Doctors can be Quacks, too

Retired Toronto professor jumps on the di Bella Gravy Train

• Canada's only Di Bella cancer clinic a very lonely place - David Helwig - CMAJ - October 17, 2000One year after Canada's first Di Bella method (DBM) cancer clinic opened in Toronto's Italian district, the number of patients it has attracted can be counted on 2 hands. In fact, 1 hand might do the trick.

  At the Canadian Cancer Society, medical affairs director Dr. Barbara Whylie was unwilling to express direct criticism of the Di Bella treatment. Whylie said the society recognizes the growing public interest in complementary cancer therapies and supports the right of patients to make their own decisions about treatment. (This doctor has no backbone. Why didn't she tell David Helwig that the di Bella "cure" actually increases the morbidity and mortality of patients?)

• Results from a historical survey of the survival of cancer patients given Di Bella multitherapy - Italian study says di Bellas treatments basically bombs.

• A cure for quacks - New Scientist - last december a judge in Maglie, a small town in southern Italy, decreed that the country's health service must pay for cancer patients to take an expensive, untested remedy promoted by a retired physiologist named Luigi Di Bella. The treatment's unanimous rejection by scientists, the judge ruled, was not a good enough reason to deprive patients of it.

  The decision was not peculiarly Italian. Jerry Green, a doctor who is promoting the Di Bella treatment in Toronto, says that politicians in North America could come under the same public pressure to pay for it.

  (It's too bad that the author of the article failed to identify Dr. Green as having had his medical license taken away from him.)

• Aaron Malkin, the father of two oncologists really believes there is something to the quack cure for cancer. He's opened up a clinic. Please note that he graduated medical school in Manitoba in 1949 before you take him up on his "cure".

Three doctors adopt Di Bella method

Globe and Mail - CP Press

August 31, 1998

TORONTO - Three Toronto doctors have started to treat cancer patients with the controversial technique of Italian doctor Luigi Di Bella, although they may be courting trouble with the regulatory body that governs physicians in Ontario.

The doctors, all of whom practice alternative medicine and one of whom has already seen his licence removed by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, began offering the treatment this summer in response to patient demand.

The doctors say that they do not agree with the Canadian medical establishment's negative assessment of the treatment and that if there is any chance that Dr. Di Bella's drug-and-vitamin mixture can help people, patients should be able to try it without having to travel to Italy.

"While I can't endorse it officially, I feel compelled to provide it to people who have tried everything else," said Dr. Fred Hui, who recently returned from Italy where he became the first North American physician to train under Dr. Di Bella.

"Doctors shouldn't be telling people what they can and can't have," said Dr. Jerry Green, who is working in partnership with Dr. Ravi Devgan to provide the treatment. While Dr. Green can legally practice alternative medicine even though he no longer has a licence, he cannot do such things as write prescriptions or order X-rays.

A spokesman for the Ontario regulatory college said that while little can be done to stop physicians from using the Di Bella method, the college is very concerned about some of the things it is hearing about the way in which patients are receiving treatment.

Jill Hefley, manager of public affairs and communications for the college in Toronto, said it has some concerns in the area of professional misconduct.

Jerry Green still uses M.D. and Dr.
even though he doesn't have a license