who was harry hoxsey?

Hoxsey Therapy or Hoxsey Method is an alternative medical treatment promoted as a cure for cancer. The treatment consists of a caustic herbal paste for external cancers or an herbal mixture for "internal" cancers, combined with laxatives, douches, vitamin supplements, and dietary changes. Reviews by major medical bodies, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, have found no evidence that Hoxsey Therapy is an effective treatment for cancer. The sale or marketing of the Hoxsey Method was banned in the United States by the FDA on September 21, 1960 as a "worthless and discredited" remedy and a form of quackery.

Currently, the Hoxsey Method is primarily marketed by the Bio-Medical Center in Tijuana, Mexico. Hoxsey Therapy is also marketed over the Internet; in June 2008, the FDA National Health Fraud Coordinator noted that "There is no scientific evidence that it has any value to treat cancer, yet consumers can go online right now and find all sorts of false claims that Hoxsey treatment is effective against the disease."

Hoxsey Therapy, a mixture of herbs, was first marketed as a purported cure for cancer in the 1920s by Harry Hoxsey, a former coal miner and insurance salesman, and Norman Baker, a radio personality. Hoxsey himself traced the treatment to his great-grandfather, who observed a horse with a tumor on its leg cure itself by grazing upon wild plants growing in the meadow. John Hoxsey gathered these herbs and mixed them with old home remedies used for cancer. Among the claims made in his book, he purports his therapy aims to restore "physiological normalcy" to a disturbed metabolism throughout the body, with emphasis on purgation, to help carry away wastes from the tumors he believed his herbal mixtures caused to necrotize.

Hoxsey initially opened a clinic in Taylorville, Illinois to sell his treatment, one of 17 clinics that he would eventually open. Dogged in many states by legal trouble for practicing medicine without a license, Hoxsey frequently shut down his clinics and reopened them in new locations. In 1930, Hoxsey was associated with controversial broadcaster Norman G. Baker in operating the Baker Institute in Muscatine, Iowa. The two fell out and numerous lawsuits followed, while Hoxsey was again enjoined from practicing medicine without a license.

In 1936, Hoxsey opened a clinic in Dallas, Texas which became one of the largest privately owned cancer centers in the world. At one point in the 1950s, Hoxsey's gross annual income reached $1.5 million from the treatment of 8,000 patients. Hoxsey published several books advertising his methods and clinics including "You Don't Have to Die: The Amazing Story of the Hoxsey Cancer Treatment" (1956), and received support from Gerald Winrod and H. L. Hunt.

The United States National Cancer Institute (NCI) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as well as the American Medical Association (AMA), began a series of efforts to restrict Hoxsey's clinic operations, viewing them as providing false cures and defrauding cancer sufferers. Regarding this campaign, NCI director John Heller wrote in 1953:

The American Medical Association condemned Hoxsey's "caustic pastes" and tonics as fraudulent. In 1949, Hoxsey sued the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and its editors for libel and slander. Hoxsey won the case, but was awarded only $2; the judge concluded that since Hoxsey's promotion of his treatment depended largely upon claims that the AMA was persecuting him, he had suffered little or no damage from the JAMA articles. A review of 400 patients treated by Hoxsey found no verifiable cures.

In 1950, Hoxsey submitted case histories of 77 patients to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), claiming that they were "fully documented with clinical records and pathological reports" and that they would demonstrate his treatment's effectiveness. However, the NCI found that of these 77 reports, only 6 included actual tissue biopsies. Of the 2 biopsies from patients described by Hoxsey as having "internal cancer", neither showed any evidence of actual malignancy. The NCI concluded that Hoxsey's records did not contain sufficient information to evaluate his treatment. Hoxsey argued that it was the NCI's responsibility to seek out the information necessary to verify his case reports, and attributed the failure to do so to a conspiracy on the part of the NCI and AMA.

