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 a 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."
History
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.
Independent evaluations
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: Our efforts in cancer control are directed toward reduction of the intervals between onset and diagnosis of cancer, and between diagnosis and the application of effective treatment. People who fall victims to quacks are diverted from this narrow course for the best clinical management of cancer.
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.