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Channel 2, Action News Primetime, with John Pruitt and Special
Reports by Dr. Randy Martin and Health Reporter
Diana Davis
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The
Last Resort (1999)
(following are excerpts from this reportage, but if you would
like a complete VHS copy of this report email
talk2us@wsbtv.com)
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John Pruitt: All the people at this table including this
Georgian women have been told they are dying. So why are they in
such a good mood? Simple, they don't believe it! Not anymore not
since coming here. Welcome to Freeport on Grand Bahama Island, were
the unlikely happens all the time. In the last two decades more
than five thousand terminal cancer patients have traveled to Freeport
to receive an unconventional treatment not available in the United
States. (…..) It would be simple to dismiss the purveyors of this
serum as quacks preying on the very ill and very desperate. There's
only one problem: We have a lot of people who are surviving, way,
way past there expected date. (….)
John Pruitt: …. We met Cori, nearly two years ago shortly
after her 50th birthday. According to statistics and her first oncologist
she was already supposed to be dead.
Cori Harth: I had a very rare type of cancer, hum, always
fatal.
John Pruitt: She had sought a second opinion then a third
and a fourth.
Cori Harth: One literally said all you can do is go home
and wait to die. It was probably the only day in the three year's
that I totally, totally caved in.
John Pruitt: The prognosis was one this divorced mother
of three boys' was completely unprepared to hear or accept.
(…………)
John Pruitt: Here we are approaching the year 2000. What's
the prognosis now?
Dr. Leff: That she (Cori Harth) so far exceeded the prognosis
that anybody would have originally given her, that it's a total
guess.
(…………….)
Cori Harth: I am healthier today than I have been in years.
John Pruitt: (…..) Is this one of the toughest cancers
to treat?
Dr. Ferrier: It is.
John Pruitt: Do you know anyone who has survived mesothelioma.
Dr.
Ferrier: I do not know anyone who has survived it.
(……………….)
Dr.
Ferrier: It is unusual to see survival greater than one year.
Dr.
Martin: And five-year survival rates are very low giving a dismal
out look…. Early detection of this deadly cancer is uncommon because
the symptoms it produces: shortness of breath, fatigue or dry hacking
cough don't appear for twenty, thirty or even forty years.
(………)
John
Pruitt: (…) she (Cori Harth) turned to more exotic treatments
most recently something called "Immuno-Augmented Therapy" in the
Bahamas.
(……..)
John
Pruitt: It is a dangerous world out there when someone goes
in search of alternative treatments.
Cori
Harth: That's a very valid concern. You run into the constant
danger of having charlatans and quacks taking advantage of that
situation because when someone is dealing with something as serious
as cancer, hum, they're desperate.
(…………)
Dr.
John Clement: We are not doing anything magical, we're doing
something that has taken many, many years to perfect. John Pruitt:
Dr. John Clement, former head of the Bahamas Medical Association
now runs the IAT clinic (…) "it is not a cure" Clements, says in
fact he admits it won't even help most the people who come here.
Dr.
Clement: About nineteen percent which sounds depressing
but when you get down to chemotherapy and radiation your talking
figures of less than ten percent.
John
Pruitt: But Clements say's "Imumno- Augmented Therapy" which
is what I.A.T. stands for does work particularly well on certain
kinds of cancer. Among them Mesothelioma the disease Cori Harth
has.
Dr.
Clement: When they come here we're lucky we extend life expectancy
an awful lot. I can tell you we have two Mesothelioma patients who
are nineteen or twenty years. Imumno-Augmented Therapy was developed
by the late Dr. Lawrence Burton, a rejected cancer researcher who
was in fact not a doctor but a zoologist. Burton, believed the immune
systems of those suffering from advanced cancers, like fatal. Like
the patients who come to I.A.T. are compromised this serum developed
by the late doctor supposedly replaces four natural proteins he
discovered missing from the blood of those with cancer. Dr. Clement:
We're not treating the cancer as such were treating the patient's
immune system. The patient's immune system if we're lucky is able
to reject the cancer.
(…………….)
John
Pruitt: Among those who praised I.A.T. is former Georgia Governor
Lester Maddox who sought treatment there in the early 1980's after
conventional therapies failed to stop the spread of cancer. Maddox
received more than eight thousand injections of Dr. Burton's serum
and he's still alive.
Gov.
Maddox: I think it gave a lot of people a lot of hope.
John
Pruitt: (….) Cori, are you convinced the treatment you received
in Freeport has been beneficial?
Cori
Harth: Oh definitely.
John
Pruitt: The medical establishment in the United States does
not share Cori Harth's faith or her enthusiasm. Agencies such as:
The American Cancer Society, The National Cancer Institute and The
Food and Drug Administration believe the treatment patients receive
here at I.A.T. has little or no value and may actually be harmful.
But they may be about to take a second look will tell you why, when
we return.
…………………………..
John
Pruitt: You're about to meet a group of people who couldn't
agree more. It is completely unlike the waiting room of a typical
cancer clinic.
Lady:
I have gotten boundless energy.
Cori
Harth: And everybody's laughing and talking none of us sitting
there - just sitting there you know saying, "Oh my God, I'm going
to die."
John
Pruitt: These are the true believers almost calk like in their
devotion to Dr. Lawrence Burton's theory of Imuno Therapy.
TESTIMONIALS:
1. My name
is Mary Heidenthal, I come from Scranton, Pennsylvania and I have
pancreatic cancer.
2. I have
reoccurring breast cancer.
3. I have
mesothelioma.
4. I have
sancromoson carsonoma that the cancer of the tongue.
5. I have
(inaudible) tale carcinoma of the breasts with metastasis lymph
nodes.
6. I have
ovarian cancer
7. I have
lung cancer
8. Colon
cancer
9. Pancreatic
cancer
10. I have
real cell carcinoma, which is kidney cancer that's on my pancreas.
11. I have
chronic lymphatic leukemia and I've been on this program since 1974.
Man
speaking: They don't look like they've got cancer; we don't
act like we got cancer....
Baris
Pantulak: I just thought it was a matter of time when I would
die and after one week on the treatment I was dancing in Port Lucaya
square.
Lady:
and boy can she do the Macarena.
(………………….)
John
Pruitt:The anger these people feel is directed less at
cancer itself than at the medical establishment. They are angry
the treatment is not available at home. Angry that there insurance
will not cover the expense.
Man
speaking: They will cut you burn you and cannibalize you and
watch you die. Yes, they will.
……………..
John
Pruitt: We had some of the same questions as the patients here.
why isn't anything being done to find out once and for all if the
treatment really works or is I.A.T. one of the longest running
and most successful hoaxes of our time. Channel 2 Health reporter,
Diana Davis traveled to Washington, DC to visit the National Cancer
Institute.
Dr.
White: I don't believe the N.C.I. is actively attempting to
interfere with the activities their clinic.
Diane:
Times have changed of so says this official with the national cancer
institute.
Dr.
White: (We are) trying to figure out how uh to get into this
field in a way that makes sense.
Diana:
That's a far cry from what the NCI seems to have been doing back
in 1980s. That's when the agency actively campaigned against IAT
until the clinic was shutdown amid rumors that unsanitary practices
resulted in t the spread of AIDS and other illnesses, but the cancer
institute came under fire after some congressional hearings in 1986.
After hearing miraculous stories of recovery from a string of cancer
patients and no evidence of AIDS transmission lawmakers wanted to
know why the cancer institute wasn't doing more to find out if the
clinic really had come up with a breakthrough. The clinic re-opened
and the agency hasn't taken a look at IAT since then.
Dr.
White: There may be some value at looking into what missteps might
have been made on each side.
Diana:
What do you say to people who are skeptics and so mistrustful of
traditional medicine and they say those people in Washington really
don't want to know about alternative therapy.
Dr.
White: We are, we do have an open door and we are willing to
look at good quality evidence.
Diana:
At least part of the problem is that there is no hard evidence when
it comes to the IAT clinic, only success stories. Yet Dr. White
agrees that even annotated success' should be investigated if enough
of them start to stack up and as a result of our inquiries Dr. White
say's his office will formally invite the IAT clinic to undergo
a new evaluation.(…)
…………………..
John
Pruitt: Former congressman Guy Millinari who presided over the
congressional hearing in 1986 was clearly impressed by the testimony
in favor if IAT he said, "Nothing should be done to prevent cancer
patients from coming here for the treatment. They should be allowed
to pursue that last hope whether it works or not."
(………………….)
From
Freeport, Grand Bahama Island I'm John Pruitt, Thanks for being
with us.
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