In 1956, the FDA sent an investigator to Hoxsey's clinic posing as a patient. The investigator was told by Hoxsey's clinic that he had cancer (he did not), and that it would take a "long time" to cure him. The U.S. government banned the sale of the Hoxsey herbal treatment in 1960. Hoxsey was also forced to close all of his U.S. clinics. In 1963, Mildred Nelson, a nurse who had worked closely with Hoxsey, established the Bio Medical Clinic in Tijuana, Mexico with Hoxsey's approval. Hoxsey himself chose this site in 1963, when his last operation in the US was shut down. Just before Nelson's death in 1999, the clinic was taken over by her sister, Liz Jonas.

In 1967, Hoxsey developed prostate cancer, and his own treatment failed to cure it. Because he failed to respond to his eponymous therapy, Hoxsey underwent surgery and standard medical treatment. He died seven years later, in 1974.

Hoxsey herbal treatments include a topical paste of antimony, zinc and bloodroot, arsenic, sulfur, and talc for external treatments, and a liquid tonic of licorice, red clover, burdock root, Stillingia root, barberry, Cascara, prickly ash bark, buckthorn bark, and potassium iodide for internal consumption.

In addition to the herbs, the Hoxsey treatment now also includes antiseptic douches and washes, laxative tablets, and nutritional supplements. A mixture of procaine hydrochloride and vitamins, along with liver and cactus, is prescribed. During treatment, patients are asked to avoid consumption of tomatoes, vinegar, pork, alcohol, salt, sugar, and white flour products.

In 2005, the cost of initial evaluation and treatment with Hoxsey Therapy at the Bio-Medical Center in Tijuana, Mexico was reported to be between $3,900 and $5,100, though this price did not include the recommended purchase of an unspecified number of dietary supplements and 3 years of return visits.

No peer-reviewed medical or scientific research has been published which would allow any conclusions about the effectiveness of Hoxsey Therapy. The Bio-Medical Center in Tijuana, Mexico claims a success rate of 50–85% in their promotional material, though these figures have not been independently evaluated and the parameters of "treatment success" are undefined. Mildred Nelson, director of the Bio-Medical Center, has claimed an 80% success rate, and attributed treatment failures to a "bad attitude" on the part of the patient.

The American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute do not advise the use of Hoxsey Therapy, as neither has found any objective evidence that the treatment provides tangible benefit to people with cancer. Reviews by the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and M. D. Anderson Cancer Center found no evidence that Hoxsey Therapy is effective as a treatment for cancer. A controlled experiment in lab mice did not find any difference in tumor growth between untreated mice and those given the Hoxsey tonic. An FDA review of 400 people claiming to have been cured by the Hoxsey method found that many of the patients never in fact had cancer, or had received successful medical treatment elsewhere before being treated with Hoxsey Therapy. Those who had cancer at the time they used Hoxsey Therapy were uniformly either deceased or alive with active cancer. There were no cases of actual cures among those promoted as such by the Hoxsey clinic.

In 1957, a group from the University of British Columbia visited Hoxsey's Mexican clinic and obtained records for 71 Canadian patients treated by Hoxsey. The University panel found that:

The panel reported that in the one case of demonstrable cure, a patient with a skin cancer of the ear, Hoxsey's treatment had resulted in disfigurement which could have been avoided with standard surgical excision.

In 1998, the Office of Technology Assessment issued a report on herbal cancer treatments. This group found that while many elements of Hoxsey Therapy had antitumor activity in vitro, the complete Hoxsey tonic had never been tested in animal models or in human clinical trials.

Several books on herbalism have claimed that some of the herbs in the therapy have anti-tumor effects in vitro. According to botanist James A. Duke of the United States Department of Agriculture, eight of the nine Hoxsey-tonic herbs have some anti-tumor activity in animal models, five have antioxidant effects, and all nine have antimicrobial activity that may be linked to cancer-fighting effects. Duke's assessment was that the Hoxsey tonic ingredients showed very significant chemical and biological anticancer activity.

