Veterinary surgeon Dr. John Carter, MRCVS, MB, AcA was very odd. His office had no receptionist. There were no appointment times. You just showed up with your pet and waited. And waited. And waited.
And yet people were happy to come with their pets – some traveling hundreds of miles – to his drafty old house on the outskirts of London, England.
Most arrived well prepared for their ordeal. They turned up with books, cool boxes of food and thermoses of coffee to keep them going.
What was so special about this eccentric character, and why were people (and animal companions) prepared to put up with his unusual practice? They had a good reason…
Dr. John Carter was curing cancer in their beloved companions. And it wasn’t long before he was helping human patients, too.
Having lost his own dog and three friends to cancer, Dr. Carter started studying the disease in 1976. He was hoping to find a gentle, non-toxic, yet effective treatment.
After twelve years of research and experimentation, he came up with a formula and started testing it on animals in 1988. The results were very encouraging. He called it CV247. It was a combination of just four substances: copper, manganese, vitamin C and sodium salicylate.
The formula makes no attempt to directly kill cancer cells but rather to boost the immune system, lower inflammation, improve antioxidant systems, block the blood supply to the tumor, and protect the genetic integrity of healthy cells to stop them from switching on pathways that lead to cancer.
Besides taking CV247, patients had to follow a strict organic whole-food diet, as Dr. Carter believed that artificial chemicals in the environment and in our foods impaired the immune system and put a strain on the liver.
Success in animal studies
Because of the excellent results he was achieving with animals in his practice, he undertook two studies on dogs.
In the first study, lasting two years, 51 dogs with cancer saw tumors regress in 19 (37.3 percent) and stabilize in 18 (35.3 percent). The treatment failed or was inconclusive in the remaining 14 (27.5 percent). What’s more, Dr. Carter noted a dramatic improvement in the quality of life of the animals.
In the second 30-month study of 53 dogs, he saw the cancer regress in 13 (24.5 percent), stabilize in 25 (47.2 percent) and inconclusive or failed results in 15 (28.3 percent). Again, there was a marked improvement in the dogs’ quality of life.
Human trials succeeded, too
Two human trials followed, led by Dr. Robert Thomas, Consultant Oncologist at Bedford Hospital and Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge.
The doctors gave 40 people the new remedy and instructed them to eat an organic diet. All of them suffered with different but advanced, progressive cancers and had exhausted all other options or were not suitable for conventional treatments.
In a small number the cancer progressed, and the patients died. But a much larger group saw their condition stabilize. In another small group, tumors actually shrank, quality of life improved, psychological outlook improved, and blood tumor markers dropped.
Dr. Thomas was impressed enough to follow this with a double-blind trial involving 110 men with progressive prostate cancer. They were all counseled on how to maintain a healthy lifestyle and received either salicylate on its own or with a supplement of vitamin C, copper, and manganese (the components of CV247).
Even without following an organic diet, results were impressive, with a significant slowing or halting in progression of the illness in 40 percent of the group. However, there was no additional benefit from those also taking the supplement.
Unfortunately, Dr. Carter died after these trials and funding for additional research was not forthcoming. However, fellow veterinary surgeon and scientist Professor Andor Sebesteny was so encouraged by the remedy that he continued to research it in Hungary, where it was eventually granted an animal license and is still in use today.
How does CV247 work?
Each of its four ingredients contains benefits for the cancer patient. For example, vitamin C has antioxidant and immune stimulating properties as well as an ability to repair DNA. It has known anti-tumor effects.
Both manganese and copper are important components of superoxide dismutase, one of the most important of the body’s antioxidant systems.
Sodium salicyclate as a sodium salt of salicyclic acid. As such, it is related to acetylsalicyclic acid – plain aspirin — and both can be derived from plants – sodium salicyclate from wintergreen plants or the sweet birch tree, and aspirin from the bark of the willow tree.
Sodium salicyclate is used in medicine as an analgesic and antipyretic (fever reducer), and can be considered an NSAID.
A strong anti-inflammatory
In fact, sodium salicylate has remarkable anti-inflammatory properties. It stops oxidative processes (that is, free radical damage). It’s very similar to aspirin in the way it functions, but is more gentle on the gastrointestinal system. In particular, it acts on the pro-inflammatory enzyme cyclooxygenase (COX). It’s seen as a potential replacement for aspirin in people who can’t tolerate the latter.
