Time: Fri Aug 22 10:36:18 1997 by primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id HAA04073; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 07:26:11 -0700 (MST) by usr03.primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id HAA13913; Fri, 22 Aug 1997 07:20:17 -0700 (MST) Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 07:18:52 -0700 To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar] Subject: SLS: Blood Feud (2 of 2) (fwd) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit <snip> > >Subject: Blood Feud > >in the Sherbrooke courthouse in 1989. He seemed doomed to the >hinterlands of science. > > I first traveled to Rock Forest in January, 1992, taking with me >a >friend who would be termed a high risk for cancer: His mother and one >brother have died from the disease; his father and another brother are >currently undergoing treatment for it. > > An unlikely spot for a revolution in science, from the outside >Naessens' laboratory looked like any other summer cottage. At -18° C, >however, it was not summer, and the snow crunched and squeaked as we >walked towards the second of two cottages in the compound. > > An informal seminar for two American MDs was being held that >day, and >we were invited to attend. Two guard puppies yelped, and tried to lick >our faces, as Daniel Sdicu, one of Naessens' four stepchildren, opened >the door. > > Inside in a room bare but for a long table and chairs, Naessens >stood >to greet us. Tall and imposing -- even his stepchildren refer to him as > >"Monsieur Naessens" -- he was formally polite. Introduced to the two >doctors from Vermont, we sat quietly and listened. > > One of the doctors, Bradford Weeks, interpreted Naessens' French >for >the other, a gaunt, worried-looking man. Part of the discussions in >progress involved a new modified version of the somatoscope that >Naessens calls an "ultramicroscopic condenser," which -- attached to any > >optical microscope and for a modest $3,000 -- will enable a doctor or >scientist to perform basic aspects of blood analysis according to the >somatid theory. The rest covered what was to me by now familiar ground, > >with Naessens acting the strict but fair teacher. > > Then we crunched fifty yards through the snow to the older, main > >cottage. Inside this neat and tiny house -- clearly Naessens' home -- >we removed our boots, were given woolen slippers to wear, and were shown > >into a sitting room whose most prominent feature was an illuminated >shrine to the Virgin Mary. > > In one corner of this otherwise ordinary room a staircase led >down. At >the foot was a real if somewhat antique laboratory: Test tubes, >retorts, specimen tubes, the lot. To one side, dominating everything, >was the somatoscope. Looking like a cross between an ordinary large >optical microscope and the inside of an old television set, the >revolution in microscopy was definitely complicated. > > A metal box labeled Helium-Neon Laser was attached to one side >and a >small video camera to the top; a web of wires ran to other contraptions >below and behind it; there was a computer to the left, and some >high-tech electronics connected to a monitor and Super VHS machine on >the right. > > Wandering down the long narrow room, with its panoramic views of >the >Magog ice scape, I came across a strange fleshy pink blob under clear >viscous liquid in a sealed jar, like something left over from a David >Cronenberg movie. > > I asked the worried-looking Vermont doctor what it was. He >peered >closely at the slimy bolus and eventually replied, "I don't know, but >whatever it is it's alive." Naessens cheerfully explained that the blob > >had started life as a bit of muscle tissue he'd taken from a living rat, > >injected with a concentration of pure rat somatids, sealed in a >sterilized glass jar under vacuum, and then put on his lab windowsill >back in 1978. "Ever since," he added, "the cells have continued to >grow." "Great," the doctor laughed uneasily. "Grow your own >hamburger." > What everyone was really here for, however, was to see his own >blood >under the unique microscope. First taking a sample from Dr. Weeks -- >washing his hands, sterilizing the doctor's finger with alcohol, then >taking the crimson pinprick onto a slide and covering it with a sliver >of glass -- Naessens moved to his extraordinary device, flipping >switches, positioning; the slide, peering through the eyepieces. > > After focusing, he flipped another switch and the nearby monitor > >suddenly revealed what he was seeing. Tiny star-like dots pulsed and >danced around brilliant circles that were, the biologist explained, red >corpuscles. An awed silence followed, then gasps of amazement -- there >was a singular beauty to this spectacle. > > Carefully shifting the slide around -- the tiny pinprick of >blood at >20,000 X like a hot tub full of stars -- Naessens explained the various >forms we saw in normal and healthy