Patients rally for alternate therapy

Patients of Joseph DiStefano are angry over the shutdown of his alternative medical treatments. They are trying to raise money for an attorney and will take their case to Congress.

By JOSH ZIMMER

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 26, 2001

CARROLLWOOD -- They gathered near a courthouse in downtown Tampa, carrying angry signs about the government, wearing pins that said "Ain't Dead Yet" and worrying about survival without their alternative medical treatments.

Patients receiving aloe vera-based cancer treatments said their lives were thrown into disarray Oct. 11 when federal agents raided alternative clinics in Carrollwood and St. Petersburg.

Armed with search warrants, authorities seized serum supplies and patient files from the Medical Center for Preventive and Nutritional Medicine in Carrollwood and St. Petersburg. Agents also took materials from practitioner Joseph DiStefano's house in Largo, effectively stopping a treatment he and others credit with improving the health of cancer patients and perhaps curing some.

Agents came from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman Steve Cole would not comment on the investigation. U.S. Judge Thomas McCoun III sealed the search warrant affidavits, which contain the evidence used to justify the search warrants, for 120 days.

DiStefano's patients are trying to raise money for an attorney and say they will take their case to members of Congress.

DiStefano, who fears further action, continues to provide other alternative treatments, such as chelation, an unproven intravenous acid treatment that seeks to improve circulation by reducing calcium buildup in the blood.

The aloe vero cancer treatment involves an extract called albarin serum, developed by a Texas researcher named Ivan Danhof, DiStefano said.

The serum is injected into the bloodstream, where it removes toxins from disease-fighting white blood cells, he said. Dr. Daniel Mayer, who administers the albarin because DiStefano is not a medical doctor, said the treatment also raises the body's temperature, making it harder for cancer cells to grow.

"I have two people in there right now who, if they're not treated (soon) will die," DiStefano said last week.

Dr. Nagi Kumar, director of the department of nutrition at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa and an investigator in its cancer control program, said the claims of how aloe vera fights cancer don't make any sense.

Cancer does not cause white blood cells to become contaminated with "toxins," she said. And taking aloe vera intravenously could be dangerous.

While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of aloe vera for a variety of skin ailments, its use as a cancer treatment has not been proven or even widely studied.

"Where are the toxins coming from in a disease like cancer?" Kumar said. "There's not even a connection to the current research.

"I can't imagine someone doing aloe by injection. Then again, we see new things every day in a clinical setting (that) is so out of range of what science believes is even ethical to do."

DiStefano, a licensed nutritional counselor, said federal agents wrongly accused him of administering a drug unapproved by the FDA and pretending to be a medical doctor. He said he has worked with a medical doctor -- in this case, Mayer -- since he began practicing alternative medicine 36 years ago.

DiStefano also said the aloe treatment is not illegal because it is part of a three-year, federally funded clinical study.

However, he could not provide proof of the federal funding, and spokespeople for the National Institutes of Health, the National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine and the FDA said they could find no records of studies of albarin or aloe vera treatment.

DiStefano said Danhof is overseeing the study, but Danhof could not be reached for comment.

DiStefano said he and Mayer never advise cancer patients to drop conventional chemotherapy or radiation when they try the albarin.

DiStefano said he suspects the investigation was prompted by local oncologists because "I take thousands and thousands of dollars out of their pockets every year."

A standard series of 30 albarin injections costs about $1,125, and patients aren't charged for future treatments. That is less than the cost of one session of chemotherapy, he said. Insurance generally covers chemotherapy.

The Oct. 17 march attracted at least three dozen protesters, including some who moved to Florida just to get the treatments.

One of them, Pari Thiel, said she turned to albarin after being diagnosed with lung, lymph node and thyroid cancer. Her husband got albarin for prostate cancer. "Honestly, I was dying," she said. Now, "nothing shows (on a CT scan). And I owe my life to Joe and Dr. Mayer."

DiStefano believes he will be vindicated. But his legal bills could be enormous.

"We have seen remarkable things," he said. Albarin is "not a silver bullet and it doesn't work the same for everybody. But a majority of people have seen their cancer shrink (and) have more energy. Compare that to a person who went through chemotherapy. They're sick for weeks and weeks and weeks."

- Staff writer Wes Allison contributed to this story. Josh Zimmer covers Keystone and the environment. He can be reached at 813-226-3474 or zimmer@sptimes.com.

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