A 1994 article in the Journal of Naturopathic Medicine followed 39 patients treated with Hoxsey Therapy in Tijuana. Patient interviews were used to confirm the existence and stage of cancer; some of the patients were unaware of the stage of their tumor and in some cases medical records were not available. Most patients were lost to follow-up; of the patients successfully followed who claimed to use the formula, 9 died and 6 were alive. The 6 survivors all claimed by mailed responses to questionnaires to be disease-free after five years of follow-up. Review of this study pointed out its "obvious flaws", including "the majority of patients lost to follow-up, lack of access to detailed medical records, and reliance upon patients for disease stage information"; the authors themselves regarded the results as unclear. These same authors interviewed patients at other alternative cancer clinics in Mexico. Not one patient at these other clinics claimed that they personally knew anyone who had attended those clinics and had been cured of cancer (or anything else). As a curious anecdote, every one of the 39 patients attending the Hoxsey clinic (the "Bio-medical Center") claimed to personally know someone who was diagnosed with cancer in North America, came to the Hoxsey clinic, and claimed to be cured of their cancer.

A 2001 analysis published in the alternative-medicine literature explored the feasibility of using the Bio Medical Center's records in Tijuana as the basis for outcomes research on Hoxsey Therapy. Of 149 patients treated for cancer at the Bio Medical Center in 1992, the authors found that less than half of these patient records contained pathology reports verifying a cancer diagnosis. Additionally, 60%-90% had already received "conventional" treatment such as surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation therapy with a possible curative effect. The authors were able to verify survival status in only 57% of the treated patients, due to lack of documentation, follow-up, and identifying information in the Bio Medical Center charts. Of the cohort of 149 patients, 11% were still alive 5 years after treatment with Hoxsey Therapy; 46% had died; and 43% could not be located and their status could not be determined. The authors concluded that it was not possible to reliably assess the Bio Medical Center's outcomes because of the lack of documentation, limited follow-up, and failure to confirm in many cases the existence or stage of cancer.

The treatment gained wide press coverage in 2006 due to a court dispute between the family of Starchild Abraham Cherrix and Social Services of the State of Virginia. Cherrix had requested to undergo Hoxsey Therapy to treat a recurrence of Hodgkin disease. Because at the age of 16 he was still a minor, Social Services considered the parents to be negligent and sought to have Cherrix undergo conventional chemotherapy and radiotherapy. On August 16, 2006, Circuit Judge Glen A. Tyler announced that both sides had reached an agreement that the parents did not act in a way that was medically neglectful. In addition, it stipulated that Starchild would be treated by an oncologist of his choice who was both board-certified in radiation therapy as well as interested in alternative methods to treat Hodgkin disease. Cherrix subsequently received radiation treatments from Arnold Smith, of Mississippi, and in September 2007, it appeared that his cancer was in remission.

Harry M. Hoxsey, controversial medical charlatan, naturopath, and oilman, the son of John C. and Martha (Bentley) Hoxsey, was born near Auburn, Illinois, on October 23, 1901.

Description Hoxsey Therapy or Hoxsey Method is an alternative medical treatment promoted as a cure for cancer. The treatment consists of a caustic herbal paste for external cancers or an herbal mixture for "internal" cancers, combined with laxatives, douches, vitamin supplements, and dietary changes. Wikipedia

Hoxsey was the dark side of the self-made, rags-to-riches success story that Americans so revere. According to medical historian James Harvey Young, he was born in 1901 and grew up in a rural village in Illinois, one of 12 children of a self-taught unlicensed veterinarian. After his father died in 1919, eighth-grade dropout Hoxsey went to work as a coal miner and insurance salesman, before discovering a far more lucrative career. He began peddling an anti-cancer herbal mixture that he claimed had been invented by his great-grandfather, who'd supposedly noticed that after a horse had eaten wild plants in a meadow, the animal's leg tumor had vanished. As Hoxsey told it, the potion had been passed down in the family, and his own father had taught him the precise mixture by having him write it out 250 times, until he'd committed it to memory. (That Hoxsey's father had died of cancer, despite the herbal cure, was a part of the yarn that Hoxsey usually left out.) In 1922, Hoxsey began peddling the mixture, supposedly first using it to cure a Civil War veteran of lip cancer. Soon after that, with the support of investors, he took over an old building once used by the Order of the Moose in Taylorville, Il., and converted it into the Hoxide Institute, where he advertised that cancer patients would receive treatment "under strictly ethical medical supervision, painlessly, without operation, and with permanent results."

