CANCER TREATMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23884, 11 August 1939, Page 10

CANCER TREATMENT

DOUBTFUL REMEDIES KOCH AND BAKER METHOD CLAIMS NOT SUBSTANTIATED (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, Aug. 10. “ The vaunted claims of discredited or doubtful remedies for cancer should be discouraged, and it is highly improper for any person, medical or lav. to claim success for an alleged cure unless such treatment has been investigated by competent observers.” This finding of the tenth Australian and New Zealand cancer conference, held in Wellington, is quoted in the annual report of the Department of Health in reference to claims-made for what is known as the Baker and Koch treatment of cancer. The report of the department was presented in Parliament to-day. The report refers to a medical committee appointed by the Government at the request of Dr Ulrich Williams to investigate a special treatment of cancer known as the Koch and Baker which had been widely advertised in America. The committee, it is stated, was not given an opportunity of completing its investigations as Dr Williams broke up the negotiations on the grounds that Baker and Koch declined to .submit their products to a test in their absence. As the result of examining cases treated by this method the report adds that the committee stated: “ From our general knowledge and from the observations we were permitted to make in investigating cases at Wanganui, we have no reason whatever to suppose that Koch’s fluid has any effect in curing generalised cancer. All the evidence available without exception convinces our committee that the claim cannot be substantiated, that the treatment which we saw practised at Wanganui has any merit as a cure or a palliative for cancer. The claim that a cure has been found for cancer should never have been made or promulgated until prolonged tests have shown that the claim is a reasonable one; otherwise patients who might be cured or their lives greatly prolonged by surgical or radiological means, because of their dallying with vaunted cures such as Baker’s or Koch’s, have therefore allowed their disease to advance from the early stages when it can be treated by recognised and approved methods. This is all the more important when such alleged cures as Baker’s and Koch’s are sold as commercial products, and when cancer patients are called upon to pay in some cases high fees for treatment. “The committee considers that it Is in the public interest that the statement should be made that our hope of finding anything useful in the treatment by Dr Williams and his colleagues has proved illusory. The report adds that the danger of raising false hopes in regard to a cure for cancer v/as investigated at the Australian and New Zealand Cancer Conference. After considering reports on the nature and effects of the treatment of cancer cases with Baker and Koch fluids the conference stated that the patients who had been investigated in Australia and New Zealand had not, in its opinion, derived any benefit from treatment with these. The methods of treatment were of no value, and moreover tended to cause patients to lose valuable time in adopting reliable methods of surgical or radiological treatment.