"Ernesto had worked as a pathologist at Boston General Hospital, Massachusetts. This was in the early Fifties, when they were doing the first studies using chemotherapy on children with leukaemia.
"The chemotherapy agent was derived from mustard gas and the doctors couldn't tell whether the children were dying from leukaemia or the treatment.
"Ernesto became so disillusioned he returned to Mexico to dedicate his life to investigating less brutal treatments, leading to the development of his Metabolic Therapy. His theory is to build the patient up - make them as healthy as possible so they can fight tumour growth with their own immune system.
"The treatment includes an intravenous drip of vitamins, with massive doses of vitamin C, minerals and other compounds, daily injections of a substance called laetrile (vitamin B17) and pancreatic enzymes - plus coffee enemas for, thankfully, only the first five days to detoxify the body.
"Coffee enemas help to stimulate the flow of bile from the liver, which prompts the body to de-toxify.
"Just a week after my diagnosis, we flew to the clinic in Playas de Tijuana, Mexico. By the time I arrived, another tumour had emerged in the vertebrae that links to the sciatic nerves which run from the spine to the little toe. This caused excruciating pain.
"Although the cost of the Metabolic Therapy was about $20,000 (about £12,750), it was considerably less than private orthodox treatment in the US or the UK.
"Dr Ernesto Contreras was to be my physician. He looked at my medical records and ordered some more tests.
"There were 20 or 30 patients being treated and he explained that success rates were about 30 per cent - all for people who had previously been labelled untreatable or terminal.
"An important feature of the treatment at the Oasis of Hope is that you bring along a companion. Anna's encouragement was vital, especially at the start when I was in so much pain and was losing a lot of weight. I was hospitalised for just under four weeks.
"There has been substantial controversy around the intravenous and oral use of laetrile - a compound found in apricot kernels.
"Laetrile (vitamin B17) contains a cyanide compound. People panic when they hear that, thinking of poison. But research shows that the cyanide compound is unlocked only when it comes into contact with an enzyme occurring in abnormal amounts at cancer cell sites, destroying them.
"But there is still a dearth of controlled clinical studies, primarily because it is an unpatentable substance - meaning no one is prepared to foot the bill for research.
"Of course, B17 alone is not a magic formula, it's a valuable component of a wide-ranging therapy. For years it was dismissed as a hocus-pocus formula, but I believe it's beginning to gain recognition under the name of Amygdalin.
"My surgeon Dr Francisco Contreras, Ernesto's son, performed one operation on me to insert a catheter which would feed the compounds and chemotherapy directly into my liver.
"I was so ill, the doctors decided to give me chemotherapy on my liver, plus a week of radiation on my spine. Conventional medicine is used at the clinic, but always as part of a larger context.
"Initially, I lived with constant pain and was incredibly bloated. Apparently, they had never treated anyone who was so riddled with cancer. But I had a defiant spirit, and they later told Anna and me that if it hadn't been for that enthusiasm they would have sent me home immediately.
"However, sometimes I did feel ready to give up. Luckily, I was visited by a psychologist who had worked with the terminally ill. He said I needn't feel guilty for having dark thoughts. So I accepted them as a natural feature of healing.
"I also made peace with my 16-year-old daughter and 13 yearold son from my first marriage, who I used to visit only once or twice a year. I told them I loved them and said if they had any hard feelings about me having left home, they needed to talk about them because if I died the feelings would be much harder to deal with.
"Having done that I felt magically better. I even asked the doctor to run a test on me that evening because I felt I had gone into remission - that was after just one week. I was asked to wait another week when tests did show that the tumours were shrinking.
"My father lent me his apartment in Palm Springs, and for a further three months, I drove back to Mexico for my monthly chemotherapy.
"They said I could go back to Britain if I could find an oncologist willing to use their compounds and procedures. I took a mass of bottles back to Cheltenham General Hospital where they continued my treatment.
"After about four sessions, a scan showed no sign of active growth, just scar tissue in my liver. Three years later, at a check-up in Mexico, the doctor said: 'As a rule, we don't say cured. But in your case, it seems pointless to keep writing "in remission".'
"Ninety-nine per cent of cancer sufferers in my condition do not recover. Yet not a single doctor here showed any curiosity as to why I survived.
"There seems to be a cynicism about Ernesto's programme. Metabolic Therapy is seen as a fringe treatment and most medical people don't like to discuss regimes that deviate from accepted medical practices for fear of upsetting the apple cart.
"Establishment oncologists say: 'If we can't fix it, nobody can.' I'm living proof that somebody can."
Dr Francisco Contreras will be lecturing in Britain from May 13-20. Call 01908 364222 for details.
WHAT CANCER RESEARCH UK SAYS
Spokeswoman Sarah Turner said:' We don't sanction the use of alternative therapies such as Metabolic Therapy in the place of conventional treatment.We are concerned patients don't receive false hope. There is not much scientific medical evidence behind Metabolic Therapy to back it up. Though laetrile will kill cancer cells in a lab setting, there is a huge difference between what occurs in the lab and what occurs in human patients.' |
