Man uses "Natural Cure" for Cancer and is sued.

This is the story of a man who is using a non-patentable product to cure skin cancer. The officials don't like it because it's not something they should be able to control. Yet they sue him anyway. What right does anyone have to interfere in the use of an herbal remedy? That's like saying that we don't have the right to choose our own options when it comes to healthcare.
There are lots of ways that we can choose to help ourselves or not. As long as we know what we're getting into.
If a person is going to use something like this, they should be doing some research and not blindly trusting an alternative practicioner to tell them everything. Nobody is perfect. It's on the individual to know what they are putting in or on their own body.
Lets talk responsibilty folks.

We should have the freedom to choose to regulate our own health. With that freedom of choice, is also the freedom to educate ourselves and understand the consequences. That doesn't mean I need some god-fearing paternal figure telling me what to do. What's next? You gonna tell me to eat my broccoli and not touch that cake? How are you going to regulate that? Seriously. Bloodroot is a plant that grows naturally!

Hell, while we're at it... lets legalize MJ too. I don't do it myself, but I'd like to know that if I chose to eat or smoke something that grows from the ground that would be my own choice and my own responsibility if it causes me harm, no body else has that right or that concern. Except maybe my Mom.

Now on to the article ---
This article is pasted from:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/08/29/cancer.paste.ap/

Feds investigate anti-cancer paste

Pastor-turned-healer markets flesh-eating remedy

ROCHELLE, Georgia (AP) -- Curtis Brown carries business cards with old pictures of his tumors, including an egg-sized growth on his neck. He says they were each shed after the application of a flesh-eating paste containing the medicinal herb bloodroot.

"I cured myself of cancer," the cards read.

Georgia's medical board and the Food and Drug Administration don't share Brown's enthusiasm for the paste.

The state board has accused its maker, Dan Raber, a pastor-turned-healer, of practicing medicine without a license. FDA agents recently raided Raber's business, and a doctor could lose her medical license for allegedly knowing Raber was giving people the paste -- not approved for the treatment of cancer -- and not reporting him.

Raber's paste is described by the medical board as "a caustic, tissue-destroying substance that eats away human skin and flesh." On his Web site, Raber displays graphic before-and-after photos of those who have used the paste, including women with scabs on their breasts and men with scarred faces.

While the state board has leveled serious allegations against Raber, he has not been charged with a crime. Prosecutors are studying the case.

Raber has never responded publicly to the board's allegations. In an interview with The Associated Press, his son, Kelly, defended his father and his products.

"The herb does not kill healthy tissue," Kelly Raber said, smearing some of the paste on his nose. "Instead, it performs a process known as apoptosis that allows the (cancer) cells to self-destruct."

He said his father's paste is being singled out because it's an old remedy that can't be patented and therefore wouldn't generate large profits for the medical establishment or giant pharmaceutical companies.

Dan Raber was named in a state complaint filed against Dr. Lois March, an ear, nose and throat specialist who risks losing her medical license for allegedly providing pain medication to 12 patients who had received Raber's bloodroot treatments. The board said seven of the patients had breast cancer and that the doctor knew or should have known that Raber's use of bloodroot "mutilated their breasts and caused excruciating pain."

March has denied any wrongdoing. "These are wild accusations that aren't true," she said when reached by telephone at her office in nearby Cordele.

During a 2003 crackdown on alternative medicine merchants who made false claims on the Internet, the FDA shut down a Louisiana company that sold a bloodroot paste and its owner was sent to prison. An Indianapolis woman who said she used products from that company and Raber's in 2001 contends in a lawsuit that her nose was eaten away, forcing her to have seven reconstructive surgeries.

A settlement was reached in the suit against the company; Raber is also expected to settle soon, said the woman's lawyer, John Muller.

Mark Blumenthal, executive director of the American Botanical Council, said bloodroot has been used for years by nontraditional healers to treat skin cancers, but he acknowledged "the efficacy has been unproven from a scientific point of view."

Brown is a believer. After years of sun exposure, the retired farmer was plagued with skin cancer. Doctors surgically removed cancerous growths from his face and arms, but when a 3-inch-long tumor grew on the left side of his neck in 2002, Brown instead tried the paste.

"None of my people ever survived the conventional way," said the 71-year-old Brown, who listed relatives who had succumbed to cancer. "I knew there was a better way."