Media Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

MEDICOR CALLS ON PREMIER WYNNE

TO FUND PROMISING NEW CANCER TREATMENT

 

(September 11, 2017, Toronto, Ontario) – Dr. Akbar Khan, founder and medical director of Medicor Cancer Centres, today called on Premier Kathleen Wynne to do the right thing and stand up for cancer patients here in Ontario. Founded in 2006, Medicor has been delivering high quality non-traditional, non-toxic cancer therapies to thousands of Canadians, as well as to patients from around the world, as an alternative to more conventional, toxic cancer treatments.

 

“It’ll come as no surprise to anyone when I tell you that cancer is an ‘emotionally charged’ disease,” Dr. Khan said. “Millions of dollars — if not billions — have been raised by people like you and me, all in the hope that someday, someone will find a cure for cancer. Unfortunately, when a promising new therapy does come to light, those with a political agenda of their own will often rise up and try to quash it.” In his opinion, this is what’s happening here in Ontario, with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario’s imminent clampdown on Side Effect-Free chemo.

 

Dr. Khan is concerned that the CPSO will order him to stop offering SEF (pronounced “safe”) chemo to patients later this week, in a misguided attempt to “protect” those suffering from cancer from being put at risk by unproven therapies. Dr. Khan feels that “instead of coming after Medicor, the College should be supporting us, and the province should be looking at funding this promising new cancer treatment.”

 

“People need to understand what’s going on here,” Dr. Khan said. “The College of Physicians and Surgeons started investigating SEF chemo when two oncologists, who were not familiar with the therapy, complained to the College. During its three-year-long investigation, the CPSO has relied upon so-called “experts” who have no experience with this therapy to provide opinions, thus comparing apples to oranges. Scientific evidence and reports have been ignored. As a result of this flawed investigation, the College has decided to discipline me but, more importantly, is looking at immediately stopping Medicor from offering SEF chemo — and potentially all of our cancer therapies — to our existing patients, as well as future patients.”

 

Dr. Khan explained that the way to improve a patient’s response to chemotherapy is simply by protecting their bone marrow from being damaged by the chemo. If the bone marrow is protected, the white cells are not compromised, which allows them to play a role in the killing of cancer cells. In other words, SEF chemo is not “chemotherapy,” but rather “chemo-immunotherapy.” Unfortunately, most oncologists have never been exposed to anything like SEF chemo, and therefore are not in any kind of position to sit in judgment of it.

 

“Patients are coming from around the world to receive SEF chemo,” Dr. Khan said. “We have treated patients from across Canada, the U.S.A., England, Australia, Africa and Indonesia. We have treated doctors, lawyers, teachers, nurses, engineers and business leaders — educated patients who understood and chose SEF chemo on their own.”

 

If the College has their way, Dr. Khan is convinced, instead of protecting the public, they will in all likelihood end up harming or killing Medicor’s current cancer patients and future cancer patients.

 

“Premier Wynne, I’m calling on you to do the right thing and stand up for cancer patients here in Ontario,” Dr. Khan said. “Don’t allow ignorance, fear and politics stand in the way of science and progress. Denying the sick and the vulnerable access to this promising new cancer treatment is not only morally wrong, it’s downright shameful. We can’t let those with a different agenda win this fight. There’s simply too much at stake here.”

 

About Medicor Cancer Centres


Located in Toronto, Medicor is an innovative, integrative clinic that is leading the way in redefining cancer treatment by giving patients choices and access to cutting edge, evidence-based allopathic and natural therapies. For more information, please visit their website at www.medicorcancer.com.

 

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Contact:

Stephen Skyvington

Phone:  (416) 859-2239

 

Backgrounder

 

  • Medicor is the third cancer centre in the world to receive authorization to administer a unique therapy called “Side Effect-Free” or SEF chemo (pronounced “safe” chemo). This treatment was developed by Dr. Ken Matsumura and his team of researchers at the Berkeley Institute in California. Dr. Matsumura is a physician and the inventor of the world’s first artificial liver, artificial pancreas and wristwatch heart alarm. Dr. Matsumura also created the ALIN Foundation to help fund medical research and innovative therapies.

 

  • Many researchers around the world are trying to develop drugs which target cancer cells while sparing healthy cells in the whole body from injury. This has largely been a failure. Dr. Matsumura decided to take the opposite approach. SEF chemo uses a powerful chemotherapy drug that aggressively kills cancer cells but also damages some healthy cells. Dr. Matsumura then employs an antidote to protect the healthy cells in the body.

 

  • Safety data for 600 cycles of SEF chemo has been collected and is available to the public here: https://medicorcancer.com/sef-chemo-patient-data/. The data shows a remarkably low rate of major side effects, up to an order of magnitude less than traditional chemotherapies.

 

  • Although it is called “side effect free,” there is no such thing as any drug therapy with zero side effects. In reality, many patients experience so few side effects that they would not feel like they were receiving chemotherapy at all. For example, typically there is no hair loss or vomiting. The most common side effects are mild to moderate fatigue and mild nausea for three or four days following the treatment. Most patients experience stable or mildly reduced blood cell counts, without immune suppression. It is also common to have pain in the areas of tumours, due to inflammation that occurs as the cancer cells are being attacked by the immune system.

 

  • The standard drugs used for SEF chemotherapy are carboplatin with mesna as an antidote. Both of these drugs are generic and legally can be used for cancer therapy in Canada. Since they are only approved for a small number of cancer types in Canada, in most cases they are being prescribed “off label” — in other words, not for their “approved” purpose. Off-label drug therapy is legal in Canada and is permitted by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO). Doctors’ services for patients receiving off-label therapies are covered by OHIP (but the drugs are often not covered).

 

  • Occasionally, a second drug may be added to enhance the carboplatin (if the cancer responds slowly to carboplatin alone). We often combine intravenous sodium phenylbutyrate, dichloroacetate or metformin with SEF chemo, since our lab research and patient data indicates these drugs can be powerful chemosensitizers.

 

  • Dr. Matsumura has reported approximately 90% response rate for patients with stage 3 and early stage 4 cancers. In the first small study of six patients, four achieved a long-term complete remission of cancer (no detectable cancer in the body for years after therapy). One Canadian oncologist who witnessed responses of several SEF chemo patients repeatedly referred to SEF chemo as “remarkable.”

 

  • Despite the initial promising results, SEF chemo is not accepted by Cancer Care Ontario, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, or large cancer hospitals. They consider SEF chemo to be a complementary/alternative cancer therapy only.