Hoxsey's Taylorville clinic attracted a steady stream of patients. But after many of them died at the institute, a local doctor wrote to the American Medical Association, which launched a string of lawsuits aimed at stopping Hoxsey. Three times he was prosecuted and fined for practicing medicine in Illinois without a license. To evade authorities, Hoxsey began moving his operations — from Detroit, to Wheeling, W.Va., to Atlantic City, N.J. — before finally setting up shop in Dallas in 1936.  After beating similar charges there on appeal, Hoxsey acquired an honorary degree as a doctor of naturopathy, which enabled him to become licensed in the state.

According to a 1956 Life magazine article, Hoxsey's Dallas clinic eventually generated $1.5 million in revenue annually, from thousands of patients who were willing to pay $460 apiece for "little more than a physical examination, medical advice and some pills." He also published an autobiography, entitled You Don't Have to Die. Using high-powered radio stations across the Mexican border, he promoted his herbal therapy and also peddled what he touted as "bonded eggs," produced by chickens who'd been treated with his cancer cure, according to the Texas State Historical Association.

By the mid-1940s, Hoxsey — whose office contained a folksy plaque explaining that there were two kinds of people, "dem that takes and dem that got took" — was attracting delegations of elected officials to his clinic to tout his miraculous regiment. He even managed to gain the support of at least two U.S. Senators — Elmer Thomas of Oklahoma and William Langer of North Dakota. Langer was so impressed after visiting Hoxsey in Dallas that he introduced a Senate resolution, calling for creation of a special subcommittee to hold hearings on Hoxsey's method and verify that it could cure cancer.

After the AMA Journal criticized Hoxsey as a "cancer charlatan" in 1949, Hoxsey tried to silence the organization with a defamation suit. An elderly Texas judge ruled that Hoxsey's potions were "reasonably comparable" to medical treatments such as surgery and radiation, though he only awarded Hoxsey $2 in damages, according to historian Young.

At that point, the FDA jumped into the fight. According to a 1960 Washington Post article, the FDA's labs tested Hoxsey's herbal preparations, and investigated the medical records of all the living patients for whom Hoxsey claimed a cure. In 1950, FDA went to court in an effort to prevent Hoxsey from shipping his herbal preparations across state lines. Hoxsey fought back, but after years of litigation, the government eventually won the case on appeal.

Meanwhile, the FDA fought Hoxsey's efforts to expand his operations. After he opened a clinic in Portage, Pa., one of its first patients was an undercover FDA investigator. After an examination that lasted a few minutes, the investigator — who was perfectly healthy — was told that he suffered from prostate cancer, and needed treatment. Shortly afterward, a federal marshal showed up and confiscated 500,000 doses of Hoxsey's cure. Hoxsey fought the seizure in federal court, but a jury ruled against him, and Hoxsey's herbs were destroyed.

In April 1956, the FDA published a warning in the Federal Register, saying that its scientists had determined that Hoxsey's treatments not only were worthless, but dangerous. Some of the preparations dispensed by his clinic included potassium iodide, which the agency said actually accelerated the growth of tumors. The FDA also said that its investigators had not found "a single certified cure" by Hoxsey's method, and castigated it as "a gross deception to the consumer," according to an Associated Press account.

It was the first time ever that the agency had publicly denounced a cancer cure as a fraud. In 1957, the agency decided to make its point even more strongly, asking post offices across the U.S. to display its "Beware" posters warning people not to try Hoxsey's cure. Hoxsey responded with a federal lawsuit, claiming that the government was depriving him of a property right — that is, to sell his potions — without due process. But a federal judge in Washington rejected Hoxsey's claim, ruling that the government had a right to disseminate information where public health was at stake.

Soon after that bold denunciation, the Pennsylvania clinic closed, and Hoxsey's business began to collapse.

Richard Walter in his article “Hoxsey Therapy” reports: “In 1953, the Fitzgerald Report, commissioned by a United States Senate committee, concluded that organized medicine had "conspired" to suppress the Hoxsey therapy and at least a dozen other promising cancer treatments. The proponents of these unconventional methods were mostly respected doctors and scientists who had developed nutritional or immunological approaches. Panels of surgeons and radiation therapists had dismissed the therapies as quackery, and these promising treatments were banned without a serious investigation.”

In 1954, an independent team of physicians from around the U.S. made an inspection of his Dallas clinic and issued an amazing statement. After reviewing hundreds of case histories and interviewing patients, doctors released a signed report declaring that the clinic is successfully treating pathologically proven cases of cancer, both internal and external, without the use of surgery, radium or x-ray. The pendulum was swinging away from blind reaction against Hoxsey.

After all the bitter opposition by the medical establishment of the day, and after all the invitations by Hoxsey,  not one study on this formula was ever conducted. Whatever the reasoning, this Hoxsey lineage and experience has never been utilized even after a few retrospective outcome studies have proven the percentages of patient mortality outcomes past five years, should stimulate some medical research interest. (Assessment of outcomes at alternative medicine cancer clinics: a feasibility study. Richardson MA, Russell NC, Sanders T, Barrett R, Salveson C. 2001)

Medical historians have studied the use of the ingredients in this formula, which were used by native American tribes and have observed the transmission of this usage of these herbs to local settlers and their doctors. Remembering the context of the times, American Eclectic Physicians were a group of doctors devoted to clinical research and the use of herbal preparations in treating disease. They flourished a hundred years up to 1939 and had medical schools that taught sophisticated methods of herbal formulation and prescription, the main of medicine at that time.. Their work is a rich resource to this day. Out of this climate came the Hoxsey formula and other similar formulas containing some of the same ingredients.

Reported by Kenny Ausubel in his article “Tempest in a Tonic Bottle”: “To Francis Brinker a Naturopathic Doctor and historian, there is a striking similarity to an old red clover-based eclectic formula. He traced the origins of the Trifolium (red clover) extract back to the nineteenth century, when Parke, Davis, and Co. produced a Syrup called Trifolium Compound with similar ingredients to Hoxsey’s formulas.  The formula was also described in an official American Pharmaceutical Association listing of drugs called the National Formulary in 1926 and 1936.

Yet another Extract of Trifolium Compound was listed in the 1898 King’s American Dispensatory, the preeminent compilation of medicines used by Eclectic doctors.  It was prescribed for syphilis, scrofula, rheumatism, and glandular and skin conditions. This "Compound Fluid Extract of Trifolium" contained all the Hoxsey ingredients except buckthorn, and also had may apple root, Podophyllum peltatum.

"Alteratives, known in folk medicine as “blood cleansers,” were seen as assisting organs that remove metabolic waste and toxins from the circulation. Alteratives were believed to improve the quality of the blood by assisting digestion, improving circulation, and accelerating the processes of elimination, thereby correcting faulty metabolism. The knowledge concerning their action was wholly empirical. Health was seen as a product of the quality of the blood, since the blood brings nourishment to tissues and cells and must remove the cellular waste.

"Cleansing the blood," Brinker continues, "occurs as it is filtered through the organs which excrete cellular waste products. When these organs of elimination do not function adequately, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain a healthy ecology of the cells. This makes them more susceptible to carcinogens.20

"This model for the action of alteratives was practically applied by the late-nineteenth-century Eclectic prescribers in the treatment of chronic and cancerous conditions. Such was their success that the alteratives were considered to have been among the most useful medicines in Eclectic therapeutics."

The Hoxsey formula’s real purpose was not to kill cancer cells directly. Rather, it was to create an overall terrain unfavorable to the growth of cancer cells. Simultaneously its effect was the enhancement of the body’s own immune response and capacity to eliminate toxins. From these perspectives, the Hoxsey tonic is a credible approach.