Cancer Decisions - Free Newsletter

OUR GREATER PHILADELPHIA REPORT

Our Where to Go? series continues to grow with the launch this week of a report on CAM cancer resources in the Greater Philadelphia area, the sixth-largest metropolitan area in the US.

Philadelphia is a great and historical center of medical innovation and the region has much to offer when it comes to complementary and alternative approaches to cancer. There are about a dozen outstanding facilities to chose from, ranging from an academic medical center to a full-scale CAM hospital, and including a number of first rate individual CAM-oriented practitioners in Philadelphia as well as the surrounding suburban counties of the Delaware Valley and the Jersey Shore.

This 40-page report represents the fruit of two fact-finding trips that I took in April and May, 2008. It is an objective, yet intimate, look at the practices of various doctors who are trying to apply CAM approaches to the treatment of cancer.

The Where to Go? series is one of the most important new projects we have initiated since we launched the Moss Reports in 1994. We have already published our Where To Go? guide to the Houston, TX, area and have made the necessary investigatory site visits in preparation for a report on the celebrated German CAM clinics. Visits to many other centers, both in the US and abroad, are planned. Our goal is to hunt down the most promising CAM and integrative treatments for cancer worldwide.

You can purchase and download a copy of this report by clicking here.

FACT-FINDING TRIP TO GERMANY - PART II

I have just returned from a two-week tour of German cancer clinics that use various forms of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).

After a very productive visit with Dr. Rigdon Lentz at the Frauenklinik in Prien-am-Chiemsee, I drove to the St. Georg Klinik in nearby Bad Aibling. I spent a day at the clinic, touring the facility (this was my fourth visit there) and talking to Dr. Friedrich Douwes and other staff members. In the evening we went to our small hotel in Frasdorf, near the town of Aschau. We had dinner in our hotel with Dr. Douwes and his wife, Renata. The next morning, Saturday, my wife, Martha, her sister Robin and the Douwes went to nearby Salzburg, Austria (about 50 miles away) while I continued my clinic tour with a visit to the Leonardis Klinik in Bad Heilbrunn. This is the clinic that was featured in Burton Goldberg's documentary, Cancer Conquest and it has attracted many Americans in recent years. Although the Goldberg documentary featured its medical director, Albert Schaller, the present-day clinic has undergone many changes since the sudden death of Dr. Schaller, in Las Vegas in the summer of 2005. It was a pleasure to meet the owner of the clinic, Mr. Rudolphi, as well as the present medical directors, Dr. Kopic and Dr. Draczynski. I could see why many Americans, including some celebrities, have been attracted to this beautiful and peaceful location.

The following day happened to be Mother's Day. We went by cable car with the Douwes family (Friedrich, Renata and their young son, Julian) to the top of the nearby Kampenwand mountain. The scenery from the top is spectacular, with good views of the Salzburg and Berchtesgaden mountains. You can even see the Grossglockner, the tallest peak in Austria. Looking in the direction you came from you can see the entire Lake Chiemsee (with its famous islands) at your feet. We had a lovely meal of German dishes at an outside terrace on the top of the mountain and I had the best organic buttermilk (the sign advertised ‘Frisch Bio Buttermilch') of my life. That evening we took my sister-in-law back to Munich airport and my wife and I continued up north to Nurenberg.

The following day was a holiday in Germany - Whit Monday (Pfingsmontag), or Pentecost - and most businesses were closed. We spent most of the day on a walking tour of historic inner city of Nurenberg. Like many cities in Germany, the town was largely flattened by Allied bombing in WWII and so what you are touring is a nearly flawless reproduction of the old city.

On the following day we drove to the small city of Duderstadt, which is on the border of the former East Germany. There we met with Thomas Nesselhut, MD, PhD, Dr. Dirk R. Lorenzen, Dagmar Marx, PhD, and their colleagues at the Institute for Tumor Therapy. This was the second of three separate meetings that I was destined to have with Dr. Nesselhut on this one trip! This time (unlike in Aschaffenburg) we had a chance to talk intensively about his immunological approach to cancer, particularly the use of dendritic cell vaccines. In the evening my wife and I drove to nearby Göttingen and joined friends for the final performance of "Acis and Galataea" at the International Handel Festival.

On Wednesday, May 14th, we drove several hours due west to Cologne (Köln) and found the hilltop home of our friends, Josef and Lilly Beuth. Josef is a tenured professor of complementary and alternative medicine at the University of Cologne, the only such position to my knowledge in the European Union. Some readers may remember that Josef and I co-edited the English-language textbook, Complementary Oncology a few years ago.

For the Amazon listing of our book, please click here.

The next day, Thursday, May 15th, I crossed the Rhein river to visit Robert Gorter, MD, at the Eduardus Hospital. Dr. Gorter has a cancer clinic based around dendritic cells and hyperthermia there. We then met up with my wife's cousin, Janet, who was visiting from Washington, DC, and her friend, Inge, who led us on a tour of the towering Cologne cathedral, described by UNESCO as an "exceptional work of human creative genius." It took 600 years to complete and was, at one time the tallest structure in the world. It was wonderful to see it through the eyes of a long-time inhabitant of the city.

