Feds probe anti-cancer paste scam
Georgia medical board investigates sales of flesh-eating herb
Elliott Minor / AP

Kelly Raber shows some of his family's alternative cancer treatment
products on Aug. 18.
ROCHELLE, Ga. - Curtis Brown carries business cards with old pictures of
his tumors, including an egg-sized growth on his neck. He says they were
each shed after the application of a flesh-eating paste containing the
medicinal herb bloodroot.
"I cured myself of cancer," the cards read.
Georgia's medical board and the federal Food and Drug Administration
don't share Brown's enthusiasm for the paste.
The state board has accused its maker, Dan Raber, a rural
pastor-turned-healer, of practicing medicine without a license. FDA
agents recently raided Raber's business, and a doctor could lose her
medical license for allegedly knowing Raber was giving people the paste
- not approved for the treatment of cancer - and not reporting him.
Raber's paste is described by the medical board as "a caustic,
tissue-destroying substance that eats away human skin and flesh." On his
Web site, Raber claims the remedy helped him remove a tumor on his
wrist, and he displays graphic before-and-after photos of others who
have used the paste, including women with scabs on their breasts and men
with scarred faces.
While the state board has leveled serious allegations against Raber, he
has not been charged with a crime. Prosecutors are studying the case.
Raber has never responded publicly to the board's allegations. In an
interview with The Associated Press, his son, Kelly, defended his father
and his products, which also include enzyme capsules they claim will
destroy cancerous cells.
"The herb does not kill healthy tissue," Kelly Raber said, smearing some
of the paste on his nose. "Instead, it performs a process known as
apoptosis that allows the (cancer) cells to self-destruct."
AP

Images purporting to show tumors being treated with the application of a
flesh-eating paste containing the medicinal herb bloodroot. The images
in the right column show how Curtis Brown treated a tumor on his neck
with the bloodroot paste. The images at left column show how another man
treated a tumor on his upper back. The top images show the tumor almost
ready to fall off the body. The middle images show the crater left after
the tumor was gone, and the bottom images show the skin healing. Brown
said the tumor fell off after using the paste for 26 days.

He said his father's paste is being singled out because it's an old
remedy that can't be patented and therefore wouldn't generate large
profits for the medical establishment or giant pharmaceutical companies.

Dan Raber was named in a state complaint filed against Dr. Lois March,
an ear, nose and throat specialist in south Georgia who risks losing her
medical license for allegedly providing pain medication to 12 patients
who had received Raber's bloodroot treatments. The board said seven of
the patients had breast cancer and that the doctor knew or should have
known that Raber's use of bloodroot "mutilated their breasts and caused
excruciating pain."
March has denied any wrongdoing. "These are wild accusations that aren't
true," she said earlier this month when reached by telephone at her
office in nearby Cordele.
Scientifically unproven
During a 2003 crackdown on alternative medicine merchants who made false
claims on the Internet, the FDA shut down a Louisiana company that sold
a bloodroot paste and its owner was sent to prison. An Indianapolis
woman who said she used products from that company and Raber's in 2001
contends in a lawsuit that her nose was eaten away, exposing the bone
and forcing her to have seven reconstructive surgeries.
A settlement was reached in the suit against the company; Raber is also
expected to settle soon, said the woman's lawyer, John Muller.
To prove bloodroot's effectiveness, Raber cites numerous books and
studies that support the use of salves and pastes containing herbs and
other ingredients for treating skin cancer. Such preparations are
supposed to isolate the tumor from healthy tissue and cause it to fall
out.
Mark Blumenthal, executive director of the American Botanical Council,
said bloodroot has been used for years by nontraditional healers to
treat skin cancers, but he acknowledged "the efficacy has been unproven
from a scientific point of view."
Brown is a believer. After years of sun exposure, the retired farmer was
plagued with skin cancer. Doctors surgically removed cancerous growths
from his face and arms, but when a 3-inch-long tumor grew on the left
side of his neck in 2002, Brown instead tried the paste, even though it
meant nearly a month of excruciating pain.
"None of my people ever survived the conventional way," said the
71-year-old Brown, who listed relatives who had succumbed to cancer. "I
knew there was a better way."
Brown said after 26 days of using the paste his tumor fell off, leaving
a crater in his neck that eventually healed. A scar is hardly noticeable
just below his jaw.
Brown said he promotes the paste strictly to help others and receives no
compensation from Raber or his company, Deodorant Stone Manufacturing
Co.
Michael Bradley of Monroe, Ga., a Vietnam veteran who said he was
exposed to the herbicide Agent Orange, said he decided to try Raber's
paste after doctors confirmed he had a large melanoma on his upper back.
"It came out after 30 days," Bradley said. "It was very painful, but I'm
still alive. I know a lot of people who didn't go that route and they're
dead."

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