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Hippodrome Show. Ivy was indeed interested. A show-me farm boy of Scottish extraction from Farmington, Mo., Dr. Ivy had made it the hard way to the top ranks of medical research. In 1949 he was 56, loaded with honors, vice president of the professional colleges of the University of Illinois, author of more than 1,000 technical papers on research. Though an M.D., Ivy was a physiologist and teacher, no bedside physician. Satisfied that Krebiozen was both harmless and promising, the Ivy team injected it into 22 patients nearly all of whom were diagnosed as having last-stage cancer ("terminal cases"). Though most of them soon died anyway, some felt better for a while, and after 17 months two of them were reported free of cancer.
What happened next is history. Early in 1951, at a meeting in Chicago's Drake Hotel, Dr. Ivy reported his findings to the medical profession, press and public. It turned into a hippodrome performance, But why this happened is still a mystery Dr. Ivy insists that word of miraculous benefits from Krebiozen was leaking out, and he wanted to set the record straight. Dr. Durovic gave his conventional critics a club to beat him with by refusing to tell how he made Krebiozen, claiming that he feared the Communists would get hold of it. This left Krebiozen a secret remedy, which is anathema to medical ethics and ethical medics.
The A.M.A.'s Council on Drugs hastily pulled together reports on 100 patients treated with Krebiozen at seven clinics and concluded that the stuff was valueless. The Chicago Medical Society suspended Dr. Ivy for three months for promoting a secret remedy. University President George D. Stoddard recommended that Ivy be demoted from his vice presidency but left him on the faculty. Then the circus moved under the big top. An Illinois legislative committee held hearings for a year, ended by rebuking President Stoddard. The National Research Council undertook a study of Krebiozen, but still relied on second-hand evidence. The findings, predictably, were negative.
Around the Rule. Meanwhile, desperate cancer patients and their families clamored for Krebiozen, and by now an estimated 3,000 have had injections of it from about 300 physicians. With this number of cases, it ought to be easy for scientists to determine whether the stuff is any good. But last week the New York Post devoted six data-packed pages to the controversy and explained why no impartial judge can yet assess its value.
Krebiozen is approved "for investigational use only." It cannot be sold. A doctor must get it from the Krebiozen Research Foundation for cancer cases of the types that the foundation approves of treating, and he is required by law to give the foundation a report of his results. In practice, he usually makes a "donation" of $9.50 for each ampule (one injection), which gets around the no-sale ruling. Then, all too often, he neglects to file a report.