Original debut | Timeweekly
Text | Blue War
A bottle of dog medicine set off a history of anti-cancer blood and tears.
In August 2019, there were media reports on the phenomenon of cancer patients taking the dog repellent "fenbendazole" to treat cancer, unveiling the tip of the iceberg of folk anti-cancer remedies.
According to the latest data, about 3.8 million people currently have cancer incidences every year, about 2.3 million cancer deaths, and about 7.49 million people have been sick in five years. The annual investment in cancer care is more than 220 billion yuan.
High incidence, high fatality rate, high treatment costs, under the "three highs", controversial folk remedies against cancer are quietly popular in the folk. Faced with the direct threat of death from cancer, desperate cancer patients use them as the "last straw" to save their lives.
Some people say that their lives are gone, and they are still afraid of what dog medicine; others say that survival is important, but we must also pay attention to risks.
Is folk remedies a poison that can cause death, a placebo to save the patient's spirit, or a miracle drug to treat cancer?
1
Disulfiram: a potentially lethal alcoholic beverage
Wu Qiang is the father of two children under the age of 10 and a liver cancer patient. In the Anti-Cancer Population of Western Medicine, he has quite an authority to survive with cancer for 3 years, but he also faces controversy because he earns interest rates on behalf of drugs.
In the past three years, Wu Qiang has continuously shared his experience and prescriptions for taking disulfiram to fight cancer in forums and communities, gathering a large number of desperate cancer patients and family members.
Wu Qiang said that he has almost all the characters of "I Am Not a Medicine God": Cheng Yong, who sells medicine, Huang Mao, who saves himself, Si Hui, who earns money to raise children, and a priest who saves others spiritually.
In the face of cancer, they don't even have any scientific guidance and protection measures, and some just let go of the choice of survival or death, and risk seizing the last straw that may be possible.
Disulfiram is an ancient drug from abroad that is mainly used to abstain from alcohol dependence. In the 1970s, during an autopsy, a doctor found that the tumor tissue in the bone marrow of patients diagnosed with bone metastases who had been diagnosed with breast cancer 10 years earlier had disappeared after taking the alcohol-abstinence drug disulfiram for many years.
Disulfiram was an autobiography that disulfiram treated cancer, and soon became an accepted but controversial folk remedy for some cancer patients.
Proponents point out that disulfiram is a broad-spectrum anticancer that naturally targets tumor tissue, and when combined with copper ions in the human body, small molecule coordination compounds can be formed, and then by oxidation of zinc-sulfur sites in the zinc-sulfur region of the intracellular cell, protein denaturation is induced, which in turn leads to selective killing of cancer cells.
Skeptics told the Timeweekly new media reporter that disulfiram was previously mainly used to quit alcohol, and has not undergone a complete clinical trial of cancer treatment, and disulfiram has large side effects, and disulfiram-like reactions have reported deaths.
Disulfiram is a prescription drug, which is expensive and currently difficult to buy in China
Disulfiram-like reactions refer to the fact that after taking disulfiram or cephalosporins, the body's alcohol metabolism function is inhibited, and patients who drink alcohol or even just wipe alcohol during treatment are likely to have fatal symptoms such as anaphylactic shock, respiratory depression and heart failure.
In the face of cancer patients who doubt the efficacy of disulfiram, Wu Qiang issued his own case: from 2017 to now, his liver cancer growth has only grown from 3 cm to 5 cm, and tumor markers have not increased significantly.
Opponents further questioned that Wu Qiang was just a drug dealer, and after buying his drugs, he took them according to the prescription, and the cancerous tumors of the cancer family members not only did not shrink, but the spread of cancer cells was further accelerated, and "he never talked about those cases that died after the failure of the fight against cancer."
Wu Qiang often responds with one sentence: Sincerity of heart is the spirit, and I do not guarantee the efficacy.
2
Fenbendazole: "Dog Medicine" from the United States
Since the beginning of August, the few square meters of space in the hospital building that belonged to Lui Zhihe and his mother have been divided into two battlefields in the following shift time boundary.
During the day, doctors come in and out to inquire and give treatment plans, and nurses send medicine back and forth to help patients treat; at night, Lui Pulls down the curtain, takes fenbendazole and vitamin E out of his pocket, urges his mother to take them, and then waits for a miracle to happen.
Lui told Timeweekly that about half a month after taking fenbendazole, his mother's cancer was under control in early August, and doctors agreed to reduce the original 8 chemotherapy treatments to 5.
But he also couldn't be sure whether it was the chemotherapy that was being performed or the "Joe regimen" that was taking fenbendazole in private.
ABC5 has reported on Joe's anti-cancer story
The "Joe scheme" refers to an attempt by U.S. businessman Joe Tippens to fight cancer by taking drugs such as fenbendazole from January to April 2017. According to the British Daily Mail, Joe, a patient with advanced small cell lung cancer, followed the advice of a veterinary friend to take fenbendazole + vitamin E prescriptions in the case of ineffective chemotherapy, and after 3 months, the original "cancerous tissue that grew into a Christmas tree" disappeared.
Fenbendazole is mainly used for deworming in pet dogs, so it is also called "dog medicine". After taking fenbendazole, Joe shared his successful anti-cancer experience and prescriptions on his blog, and was quickly accepted and tried by a large number of cancer patients.
On a social software, thousands of cancer patients and family members discuss the experience of taking fenbendazole to fight cancer every day, and dozens of documents such as case analysis and medication methods are displayed in the community.
The epidemic does not prove that dog medicine is scientifically reasonable to fight cancer.
Experts at Sichuan Cancer Hospital believe that the "Joe program" does not prove that fenbendazole has anti-tumor effects. The reason was that Joe had received radiotherapy and systemic chemotherapy before taking fenbendazole, the timing of the first PET test after chemoradio chemotherapy was not in line with the diagnosis and treatment routine, and he also joined a new drug clinical trial during the period of taking fenbendazole.
Exactly which therapy worked for Joe, even a professional can't be sure. This is very similar to patients such as Lui Chi and his mother, who use multiple therapies simultaneously in China.
Fenbendazole tablets
Sichuan Provincial Cancer Hospital also reminds patients that there has not been a single case of successful treatment of malignant tumors in the true sense of the word so far. The literature that does not support fenbendazole anti-tumor is not uncommon, and even studies have found that taking fenbendazole promotes liver tumor production in rats.
However, cancer patients who have seen hope in fenbendazole and Joe have long been unable to take care of this. In the community, whenever someone questions or issues a case of failed cancer fight, it will be attacked by the group until it is removed from the group chat.
In the face of the absolute threat of death from cancer, the absurdity of dog medicine's anti-cancer and the side effects of drugs are insignificant.
3
Mulberry Yellow: Hemostatic drug that has not been included in the medical code
"Mulberry yellow 15g, drop true incense 2g, licorice..." Zhang Xi sent a prescription while stressing that there was no prescription. He did not guarantee efficacy, but provided several cases of patients who had remission after taking the drug.
Zhang Xi sent a message to the Timeweekly new media reporter through the Sanghuang anti-cancer group, claiming that he had drugs for cancer patients to use, and repeatedly stressed that this was not a prescription. His reasoning was that neither Mulberry Huang nor Zhen Zhen Xiang was in the Medical Code and could not be used by Chinese medicine to prescribe medicine.
Mulberry yellow is known in ancient Chinese medical books as Sangchen, Mulberry Ear or Husun Eye, and is said to have hemostasis, blood activation, blood transformation and other effects, but it is not popular in use.
Mulberry yellow is used in anti-cancer research, which first originated in Japan. Due to the nuclear radiation generated by the atomic bomb explosion, a large number of Japanese suffered from cancer after World War II. In the 1960s, researchers found that the cancer rates of residents on Nagasaki's Female Island were much lower than in other regions, so they began to study the mulberry yellow they took.
According to the research results published by Japanese scholars in 1968, the tumor suppression rate of mulberry yellow is as high as 96.7%, which has set off a research boom of up to 20 years in the United States, Japan, South Korea and other countries. However, to date, there are no clinical trial data that suggest that mulberry yellow has a direct effect on the treatment of cancer.
Wild mulberry yellow is extremely rare, so the price is not cheap
The one provided by Zhang Xi is not a "prescription" for the prescription, and it is also considered difficult to determine the efficacy. Li Li, chief physician of a provincial hospital of traditional Chinese medicine, said that the improvement of cancer patients' physical condition after taking it may be the tonic effect of a large number of drugs in the formula, or the comfort effect of taking drugs, which does not mean that cancer is relieved or inhibited.
Li Li also said that the growth cycle of wild mulberry yellow is as long as 20-30 years, so it is very rare; in terms of efficacy, artificial cultivation of mulberry yellow is far less than wild mulberry yellow, and it is not uncommon in the market to deceive people of money with false and real.
After repeated questioning, I learned that Zhang Xi's occupation is to develop health care products.
4
Vine Pear Root: The root of the kiwi fruit
A farmer in Wanhe Town, Suixian County, Hubei Province, called a reporter and reported that he had a folk remedy for gynecological diseases and tumor diseases, and had treated several people: 65-year-old Master Zhang ran a hardware grocery store, his mother was diagnosed with malignant tumors in the provincial cancer hospital in 1985, and the cancer case of that year, Master Zhang, is still preserved...
There are pictures, and a lot of details, and when such a "report" comes up on the web, will you believe it?
In July 2019, Wu's mother was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer and was too late to undergo surgery. In a hurry, Xiao Wu saw this message on the Internet, so he held the mentality of trying it out and added the other party's WeChat.
In the conversation between the two, "Master Zhang" said that the prescription was mainly peach root, but this prescription was not discovered by himself, "it was handed down". As for who found it and how it was passed down, he didn't know.
At the end of July, Wu's mother's life was in danger, and the doctor had nothing to do except give pain injections. Desperate, Xiao Wu bought nearly two thousand yuan of Traditional Chinese medicine from "Master Zhang" and took it every day. But in the end, she was unable to keep her mother.
The vine pear root is actually the kiwi tree root
The root of the peach, scientific name "vine pear root", is also the root of the kiwi tree. Regarding the efficacy of vine pear root, the Pharmacopoeia is described as follows: detoxification, wind removal, dehumidification, diuresis and hemostasis, for rheumatic bone pain and jaundice and other symptoms.
In the China Pharmacological News, Lou Lijun, deputy chief physician of Quzhou People's Hospital in Zhejiang Province, and others have published a study on the anti-tumor effect of kiwi root. The study found that the chloroform extract of kiwi root inhibits liver cancer at about 38 percent.
Some researchers said that domestic research on the anti-cancer of vine pear root is not uncommon, but it is still mainly in the stage of animal experiments, and there is almost no clinical trial data, and there is still a certain distance from the real application.
An investigation by a Timeweekly reporter found that the "Master Zhang" contacted by Xiao Wu was actually surnamed Yu.
5
Folk anti-cancer urgently needs guidance
"Fenbenzene (dazole) solutions are not a panacea, don't be carried away by unrealistic expectations." Such announcements are issued every few days in the anti-cancer group to remind group members not to be superstitious about the efficacy of fenbendazole.
Since there is no exact effective rate and successful cases of fenbendazole for the treatment of cancer in China, as of now, patients taking fenbendazole to fight cancer are only groping themselves in despair and danger.
The group administrator who issued the announcement said, "We are all crab eaters, and even the final result (fenbendazole regimen) is completely ineffective."
The Fenbendazole Anti-Cancer Group shares a wealth of knowledge about cancer treatment
Based on the unclear efficacy of fenbendazole's anti-cancer efficacy, the community manager has recently transformed the positioning of this community into a spiritual home for cancer patients, a place to learn various anti-cancer methods and exchange anti-cancer experience, and guide group members to fight cancer more rationally and scientifically.
In a group announcement, the community administrator called on medical-related patients to report to the group management, hoping to get more professional participation and scientific guidance. They are also considering the use of centralized consultation in the future to provide reference services such as disease analysis, treatment plan formulation and improvement for group members.
The initial fanaticism and blindness are fading from this group. However, the size of the cancer medicine market and the economic benefits are large enough to make it easy to become the prey of bloodthirsty people.
Administrators of fenbendazole may have been aware of this danger, and on August 7 the group issued a ban: except for deceased relatives who can publish information on drug transfers 5 times, the sale and transfer of other drugs is prohibited.
A new storm may come.
(In the text, Lu Zhihe, Wu Qiang, Zhang Xi, etc. are pseudonyms)
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Edit / Silence
Cartography / Du also