University of Texas at Houston's Center for Alternative Medicine Research in Cancer began a study of the clinical results of Bio-Medical Center's treatments.
To date, however, despite remarkable anecdotal reports spanning many decades, clinical research studies to objectively evaluate the Hoxsey therapy as it is used at the Bio-Medical Center (prospective or retrospective) have been nonexistent. However, an interesting historical and literature review of the Hoxsey therapy was written in 1988 by Patricia Spain Ward, Ph.D., the historian of the University of Illinois at Chicago, as part of the OTA study (above). In her paper, Ward writes, “Hoxsey treated external cancers apparently with considerable success, even in the judgment of his critics. . . More recent literature leaves no doubt that Hoxsey's formula, however strangely concocted by modern scientific standards, does indeed contain many plant substances of marked therapeutic activity. In fact, orthodox scientific research has by now identified antitumor activity of one sort or another in all but three of Hoxsey's plants and two of these three are purgatives, one of them (Rhamnus purshiana) containing the anthraquinone glycoside structure now recognized as predictive of antitumor properties.”
A preliminary, or pilot, study of treatment results at the Bio-Medical Center (and the Livingston Clinic in San Diego, CA, an alternative treatment center founded by the late Virginia Livingston-Wheeler, M.D.), conducted by the University of Texas at Houston's Center for Alternative Medicine Research, was published in February 2001 in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine (Vol. 7, No. 1: 19-32). The study examines a series of records of new patients who sought treatment for cancer at the Bio-Medical Center during the 1990s. The study was funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through the National Center for Complementary Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
According to the study, at a point five years after the new group of Bio-Medical Center cancer patients began their treatment in 1992, 11.4 percent of them were alive, 34.9 percent were deceased, and 42.9 percent were lost to follow-up. These results are conservative, but, in contrast to the outcomes of most standard forms of cancer therapy for late stage patients, they seem promising. The inability of the authors to evaluate a greater number of patients and to contact more of them after five years in order to assess outcomes prevented any definitive conclusions about the Hoxsey therapy's ultimate validity from being reached. Nonetheless, the authors conclude, "Historical, widespread use of clinics such as these with anecdotal reports of extraordinary survival merit prospective, systematic monitoring of patient outcomes. . . A best-case series or prospective monitoring of patients is justified not only because of the public health issue and investment of many patients in this course of treatment, but also because of several noteworthy cases of survival. One such case involved a patient from Australia who met with the research team while being treated for recurrent melanoma of the leg. For the past 7 years, she had used the [Hoxsey]tonic and powder only.”
Mildred Nelson, the key proponent and practitioner of the Hoxsey therapy during the second half of the 20th century, whose work I reported on extensively from 1980 until 1999, recalled a history that included a kind of medicine and a commitment to healing that are becoming a distant and obscure memory and are all but extinct today. Among other things, Nelson embodied an extreme dedication to patients, a radically close attention to their clinical signs and symptoms, and a willingness to be open to using whatever methods might help a sick person get better. Whatever one thinks of the therapies Nelson employed, the high standards that she set as a clinician are something that any clinical professional could learn from.
Article permalink:
http://members.aol.com/pbchowka/081506hoxsey-summary.html
I can only say how very grateful I am that I myself had the opportunity to attend the Hoxsey Clinic in Tijuana a few weeks ago. Rather than the invasive and disfiguring surgery that the HNS wanted to inflict on me, the Hoxsey remedy is entirely painless, and works very quickly indeed. More info in the torrent comment: Click to view attachment
.gif)