living blood, untreated, unstained. > > Then it was the worried doctor's turn. There was the wait as >the slide >was prepared. But this time the blood looked distinctly different: The > >level of pulsing somatids seemed greatly reduced, and the later forms of > >the sixteen-stage cycle were clearly present, some great twisted shapes, > >bars, and curious blobs with filaments. > > "This is so strange," the doctor murmured, "seeing your own >blood. I >mean your own blood alive." Naessens scanned the sample more thoroughly > >than he had Dr. Week's. He asked if the doctor had been suffering from >fatigue (he had) and the doctor in turn asked a few questions about AIDS > >that seemed to indicate the source of his worry. > > Avoiding any explicit diagnosis, Naessens told him that there >was >definitely a stress on his immune system and that he should cut down his > >workload, rest more, and put himself on a strict diet -- no red meat, no > >dairy products, lots of fresh fruit and vegetables. Then get his blood >checked again in a month or so. > > The man's mounting gloom was contagious; it also seemed a rather > >private moment to have strangers present, so my friend and I left, >arranging to come back the next day. Neither of us could shake the >image of that doctor faced with a picture of his mortality. > > The next day it was my blood Naessens looked at first. With >sweaty >palms and a knotted heart, I waited until the video monitor was flipped >on, seeing that universe of stars and red corpuscles like jostling >balloons. Naessens moved the slide, pointing out forms, each one of >which had me asking if that meant cancer. > > But no, all was as it should be. Beyond an apparent indication >of iron >deficiency Naessens saw nothing amiss. Once I was able to relax, there >was something inexpressibly thrilling about the play of the elements in >living blood my blood -- something fundamental. > > But the mood was shattered. My friend's blood appeared next on >the >monitor. The red corpuscles seemed more frail, less defined. And >stretching across the screen, coiled and serpent-like, was the last form > >in the sixteen-stage cycle -- the "thallus," the discarded shell that >has expelled new somatids. As Naessens moved the slide, indicating >other forms from the complete cycle, my friend paced the lab in shock >and fear. > > Naessens continued to scan, pointing out forms, one of which -- >a >circular shape with waving snake-like protrusions that he termed the >Medusa head -- seemed busy surrounding "intruders" or seemed at least >very busy. "Ask your most eminent hematologists what that is ," >Naessens told me. "They cannot answer." > > When my friend emerged from a prolonged and silent spell in the >washroom, Naessens assured him that all this activity showed that his >immune system was fighting, certainly, but in good shape. The somatid >level was still relatively high, and the presence of the Medusa heads >indicated an aggressive response to some form of stress. > > My friend then told Naessens his family history, but the >biologist >still resisted any diagnosis, and advised him to follow the same >regiment of diet and relaxation he'd recommended for the doctor the day >before. > > Augustin Roy had accused Naessens of furtive and covert work but > >Naessens was hardly secretive, his lab and files patently open to anyone > >who was interested. No-one was getting rich here either. When I asked >if he's supplied 714-X free to anyone willing to perform standard animal > >tests he immediately said yes, providing the tests were carried out >according to his protocols, the compound injected intralymphatically and > >not into the tumors or the blood. > > In Canada, because of his problems, Naessens was giving it away >to any >physician who asked for it through official channels. As of October, >1992, 210 MDs across the country were administering it to patients, >admittedly on compassionate grounds, in most cases, and at their >patients' request. > > In retrospect, what impressed me most during this first >exploratory >visit was the devotion of Naessens' stepchildren. Only in Rock Forest >did I learn that their mother, Francoise, had died of a rare fungal >infection just four months earlier. > > (It was one of those horrible ironies that Naessens, who had >helped so >many people in endgame situations, had been unable to help his wife.) >Her children's faith in their late mother's strange and brilliant >husband seemed absolute. That two of his stepchildren had degrees in >biology said more for Naessens than any other fact of his life. > > Shortly after we left, my friend's anxiety gave way to rage. >How could >I have subjected him to this? How could Naessens be so irresponsible as > >to put anyone through such an ordeal? Before we drove home we went back > >to Naessens again, who went out of his way to reassure my friend that >the apparent stress affecting his bodily system could easily be >corrected at such an early stage. Hearing, once again, about the diet >he should follow, my friend just groaned, "But what's left to eat?" > > Never did a man follow a diet so religiously as did my friend >over the >next three months. And what I did, almost as religiously, was take the >video tape of our blood and a description of Naessens' theories to >anyone I thought might help me judge them. > > Calling Tak Mak, head of cellular and molecular biology at the >Ontario >Cancer Institute, and one of this country's most eminent cancer >researchers, I was surprised to find him unwilling even to hear an >account of Naessens' work. "It doesn't sound kosher," was all he said, >adding that blood wasn't really his field anyway. > > He referred me to a leading hematologist at the OCI, Dr. Mark >Minden, >who reluctantly agreed to meet me and view the video tape shot through >the somatoscope. Arriving early, I found Minden rummaging around his >tiny cluttered office in jeans and sneakers. He claimed to have >forgotten the appointment; he then left the room on the lookout, he >said, for a VCR. > > He came back half an hour later, without the equipment and >patently >hoping that I'd be gone. Instead I suggested that the nation's finest >cancer-research hospital might have an audiovisual department. >Muttering about grant applications that needed his urgent attention, he >finally led me up many stairs and down many corridors to a cupboard >possessing a monitor and a VCR into which I plugged my tape. > > "What were the somatids?", I asked. "Platelets or proteins in >Brownian >motion", he replied, but I could see that something on the tape >fascinated him. Did he ever study live blood? No -- or very rarely -- >was the answer. The electron microscopes and ordinary optical >microscopes he used required fixed and stained blood. > > To prevent his running out of the cupboard -- he hopped from >foot to >foot like an athlete about to make the hundred -yard dash -- I >fast-forwarded to my friend's blood, asking him about the difference >between the samples. Well, he said, this blood was obviously in an >advanced state of clotting. > > When I assured him that the sample had been taken under the same > >circumstances as my own, he pointed out that blood clots at different >rates, though he'd have to look at it under the electron microscope to >be sure of what he was seeing. What were the large coiled forms that >Naessens identified as the final stage in the somatid cycle? Fibron, he > >said, a protein that forms when blood begins to clot. Why was there >none of it in my blood sample, even after ten minutes of watching? He >had no answer to that. > > What Minden couldn't attribute to clotting he called >"artifacts"-- a >scientific way of saying "bits of stuff." The term in microscopy also >implies structures that are accidentally created in the human handling >of the sample on the slide. We looked at the Medusa head -- the form >Naessens had told me to show to a top hematologist. > > He would have to stain and fix it to see if it had a nucleus, >before he >could comment; it was the only artifact that seemed to shake his >certainty. I then showed him a diagram of Naessens' somatid cycle, which > >he dismissed outright. As I left Minden I thought, well, at least when >pushed into a closet he was willing to look.] > > It took a while to find a doctor with an orthodox scientific >background >who was willing to stand up for Naessens. Dr. Dietmar Schildwaechter is > >an MD and medical Ph.D. who was a longtime faculty member of the >University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, the oldest medical school > >in the U.S. > > One of his special fields was early cancer detection; he left >the >university to take over the Ratzenburg Klinik fur medizinische >Rehabilitation, one of the world's most advanced cancer-rehabilitation >centres, in his homeland, Germany. He now operates an office in the >District of Columbia consulting in preventive medicine and oncology >while continuing to care for patients in Europe. > > Schildwaechter came across Gaston Naessens in 1990 after >discovering >they were both treating the same "celebrity" patient, a "relative of >George Bush". In 1986 the woman was diagnosed with "one of the most >devastating cancers: an oat-cell carcinoma of the lung that had >metastasized to the brain, the adrenal gland, and the tissue between the > >lungs," says Schildwaechter. > > She and her husband had investigated the available treatments >and >discovered that for such a cancer there was no statistical survival >after three years, though the rare individual did survive. Electing to >go to the leading clinic in Bonn, she received chemotherapy, radiation, >and various other primary treatments that brought the disease under >control. > > Then she was referred to Schildwaechter, who kept her on a >maintenance >program, employing frequent cancer and immune-system profile tests >developed by Dr. Emile Schandl, a Hungarian-born research biochemist and > >geneticist who lives in Florida. > > The monitoring-test results - immune parameters, complete blood >count, >differential count, blood chemistry, and so on - were computerized, >giving, over the years, some of the most exact documentation of the >results of the treatment of this illness that exist. "At the end of >1989," Schildwaechter says, "her blood sample arrived and its values had > >changed remarkably. > > The immune-system values had improved drastically. We had >always seen >a slight activity from her cancer - which we'd kept in remission - now >it was down to zero. There were also two other markers that could not >be done during this testing because, as our lab said, of something like >chemical interference in her metabolism." > > Schildwaechter called the couple to find out if something had >been >going on and found out that they had visited Naessens in Quebec, where >the man had been taught how to give his wife injections of 714-X. "They > >did not want to tell me because they thought I might not approve." They > >needn't have worried. > > Schildwaechter finally met Naessens at a seminar held at >Sherbrooke in >1991, and he unreservedly accepted Naessen's theory. At medical school >in Europe he'd learned about Bechamp and others "basically excluded from > >medical schools over here. We were prepared for something like this," >he says. "I knew there was something in the blood we'd not been able to > >diagnose, and I realized that Naessens had discovered and identified >what others had only partially seen." > > The resistance to Naessen's work from orthodox practitioners was >only >to be expected. Schildwaechter himself had been "a totally orthodox, >tunnel-vision MD who didn't want to look at anything out of the >mainstream" when he had been at the University of Pennsylvania. But >then as he practiced he had begun to feel increasingly frustrated with >the limits of his profession: "I had the most modern hospital, I could >purchase the best equipment, yet I was still unable to monitor what I >wanted." > > In his spare time Schildwaechter traveled the world visiting >medical >centres and studying their techniques for monitoring blood, finding that > >none of them, from Britain to the Philippines, had the specificity and >sensitivity that he required. "I could not in all conscience tell my >patients that they were free of cancer after a monitoring test that was >only sixty-five-per-cent accurate." > > Then he met Schandl and, in a sense, defected from regular >medicine: >"Colleagues I had worked with for years were not even willing to discuss > >this stuff, even though Schandl was a leading biochemist and his test >results were couched in all the proper forms." In Schildwaechter's >view, his colleagues' excuse for dismissing Schandl's testing was that >it was too complicated and impractical for ordinary labs to achieve. > > The real reason, he believes, was that Schandl's tests could >document >the workings of alternative therapies that regular medicine had long >dismissed and violently resisted. > > The future of medicine in Schildwaechter's eyes lies in >prevention, and >the essence of prevention is a greater understanding of the workings of >the immune system and the development of methods to detect telltale >signs of imbalance long before symptoms appear. Combining, as he now >can do, Schandl's tests with Naessen's somatoscopic monitoring, and >something known as cell-milieu medicine - which determines the patient's > >exact needs for trace elements, amino acids, and vitamins. > > Schildwaechter claims tremendous success with his German >practice in >detecting and correcting imbalances that would lead to degenerative >diseases. (He hesitates to practice in the U.S. for fear of >Naessens-style prosecutions.) "Cancer," he announced with absolute >conviction, "has become a truly preventable disease if we would only >employ these blood tests. > > "The number-one cancer today is breast cancer, so we tell women >to have >mammograms after forty. But regardless of how modern the equipment, >there is still a high false-negative ratio and by the time the mammogram > >detects something, we've lost two years during which we could have >prevented the cancer if the somatoscopic blood tests had been used." > > > Naessen's day is coming, insists Schildwaechter: "A number of >oncologists are impressed with his work, even if they won't admit it at >the moment." He sighs, and adds, "Szent-Gyorgyi, the discoverer of >ascorbic acid and one of the great Novel laureates, remarked that >whenever you pioneer something you first have to realize you may be >called a quack. But the Establishment will check you out, and if they >find your discovery useful it will be accepted through the 'back door' - > >certainly without giving credit to the pioneer." > > After three months' effort I did find two cautiously curious >souls who >were willing to look at the material through the back door and very much > >off the record. Even more off the record, they described Naessen's work > >as interesting, but hesitated about coming to Rock Forest with me to see > >the somatoscope in action. > > Finally I found a young microbiologist, Jacqueline Conant, then >working >as an associate scientist with the Robert Wood Johnson Pharmaceutical >Research Institute in Toronto, who was intrigued (and professionally >brave) enough to make the trip with me - and one very nervous friend >heading for his second appointment with his own blood. > > The moment Naessens had drawn the blood in question and turned >to slide >it into the jaws of the somatoscope, that friend was heading up the >stairs. Naessens flipped on the monitor, revealing a vastly improved >picture. He laughed and shouted, "C'est meilleur!" calling my friend >back. > > The full cycle of somatids was no longer evident, and the red >corpuscles seemed more defined, more robust. The fast-clotting blood, >as Dr. Minden had described it, had changed its nature in three months. > > Next, Naessens showed us a video tape of blood from a patient >with very >advanced cancer. If normal blood had a sparkling beauty to it, this >murky broth of filaments and tendrils had something deeply depressing >about it. All the sixteen stages in the somatidian pleomorphic cycle >were clearly visible, floating like wreckage in the blood. I couldn't >see anything resembling red corpuscles and asked Naessens if this were >so. He pointed them out - bubbles filled with grit, their edges jagged >filaments. > > Then Naessens played a tape of the same patient's blood after >three >months' treatment with 714-X; after six months and a year. The progress > >was clear and dramatic. From what looked like Kitts's last cough, the >final tape revealed that bright dancing universe I'd come to recognize >as life and health. My friend was cheered, more at seeing what >diabolically cancerous blood looked like than at this unknown patient's >restoration to health. > > Jacqueline Conant had looked at everything with obvious >fascination, >asking many questions in tolerable French, but it was only on the way >back home that I was able to find out what had been going on in her >mind. > > "It was like entering the last century going down there," she >said. >"It reminded me of Banting and Best's lab at the U. of T. Then in the >middle of it all, there's this feat of high-tech engineering through >which he is able to make some truly remarkable observations." But what >did she think he was seeing? > > "It's never been possible to see these particular entities >before - and >I call them entities because they do appear to be living. What's their >nature?" she asked. "They could possibly be fragments of genetic >material, all right, but what exactly is their biochemical structure?" > > One of the things Naessens had shown her was an >electron-microscope >photograph of a sectioned somatid taken at 140,000 X; it resembled >something Norval Morrisseau could have painted. "I've never seen >anything like it," she said, choosing her words with great care. "I >certainly didn't recognize it to be of viral origin. It had definite >structure, not structure as we normally know it, with a nucleus. But, >there was definite order to this particular structure." > > Could it be, as Naessens maintained, a precursor to DNA? > > After a long silence, Conant replied, "It is conceivable. It's >the >particular building blocks of DNA that one has never yet been able to >visualize. In the electron microscope we've seen certain genetic >fragments, chromosomes - the structures are fairly well elucidated." > > A mighty pause. "I have trouble with that term precursor, but I > >suppose, yes, it is conceivable." Then, with passion: "There are so >many tools around today that we would be able to elucidate a lot of >Naessen's work, and yet the exciting thing for me is the extraordinary >power of that particular microscope." > > For microbiologists such as herself, she said, "it would >certainly >permit better patient management and therapeutic monitoring. There are >really all kinds of exciting applications for such a device both >diagnostically and academically." > > She paused again, and frowned thoughtfully. "He was certainly >able to >show that many of the various examples of forms in the blood are quite >disease-specific." Naessens had shown her still photographs of somatid >forms in the blood of AIDS, cancer, and multiple-sclerosis patients. > > I told her Dr. Minden had described most of the forms as >artifacts, and >asked if the term did mean "bits of stuff." She laughed and said it >did. But where did the stuff come from, I wondered, and why was there >such a regular pattern in its forms? Could it all be the result of >human handling of the samples? > > She looked at me, gauging how far she wanted to go in her >answer, and >then, apparently, decided to jump: "There was very little manipulation >between taking the blood, making the slide, and then viewing it. That's > >why there has to be something in it, and it certainly warrants further >study. But it's so foreign to the accepted dogma, you know, that it's >going to be a hard sell." > > Perhaps Naessens will live long enough to see a front-door >vindication >of his life's work. In 1990, after receiving the positive results of >non toxicity tests, Health and Welfare Canada agreed that 714-X could be > >supplied by Naessens to doctors whose patients were suffering from >terminal cancer. Doctors have to apply to Ottawa, where authorities may > >try to talk them out of using it, but such requests now cannot be >refused. > > Naessen's frustration lies in not having approval for the >medicinal's >use in the early or precancerous stages of the disease, where he thinks >it might be of the most use. But even with terminal patients he has >begun receiving reports indicating that 714-X helps relieve pain and >restore energy during a patient's final days or weeks. > > As far as his troubles with the Quebec medical authorities go, >they've >resulted in a temporary draw. Naessens and his lawyer, Conrad >Chapdelaine, decided to fight back against the eighty-two counts that >were laid after his first trial. > > They countersued, issuing subpoenas to Augustin Roy, among >others. The >medical college replied with a plea-bargain offer, and in the end >dropped seventy-two of the counts and reduced Naessen's fine to $5,000. >Naessens and his lawyer regarded the outcome as a technical victory, and > >so far there have been no more initiatives on the part of the >authorities. > > There is also growing interest in Naessen's approach to AIDS; he >was >invited to the controversial conference on alternative treatments held >in Amsterdam last May - also attended by Luc Montagnier, the French >scientist credited with discovery of HIV. > > In Europe, the Philippines, New Zealand, and Australia, >physicians are >using 714-X, and researchers, covertly and overtly, are investigating >his work. Daily, results come in - favorable and unfavorable - the >conclusion being that 714-X does work most effectively when the immune >system has not been totally wrecked by disease. > > This has always been Naessens's contention. And as the new >biology and >the new medicine emerge, the textbooks will be rewritten, as they always > >have been, this time the emphasis shifting from cure to prevention. > > An eminent Canadian oncologist (whom I will do the courtesy of >not >naming) has recently agreed, after visiting Rock Forest at my >suggestion, to supervise certain tests to validate Naessens's somatid >theory, an action that could jeopardize his career if publicized. > > In the U.S., and independent study on 714-X using human >patients, >sponsored by Charles Pixley, from Rochester, N.Y., has been under way >since January of 1992. > > In the Eastern Townships the man who may well be recognized one >day as >a Galileo or an Einstein continues the work he has devoted half a >century to, seemingly unconcerned by the fuss, the orthodox hostility. >He works in silence and concentration in his laboratory, its windows on >the Magog showing a landscape scarcely changed since the glaciers >retreated. > > Others have begun to praise him, but he himself might be content >to >live by a line from Paracelsus: "I pleased nobody except the people I >cured." > > This article originally appeared in SATURDAY night, Canada's >Magazine, >(which has a circulation of 3,500,000) , published in Toronto, Ontario, >December 1992 issue. > > Paul William Roberts, an author and freelance journalist from >Toronto, >received the Canadian "Journalist of the Year" award for this article. > >Writers and Research, Inc. >c/o general delivery at: >4810 Saint Paul Boulevard >Rochester, [zip code exempt] >NEW YORK STATE > >Phone 716 544 2288 >Fax 716 544 1838 >E-mail pix108@frontiernet.net > > > ======================================================================== Paul Andrew Mitchell : Counselor at Law, federal witness B.A., Political Science, UCLA; M.S., Public Administration, U.C. Irvine tel: (520) 320-1514: machine; fax: (520) 320-1256: 24-hour/day-night email: [address in tool bar] : using Eudora Pro 3.0.3 on 586 CPU website: http://www.supremelaw.com : visit the Supreme Law Library now ship to: c/o 2509 N. Campbell, #1776 : this is free speech, at its best Tucson, Arizona state : state zone, not the federal zone Postal Zone 85719/tdc : USPS delays first class w/o this As agents of the Most High, we came here to establish justice. We shall not leave, until our mission is accomplished and justice reigns eternal. ======================================================================== [This text formatted on-screen in Courier 11, non-proportional spacing.]
Return to Table of Contents for
Supreme Law School: E-mail