On the following day we drove back south to the town of Bad Bergzabern, south of Frankfurt, on the French border. (To accommodate various peoples' schedules we wound up doing a considerable amount of criss-crossing of the countryside.) Lovely Bad Bergzabern is the home of the Biomed Clinic of E. Dieter Hager, MD, PhD. There we attended the Eighth Pfältzer (i.e., Westphalian) Seminar on Complementary and Alternative Oncology. This two-day seminar attracted local cancer patients and CAM-oriented scientists from all over Germany. At Dr. Hager's request, I spoke on the topic of "Patents Over Patients," the subject of my April 2007 op-ed article in the New York Times.

Bad Bergzabern lies near the beginning of the famous German "Wine Road," and in the evening, Dr. Hager threw a lovely party at the restaurant of a local wine merchant for the speakers at the conference. There, I was able to continue my discussions with Heinrich Peters, MD, professor emeritus at the Georg-August University of Göttingen, who creates the dendritic cell vaccines for some of the aforementioned German practitioners. I also was able to renew my friendship with Gyorgyi Irmey, MD, president of the Society for Biological Defense Against Cancer (GfbK), an important organization in the CAM cancer field in Germany. Early the next morning we drove to Frankfurt Airport and after an uneventful flight arrived back in the US.

This trip was thought provoking. Germany is the undisputed leader in the Western world in the use of CAM for treating cancer. I have been to Germany on six previous occasions, but this time felt like I got "behind the scenes" to a degree that I had not been able to on any previous occasion. The result was a better understanding of each particular clinic as well as of the German CAM scene as a whole.

Germany has a long history of involvement with non-conventional medicine. In some ways, the famous Swiss-born physician Paracelsus - often called the "father of chemotherapy" - set the tone for the exploration of medicine's furthest edges. In the 18th and 19th centuries, such figures as Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland (1762-1836) and Father Sebastian Kneipp (1821-1897) pioneered the use of diet, hydrotherapy and other natural cure methods. Another seminal figure was the Austrian-born philosopher and theosophist, Rudolph Steiner (1861-1925) who, shortly before his death, co-founded anthroposophical medicine. The keystone of his approach to cancer was the use of an extract of the mistletoe plant. This is still produced in Germany by the company he co-founded, Weleda, and is widely used by Central European patients. In the 20th century there was considerable exploration of the use of enzymes and other natural treatments for cancer in German-speaking lands. The pre-eminent names were those of Prof. Ernst Freund (1863-1946), and his long-time associate, Dr. Gisa Kaminer (1883-1941) at the Rudolfina Hospital, Vienna; the American expatriate Max Wolf (1885-1976) and Adolf Gaschler, M.D., who researched the clinical effects of an enzyme treatment called Carzodelan at Berlin's Charité hospital.

In the post-World War II period there were several outstanding practitioners of CAM approaches to cancer. These included Manfred van Ardenne (1907-1997), a famous physicist who, among other things, pioneered hyperthermia; Josef Issels (1907-1998), who for many years operated the Ringberg Clinic on Lake Tegernsee in Bavaria; Wolfgang Scheef, MD, of Bonn, who pioneered the use of high-dose vitamin A analogs and the antioxidant Mesna; and Hans Nieper, MD, of Hannover, who cofounded Medicine Week which is held annually in Baden-Baden. All of these figures had enormous influence in their day and have led to the present-day preeminence of Germany in the complementary approach to cancer.

--Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D.

PHONE CONSULTATIONS

We recently received the following comment from a client who had just had a phone consultation:

"The telephone consultation was like speaking with the Warren Buffett of cancer.

"Dr. Moss provided decades of research and knowledge in areas of cancer that would be next to impossible to research or hear from your oncologist. He was able to pinpoint specific opportunities in cancer treatment that we would not have been able to explore without his guidance, and he provided a wealth of information that was synergistic with the protocols we were using with our oncologist." - B.S. 04/26/2008

Clients who have purchased a Moss Report can schedule an appointment for a phone consultation by calling 1-800-980-1234 (814-238-3367 from outside the US) or by submitting a request via email to Jacquie@cancerdecisions.com.

CANCER DECISIONS© AND CURRENT TOPICS© REPORTS

Reports in our Cancer Decisions© series are designed to provide readers with the detailed information they need in order to make difficult treatment decisions. Currently available are:

These reports can be purchased and downloaded from our Web site, by clicking here.

OR...Please visit our Web site at www.cancerdecisions.com and click on the blue Radiation Reports button.

Coming shortly in this series: Radiation Therapy for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Now available: Where To Go? – Greater Philadelphia and Where To Go? - Houston, TX. These are the first two reports in a new series on regional availability of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). For more information or to order, please click here.

For a list of our Current Topics reports on issues of interest in the field of cancer research and treatment please click here.

OR...Please visit our Web site at www.cancerdecisions.com and click on the blue Current Topics button.

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IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER

The news and other items in this newsletter are intended for informational purposes only. Nothing in this newsletter is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice.