Interview with CHARLOTTE GERSON

Charlotte Gerson

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Andrew W. Saul Interviews Cancer Crusader

CHARLOTTE GERSON

Introduction by Abram Hoffer, MD, PhD:

"Max Gerson, M.D., treated a series of cancer patients with special (mostly

vegetable juice) diets and with some nutrients including niacin 50 mg 8 to 10 times per day, dicalcium phosphate with vitamin D, vitamins A and D, and liver injections. He found that all the cancer cases were benefited in that they became healthier and in many cases the tumors regressed. In a subsequent report, Gerson elaborated on his diet. He now emphasized a high potassium over sodium diet, vitamin C, niacin, brewers yeast and lugols iodine. Right after the (second world) war there was no ready supply of vitamins as there is today. I would consider the use of these nutrients in combination very original and enterprising. Dr. Gerson was the first physician to so emphasize such use.

"I am familiar with the Gerson method and believe that it has a lot of merit. I have always been frustrated that it was not taken seriously and studied intensively as it should be. It does take a lot of dedication and time, and patients do need a lot of help in preparing their food and juicing and the coffee enemas. Of course, as with any treatment, not everyone recovers. But I think it has a very good track record. I know Charlotte personally and have been corresponding with her son, Howard Straus, who wrote a very good book about his grandfather. (http://www.doctoryourself.com/gersonbio.htm ) I think it is a shame the National Cancer Institute refused to conduct adequate clinical studies, as the methods are not that difficult if carried on in a properly designed clinical unit."

DY NEWS: It is a pleasure to see the Gerson therapy continue to gain acceptance and press worldwide. All this is primarily due to your efforts, which are truly an everlasting honor to your father's work. Could we begin with these questions, please. I have seen the Gerson VHS videos produced about 15 years ago, such as "Doing the Gerson Therapy at Home." How is your intention for this new documentary different?

CHARLOTTE GERSON: The Gerson videotapes were produced well over

10 years ago mainly to provide information to patients about the therapy, how and why it produces results, how to manage the therapy (Vol. II, The Workshop) and (Vol. III) how to cook, juice, prepare coffee concentrate for enemas, and handle medications. The new documentary presents Dr. Gerson's work, how he started to understand the importance of the soil, how his own health problems forced him to search for solutions - then how he was able to elaborate on those to achieve healing of cancer. The documentary also presents 8 or 9 patients, most of them long-term recoveries after desperate diagnoses. This documentary should be distributed all over the world to inform the suffering public of the available healing, the natural approach instead of drugging symptoms. And this healing is not just for patients suffering from cancer, but for those suffering from other chronic 'incurable' diseases.

DY NEWS: The documentary contains some very strong words and absolute statements about pharmaceuticals and modern medicine. What are the chief obstacles to your work at present (2004)?

CHARLOTTE GERSON: The chief obstacles to spreading this information

worldwide is the powerful medical/pharmaceutical industry. According to Dr. Ralph Moss, in his book "The Cancer Industry" (New York: Paragon Press, 1989), cancer treatments are bringing in over $100 billion dollars annually in the U.S. alone! The problem with the Gerson Therapy is that it is not patentable, and produces no profits for the pharmaceutical industry. Therefore they have powerful means, publicity, falsehoods that are spread by expensive TV and magazine ads to promote their "latest and promising" drug treatments. The general public is still convinced that only drugs and surgery, possibly radiation will help to overcome cancer. The advertisers do not publish the fact that each year the number of people dying of cancer increases by some 10% and more and more children suffer and die of cancer! Only when all "orthodox" treatments have failed do some enlightened patients look for alternative treatments. That is why over 90% of patients coming to the Gerson Therapy hospital are in "terminal" condition. If orthodox treatments could cure cancer, we would be out of business.

DY NEWS: Dr. Gerson was, and still is, widely denounced by the

pharmaceutical/medical establishment. For a therapy that works, why the

resistance from doctors?

CHARLOTTE GERSON: After my father presented five "cured hopeless cancer patients" before a U.S. Senate Committee in early July, 1946, the medical establishment increased its attacks with articles in the JAMA on Dr. Gerson. It published an editorial about the Gerson treatment with the heading "Of Fraud and Fables." It even either forced or paid a physician to retract his positive testimony during that hearing and had him write to U.S. universities and medical organizations stating that the Gerson Therapy had no effect in the treatment of cancer! This letter was subsequently published all over the medical press, and reported to anybody inquiring from the AMA about the Gerson treatment. Other attacks were more subtle: Dr. Gerson stated that some 25% of his best cases were regularly contacted by their previous doctors, asked to report on their progress. Then they were told that in their 'improved' condition, chemotherapy could now clear all cancer problems. When they agreed to take some chemotherapy, they died.

DY NEWS: I hesitate to bring this thought forward, but the movie more than suggests that Dr. Gerson was murdered by arsenic poisoning. Can you comment about this sensitive issue?

CHARLOTTE GERSON: Dr. Gerson rented his office in a building originally supplied by grateful recovered patients. However the staff, headed by the same physician I referred to earlier, spied on Gerson, reported names and addresses of his patients who were then contacted by their prior doctors - and many of the patients' files and records "disappeared." It was a fact that even at an advanced age (77 years) Dr. Gerson had a somewhat low blood pressure and enjoyed one cup of coffee in the afternoon. He noted at one point that every evening, after

having coffee served at his office, that he had violent cramps and diarrheas. He stopped taking this coffee but a subsequent 24-hour urine collection showed that he excreted arsenic! He did not die immediately; however this weakened him considerably and he subsequently contracted a viral lung infection that killed him Then the doctors committed their ultimate insult: they claimed that he died of lung cancer! Of course his lung X-rays did not show tumors but lung damage from his infection. You will find a good deal of this information in my son's biography of Dr. Gerson (http://www.doctoryourself.com/gersonbio.htm). Actually, Howard found it impossible to find a publisher in the U.S. They were afraid of trouble from the AMA or "Big Pharma." The publisher in Canada who agreed to print the book removed about one-third of the stories that were highly unflattering to the AMA, the JAMA, and more.

DY News: Ms. Gerson, do you have early memories you'd be willing to share of your helping Dr. Gerson in the clinic?

Charlotte Gerson: That would take us back to about 1949, in his clinic in upstate New York.

DY News: As a New Yorker myself, I am curious to know where Dr. Gerson's clinic was located?

Charlotte Gerson: My father's clinic was located in Nanuet, NY, just inland from Nyack. At the time it was a really small community but it has grown.

DY News: What was your role there?

Charlotte Gerson: I helped mainly by relieving him of having to do the daily liver injections. But it was more a learning experience making rounds with him. I remember a lady who had colon cancer with liver metastases, very ill, pale and bedfast. My father asked her at one point when she had had her last bowel movement. She was silent for a little while, so my father repeated the question. Then she replied, "I heard you doctor, and I am trying to remember. While I was at the hospital, I think my last bowel movement was at least 6 weeks ago!" I'll never forget my father's face on hearing this statement.

DY News: I had a relative who had the same experience at Roswell: They let him go literally weeks without a bowel movement, and that was in 1980, over thirty years later. Could you tell us more of your interacting or attending to Dr. Gerson's patients, and one or two who made a particularly memorable impression on you?

Charlotte Gerson: An interesting experience was that of a lady suffering from breast cancer. She was in an early stage, with 'only' a tumor in her breast, still quite vigorous, eating and sleeping well and free of pain. But she presented a strange problem: she didn't respond to the treatment in any way, no better and no worse. And that was totally extraordinary. Then one day in the dining room, I overheard her talk to her daughter who was coming up to visit her from New York City. She told her daughter not to forget the salt to brush her teeth. That was a shock and I asked her if she brushed her teeth with salt. Yes, her dentist told her to do that. Of course I told her to stop it immediately and also reported this to my father. I explained to her that the mucous membrane in the mouth is highly absorptive and that the salt goes rapidly into the body, encouraging new tumor growth. As soon as she stopped the salt, she had a normal healing reaction and was on her way to recovery.

DY News: What was the first health lecture you ever presented by yourself?

Charlotte Gerson: After my father passed away, there was one overwhelming thought in my mind: I have to continue to publish his book. (A Cancer Therapy: Results of Fifty Cases, reviewed at http://www.doctoryourself.com/bestbooks.html). I arranged for another printing

and then had 3,000 copies on my hands. So, I had to sell them since they were not doing anybody any good stashed away in a warehouse. That is when I started to do health lectures in New York, first at the Foundation for Cancer Treatment (FACT), then for the various chapters of the International Association for Victors and Friends

(http://askwaltstollmd.com/archives/cancer/139762.html) and at meetings of the

National Health Federation's (http://www.thenhf.com) many chapters.

One of my first lectures took place in San Angelo, Texas, during WW II, where my husband was stationed at the airfield. The various men's clubs were always looking for a speaker, and since a member of the armed forces is not permitted to address a meeting, I was invited. I spoke mainly about my father's life and my escape from the Nazis but, of course, couldn't avoid talking about health since it was an important part of my father's and my life. In all, I must have done hundreds of public lectures, also in Canada, Australia, Germany, England, Ireland, Austria, and Italy.

DY News: I understand that all of Dr. Gerson's siblings perished in the Holocaust. How did you and your father spend your free time together?

