Brych was "former Nobel Prize winner’

Press, 17 December 1982, Page 17

Brych was "former Nobel Prize winner’

NZPA Los Angeles A North Carolina man testified in Los Angeles that his brother’s lung cancer was declared by doctors to be terminal before help was sought through the cancer therapist. Vlastimil Milan Brych. Mr Raymond Collins, the brother of .the late David Collins, of Charlotte, was giving evidence at the Superior Court trial of Brych. aged 43, charged with conspiring with the late Dr Richard O’Connor to defraud cancer and arthritis patients. “The doctor said my brother had a zero chance to live. It was just a matter of time," said Mr Collins, aged 51. recalling a May, 1980, meeting with physicians at a North Carolina Hospital.

Mr Collins said his brother, like Dr O'Connor, suffered from Oat Cell carcinoma, a form of lung cancer which eventually spread and produced two tumours.'in. the brain, causing his death at the age of 43. in November, 1980.

The life insurance agent told the Collins family that they should “get in ’ touch with a doctor in California" who might have an answer, Mr Collins recalled. The doctor was O’Connor.

“Everything from Dr O'Connor was encouraging," said Mr Collins, adding that he told them that Brych was licensed to practise medicine in New Zealand but not in California. “O’Connor indicated that Brych was extremely sought after, but that he was under harassment from the American Medical Association and other medical authorities in the United States,” said Mr Collins.

“He called Brych one of the most learned men in the world and a former Nobel Prize winner,” he said.

Brych later said plane •loads of Australians had once flown to seek his treatment in N.ew Zealand. Brych also said he had a “doctorate in blood work" from Cambridge University in England, and had treated Happy Rocke-

feller at the renowned Sloan Kettering Cancer Institute in New York, said Mr Collins. Both Brych and Dr O’Connor said that David Collins could be cured, but would need yearly booster shots at SUSIS.OOO (SNZ2I.OOO) each, after six months of initial treatment at SUS6O,OOO (JNZB3.OOO). Brych asked that a blood sample be forwarded before David Collins arrived in California so that the sample could be sent to Sweden and analysed, said Mr Collins. After flying to California with his dying brother in July, 1980, Mr Collins said he put him up at West Covina Hospital where Brych injected the first of a series of treatments.

Similar injections followed in August and October, but no improvement was evident, he said. Mr Collins said his brother paid Brych and Dr O’Connor ?U590,200 (sNZl24,soo)for the treatment, from the family’s funds.