CANCER: the HIDDEN SCANDAL
by Robert Jones MA PhD
In the early 1970s Dr Riad Mahmud, an Egyptian diabetologist working in Kuwait, stumbled across the anti-cancer action of another phenothiazine, Phenergan. His three patients were cured of a particularly intransigent form of malignancy, pancreatic cancer. Professional restriction prevented him from publishing, but as a result of a remarkable coincidence in 1990 he made his findings privately known to a cancer research scientist familiar with the properties of phenothiazines.
Phenergan is a drug with form. Introduced in 1947 as an anti-histaminic, its uses were extended to the control of nausea and suppression of travel sickness. So amazingly safe had the medication proved itself to be that in many countries, including the United Kingdom and Australia, it was taken out of the prescription-only category and placed on open sale as a paediatric sedative.
A self-medication protocol open to everybody and based on Mahmud's findings was drawn up and released on the web in 1996. It was picked up and published in the newsletters of cancer support groups in Sydney and Perth. Jill Royce, a patient with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, was apparently cured in eight months. It had been stated in the protocol that residual tumour cells left after premature discontinuation are, inexplicably, no longer sensitive. Tragically this had not been taken on board. However, her advice reached Kerry, a sufferer from a similar condition, and Geoff, whose skin cancer was persisting after fifteen years and six operations.
Gradually it became clear that a variety of malignancies can respond, usually slowly, to Phenergan. Important exceptions include prostate cancer, mesothelioma and melanoma. But what was truly astonishing was the vulnerability of metastases, secondary deposits formed from sensitive primary growths. In Australia Kerry is alive and well ten years after her diagnosis. Geoff's malignancy cleared up almost completely after sixteen days, which was exceptionally quick, but two relapses from drug-resistant tumours needed excision by highly skilled surgeons. A proportion of other patients has derived benefit, though the chances of success were lessened by late stage presentation.
Both before and after their merger in 2002 the two main cancer charities in the UK were kept appraised of successes and failures with the DIY therapy in the expectation of generating clinical trials. No serious notice was taken. Fifty years ago new ideas were seized upon like gold dust and followed up. The experts choose to apply exceptionally harsh and exacting criteria to the project; in contrast all new cancer drugs are given an incomparably easier ride.