Cancer: The Krebiozen Verdict

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Nothing in the recent history of medicine has been more frustrating to doctors and patients alike than the continuing controversy over the so-called anticancer drug, Krebiozen. Described by its promoter, Yugoslav-born Dr. Stevan Durovic, as a substance he had extracted from the blood of horses infected with "lumpy jaw," it was proclaimed by Chicago's famed Dr. Andrew Conway Ivy as a promising palliative in the treatment of some forms of can cer. But Krebiozen won the majority of its friends from among desperate patients and the handful of physicians who were treating them.

"Not for Profit." After its first publicity in 1951, the American Medical Association denounced the drug as a "secret remedy" (and therefore anathema to conservative doctors)—and useless besides. Neither the American Can cer Society nor the Government's National Cancer Institute would sponsor a scientific test of the substance; they did not know what it was, they said, and there was not even preliminary evidence that it did any good. After years of wrangling, the Food and Drug Administration got samples from Durovic for testing, and eventually came to the conclusion that they contained nothing but creatine monohydrate, a common body chemical of no medicinal value. The stuff would cost 8¢ for the minuscule dose used, and Durovic's "not-for-profit" Krebiozen Research Foundation was getting a "contribution" of $9.50 for each shot. The FDA banned the shipment of Krebiozen in interstate commerce.

None of this stopped Dr. Ivy. Though he had lost his high office at the University of Illinois because of Krebiozen, he continued to treat up to 50 patients a day in his laboratories at Chicago's Roosevelt University. A north side general practitioner, Dr. William F. P. Phillips, went.on treating 500 or more patients, and Durovic's Promak Laboratories continued to prepare Krebiozen ampules and distribute them through the foundation.

In November 1964, the Government went into Chicago's Federal District Court and got indictments on 49 counts (later reduced to 42) against the foundation, Dr. Ivy, Dr. Durovic, his lawyer-financier brother Marko, and Dr. Phillips. The charges ranged from mail fraud and conspiracy to defraud the public to submitting false statements to Government agencies. Technically, the question of Krebiozen's efficacy as an anticancer drug was not at issue. But there was little doubt that the Government hoped that by convicting any or all of the defendants it could end the entire controversy.

Issues of Veracity. In a marathon, ten-month proceeding, the tortured story of Krebiozen was told and retold. The Durovic brothers had made millions, the Government charged, and salted some away in Swiss banks. Dr. Ivy's savings were said to have jumped in eight years from a mere $16,983 to $222,153 (his wife had done well in Wall Street, explained Ivy). The defendants, the prosecution claimed, had encouraged patients to visit Chicago, then supplied them with Krebiozen to take to their home-town doctors—which was illegal in any case where the patient crossed a state line.