Charlotte Gerson: When we lived in France and I was only about 13 or 14 years old, we used to take a lot of Sunday walks through the woods from Sevres to Versailles, visiting the castle and famous gardens as well as the Malmaison. Actually, trying to think of my father's free time, he never took any. He almost never went to a movie, had no TV, didn't even go to the opera which he loved. He was always working, reading, studying. I do remember just once when the whole family went to the opera in Paris. By the way, my favorite opera is "Don Carlo."

(http://www.metopera.org/synopses/carlo.html)

DY News: No doubt you are well aware of Prince Charles' recent (June 2004) statement supporting the Gerson therapy, and the resulting medical backlash against the Prince. The British press has taken some very rough shots at him

(http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1248282,00.html)

and especially

(http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1250275,00.html).

Would you please comment the intensity of this criticism of the Prince, and

His Royal Highness' actual statement:

"I know of one patient who turned to Gerson Therapy having been told she was suffering from terminal cancer and would not survive another course of chemotherapy. Happily, seven years later, she is alive and well. So it is vital that, rather than dismissing such experiences, we should further investigate the beneficial nature of these treatments."

Charlotte Gerson: I think that Prince Charles was very courageous to talk about the patient who recovered on the Gerson Therapy. I also think it is horrifying and shocking to note the intensity of the criticisms - actually not criticisms but outright vicious attacks.

DY News: A much more positive UK opinion is to be found at

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,1115514,00.html .

Charlotte Gerson: Overall, it is amazing that so many of the "learned scientists" of the UK show such lack of respect for their crown prince along with lack of knowledge or interest in true healing. They never comment on the fact that the prince's acquaintance was terminal but recovered! And, that true scientists would jump on such a dramatic recovery and further study a treatment that obtained it! On the Internet, even the title of the report on the article in the "Observer" is nasty: "Now Prince Charles talks about a coffee cure for cancer." As your readers well know, nobody ever claims that coffee is a cure, but the tone of the title implies: See how this crazy character now talks some new nonsense! What foolishness will he commit next?

Then they talk about a "$20,000/year cost for injections on the Gerson Therapy," which is simply not true. But what about the chemotherapy injections and their costs? The recently FDA approved cancer drug, Erbitox, costs $2,400 for the weekly dose, or $125,000 per year; and although it has been shown to shrink tumors, it has not been shown to prolong lives. (As reported by Michael L. Culbert, ScD. in the "Intl. Council for Health Freedom", Volume VIII:2, Fall 2004. http://www.ichf.info/history.php )

DY News: Have you been awarded any honorary degrees as of yet for your own work?

Charlotte Gerson: No.

DY News: On behalf of my readers, I thank you for all you have done to continue to bring your father's important findings to the public.

CHARLOTTE GERSON: Thanks for this opportunity to inform your readers.

For more information on the Gerson therapy:

My review of the complete how-to-do-it Gerson Therapy book:

http://www.doctoryourself.com/gersontherapy.html

Dr. Gerson's own words:

http://www.doctoryourself.com/gersonspeech.html

Review of Dr. Gerson's biography:

http://www.doctoryourself.com/gersonbio.htm

Review of new DVD about the Gerson Therapy

http://www.doctoryourself.com/gersontherapy2.html

References and citations:

http://www.doctoryourself.com/bib_gerson_therapy.html  and

http://www.doctoryourself.com/bib_gerson.html .

Also:

Gerson M: Dietary considerations in malignant neoplastic disease. A

prelimary report. The Review of Gastroenterology 12:419-425, 1945.

Gerson M: Effects of a combined dietary regime on patients with malignant

tumors. Experimental Medicine and Surgery 7:299-317, 1949.

Hoffer A: Orthomolecular Oncology. In, Adjuvant Nutrition in Cancer

Treatment, Ed. P. Quillin & R. M. Williams. 1992 Symposium Proceedings,

Sponsored by Cancer Treatment Research Foundation and American

College of Nutrition. Cancer Treatment Research Foundation, 3455 Salt

Creek Lane, Suite 200, Arlington Heights, IL 60005-1090, 331-362, 1994.

Gerson Contact Information:

The Gerson Institute, 1572 Second Avenue, San Diego, CA 92101

Tel. 619-685-5353; Toll-free: 1-888-4-GERSON  mail@gerson.org

The Gerson Institute's Website: http://www.gerson.org

Andrew Saul is the author of the books FIRE YOUR DOCTOR! How to be Independently Healthy (reader reviews at http://www.doctoryourself.com/review.html ) and DOCTOR YOURSELF: Natural Healing that Works. (reviewed at http://www.doctoryourself.com/saulbooks.html )

For ordering information, Click Here .

Interview and comments copyright 2004 by Andrew W. Saul.

Andrew W. Saul

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