According to Professor Sebesteny, COX gives rise in the cancer patient to “immune suppression, inflammation, increased development of metastases, increased resistance to chemotherapy and radiation, increased cell proliferation; promotes supply to the tumor via blood vessels to increase growth and inhibits normal process of tumor cell destruction. Sodium salicylate inhibits all these processes and restores normal behavior of cells.”
Dr. Carter’s organic diet
The organic diet is an important part of Dr. Carter’s protocol. Following are his recommendations, in some detail. [It should be noted that I don’t endorse this list. Some of the recommended foods are dramatic departures from what I believe is healthy for the cancer patient. I publish it for the benefit of readers who might want to know the full CV247 protocol.]
To that end, Dr. Carter instructed patients to eat nothing that contains added sugar, salt, or any manmade chemicals. No processed foods—none at all.
Mushrooms and pineapple contain too much salt and should be avoided. Berries should also not be eaten, in his view, because they can “make cancer worse.”
Potatoes, cabbage, spinach, broccoli, carrots, onions, and tomatoes are excellent. So are apples, oranges, pears, lemons, and melon.
Porridge oats (oatmeal, to us Americans) and rice are also good. Bread made from a mixture of rye and wheat flour is good too, but homemade bread is preferred because store-bought organic bread contains salt.
Animal protein should be consumed only in small amounts and should be of high quality. The best sources of animal protein are eggs and liver. He recommended one egg a day. The best way to cook the egg is to fry it in extra virgin organic olive oil.
A small portion of grilled lamb’s liver should be eaten daily. A small piece of grilled trout can be eaten as an alternative. This freshwater fish contains less natural salt than sea fish.
According to Dr. Carter, the most nutritious foods for cancer patients are grains which have been sprouted and the most nutritious grain to sprout is wheat. These grains are full of amino acids, vitamins and minerals in an entirely natural form which can be easily digested by cancer patients.
Dr. Carter believed these foods are essential to help maintain the immune system of the patient and the grains should be eaten frequently, a handful several times a day. Sunflower seeds, mung beans and alfalfa can also be sprouted but the most important seed to sprout and eat is wheat grain.
Jam made from apricots or plums and sweetened with apple juice instead of sugar can be included in the diet.
Drink plenty of orange, carrot and apple juice. Juicing your own food is recommended. Add a piece of cabbage leaf to the juice with the carrots because cabbage juice is very good for the immune system.
You can also make tomato soup and vegetable soups. Do not drink coffee, but one or two cups of organic tea is fine. It is best to use unsweetened organic soy milk instead of cow’s milk in tea. Peppermint tea is excellent and should be consumed frequently.
This English hospice uses the protocol
Dr. Carter was able to treat a number of people on compassionate grounds with the approval of their doctors. He claimed those successfully treated were the ones who kept strictly to the diet and had not been heavily pre-treated with conventional therapies, which leave the immune system too damaged to recover.
Dr. Ros Taylor, medical director of the Hospice of St Francis in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England, regularly prescribes CV247 to terminal cancer patients.
She maintains that a high proportion of these patients have experienced stabilization of their symptoms and improved quality of life. A sub-group have certainly had extended survival time. She also states that the treatment is very well tolerated, has a sound scientific basis and patients seem to comply very well.
Unfortunately, Dr. Carter’s CV247 protocol is little used outside of Hungary and the United Kingdom.
My takeaway
My take is that sodium salicyclate could be of real value to cancer patients. We need to know more, but it’s worth pursuing. Note that Dr. Carter achieved stabilization or some tumor regression in late-stage patients. These results are well short of a miracle cure but they do sound significant.
My guess is that most of the benefit of Dr. Carter’s protocol derives from the sodium salicyclate and from the fact that the diet is organic.
While some of the foods he recommends seem unsound to me, the fact that patients consume no chemicalized or processed foods probably contributes to their stabilization or regression. I doubt if copper or manganese contribute much but probably help the immune system.
Further information is available at:
https://www.cv247therapy.com/index.php
http://www.ivymedical.hu/ivymedical.com/index.html
Best regards,
Lee Euler,
Publisher
