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My search for a possible cancer cure began in late 2004 when I
found out that my cousin and lifelong friend had been diagnosed
as having stage-three melanoma. The cancer had appeared out of
nowhere and so it was quite a shock to my cousin and everyone
close to him.
As luck would have it, I had spent a lot of time the previous
four years or so working on my dream of someday posting a
website aimed at helping aging baby boomers and others live
longer, healthier and happier lives. Naturally, a lot of my
research involved searching for ways to ward off and treat
diseases and ills such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease,
high blood pressure, kidney and liver disease, and so forth.
When I found out about my cousin, I began to redouble my
efforts and focus my research more on cancer. I found a lot of
very good information about fighting cancer and other diseases,
boosting our immune systems and improving health in general.
However, it was not my research that led me to finding out about
the magical, miraculous oleander plant =96 it was a card game!
Yes, the way I first heard about the healing powers of oleander
happened one evening when I was sitting down at a friendly card
game and mentioned my cousin’s cancer. An acquaintance of mine
whom I had known for a few years and who had worked for the
American Medical Association at one time, looked across the
table at me and, as serious as could be, said “I know a cure.”
He then proceeded to tell me an amazing story of what he knew
about oleander. Later, I found others who told me essentially
the same basic story, although each person seemed to have a
slightly different version. Although the versions I heard have
differed somewhat, the basic story line I believe to be
essentially correct is as follows:
In the early 1960’s a Turkish doctor by the name of Huseyin
Ziya Ozel was searching for a cure for his pet dog’s cancer when
he noticed that a large number of Turkish villagers referred to
him came from high altitudes and he thought that perhaps there
was more to the story than just the higher incidence of skin
cancer associated with higher altitudes:
In many versions of the story, Doctor Ozel was reported to have
observed Turkish villagers drinking an oleander remedy, which
pretty much correlates with the description of Oleander Leaf on
the American Cancer Society website, where it states that Doctor
Ozel started his study of oleander because of folk traditions
that suggested that an extract from oleander was active against
leukemia.
Further research showed that Nerium Oleander was most abundant
in lower altitudes and practically did not exist at high
altitude. Satisfied that he may have determined the cause of the
villager’s good health, Doctor Ozel became intrigued with the
plant and began to prepare and work with various extracts of
Oleander himself in 1966 while he was the head of the surgical
department at Mugla State Hospital of Turkey.
Doctor Ozel first conducted animal studies to determine that
the substance was non-toxic and, once he determined the
toxicology and effects of Nerium Oleander Extract (or NOE), he
conducted further experiments and developed his treatment in
various forms until he eventually started tests on terminal
human cases.
After initial success in treating human cancer patients with
NOE, Doctor Ozel began to discussing his findings with other
professionals in his field. He sought analysis of the extract
from various Turkish laboratories to understand the empirical
results. They were unable to characterize the extracted
compounds. In hope of gaining assistance from the government or
research organizations, he prepared a paper to present his first
human cases at the Fourth Balkanic Medical Days Symposium held
in Ankara on 20 September 1973.
The cases presented were all considered terminal cases when the
patients came to Doctor Ozel. By law, he could not treat
patients with an experimental drug, such as NOE, unless they had
exhausted all other conventional treatment methods with no
response or were diagnosed as advanced stage, terminal cases. At
the symposium he was able to call the attention of the
scientific community to NOE and how the extract had shown to be
efficacious on cancer cases of different varieties. He was sure
that his presentation would trigger serious and abundant
research on NOE, and that it finally could be put into service
for mankind.
The response from the scientific community was less than
overwhelming. The skepticism centered mainly on the fact that
the presentation contradicted what little literature there was
on oleander species. Clearly the results presented could not be
explained as an extension of prior art but Turkish scientists
strongly denied the facts that Doctor Ozel had presented without
any further research. To conclude, the medical community was
reluctant to accept the results. Doctor Ozel was undaunted by
the criticism and lack of support for the ideas presented. He
continued his research and patients continued to seek treatment.
In 1974, he published additional case reports in the Turkish
Medical Journal “Dirim”. Doctor Ozel resigned from his position
as Chief Doctor at Mugla State Hospital that same year in order
to be able to work on NOE and initiate research on the subject,
Doctor Ozel contacted various universities in Istanbul. Years
passed and he realized that no serious scientific research could
be performed in any of the local universities. In the meantime,
his old patients referred new ones to him, and more cancer
patients presented to him as word of the results of the
treatment spread.
In 1985 he started to look for research facilities abroad.
During 1986-1987 some tests performed in Europe proved the
effect of NOE on the immune system as well as cancer tumors. The
studies showed that it was at least six times as potent as the
most active commercially available immune-stimulants
(Schizophylan, Krestin and Lentinan, which were patented by the
Japanese in the 1980s).
In 1988, a research team was formed at Munich University
Pharmacology Institute to isolate the active components
contained in the N.O. extract. Several polysaccharides were
identified that might be responsible for some part of the immune
activity. On 17-22 July 1990, the initial results were presented
as a poster at the symposium of Biology and Chemistry of Active
Natural Substances (BACANS) which was held in Bonn, Germany. The
presentation was published in Planta Medica 1990-56:66. However,
no single component of the extract was found to be the sole
source of its benefits. Instead, the activity is induced by a
complex mixture of components contained in the extract, acting
synergistically to modulate the immune system.
Since the early 1970’s, Doctor Ozel has been treating patients
with advanced and inoperable cancer as well as a wide variety of
other of illnesses. His results have been truly remarkable. In
fact, so fantastic were the stories of his success that Doctor
Ozel had to endure long periods of controversy from the Turkish
medical establishment and there were those who tried to charge
the good doctor with being a charlatan. Happily, the truth of
his successes won out and such charges were dropped from
consideration when his results were proven. Scores of patients
rose up to defend the good doctor, testifying about how they had
been cured when all other treatment options had failed.
The patented name of Doctor Ozel’s oleander extract is
Anvirzel=99, whose trademark was once owned by Ozelle
Pharmaceuticals, which was formed by Doctor Ozel’s son and other
investors. Today, trademark rights are in dispute.
Unfortunately, since Doctor Ozel had claimed that oleander was a
cure for cancer, as opposed to a natural supplement, and since
his extract was patented and given a trademark, the FDA now
considers oleander as an unproven medicine which, because of the
toxicity of the raw plant, must have it’s safety and
effectiveness proven before the FDA will allow it’s use even as
a herbal supplement, and so it is very difficult to obtain
herbal supplements which contain oleander in the United States.
Today, the lengthy and costly three-phase FDA trial process for
approval of Anvirzel=99 or any other oleander extract, is far from
over, although many people and millions of investor dollars are
counting on it ultimately being approved. In 2000, Ozelle
Pharmaceuticals had successful phase I FDA trials conducted on
Anvirzel=99, but subsequently ran into investor problems and had
to reorganize. Although Ozelle continues to publish plans that
it will soon begin phase II trials with Anvirzel=99, such plans
have not yet reached fruition and funding appears to continue to
be a major problem for Ozelle.
In the interim, a competing company, Phoenix Biotech, also
obtained a patent for Anvirzel=99 in Honduras and has applied for
a U.S. patent as well, and a clinic has been established in
Honduras by the name of Salud Integral. For the past eight
years, the clinic has successfully treated a number of patients,
many of whom travel from the United States for initial diagnosis
and treatment, as well as three-month supplies of Anvirzel=99 for
various cancers, hepatitis-C, psoriasis and other immune
disorders.
Within just the past three years, a third competing company
appeared by the name of Shimoda Atlantic Oncology Biosciences,
and claimed to have developed its own oleander extract named
Xenavex=99 which it claimed was much stronger due to an ethanol
extraction method. As it turned out, I and others exposed the
company as a fraud that was created to cheat investors and the
drug was actually a heart medication imported from Russia.
Furthermore, although the imported Russian medicine does have
slightly higher concentrations of oleandrin, the ethanol
extraction method results in the loss of other compounds that
researchers believe work together in a synergistic way to make
oleander extract so powerful (over 500 trace compounds have been
identified in an aqueous, or water, oleander extract, including
vital long-chain polysaccharides that are lost in ethanol
extraction methods because they precipitate out during the
extraction process).
Sadly, I must report that it may be many years, if ever, before
an oleander based medicine wins FDA approval. The simple fact
is that it takes hundreds of millions of dollars to get a new
drug successfully through all the FDA trials, and this pretty
much bars competition to all but the very large pharmaceutical
companies. Many feel that if the issue ever went to court, the
patent itself would be hard to defend, since it is based on a
common plant and a centuries-old folk remedy. Others feel that,
because of the billions of dollars in profits at stake for the
trillion-dollar world pharmaceutical industry and their myriad
cancer treatments, no oleander medicine will ever be approved in
the United States.
The best hope as of the time of this writing appears to be the
development of an oleander based tablet by Phoenix Biotech which
is reported to be have a much stronger concentration of
oleandrin and the other cardiac glycosides while losing none of
the other essential synergistic compounds. Only time will tell
if a major pharmaceutical company with the requisite funds will
pick up this new oleander product from Phoenix, shepherd it
through FDA trials, and finally bring it to market.
The good news is that there is a home version that can be made
right on the stovetop for only pennies! Stay tuned.
Live Long, Live Healthy, Live Happy!
About The Author: Tony Isaacs is a natural health researcher
and author of books and articles about natural health including
“Cancer’s Natural Enemy” (http://www.rose-laurel.com). He
manages “The Best Years in Life” website (http://www.tbyil.com)
and is a featured author for Utopia Silver
(http://tinyurl.com/2ynqk)
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