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10/3/01 MOST PROMOSING HERBAL THERAPIES CENTER FOR MIND-BODY MEDICINE COMPREHENSIVE CANCER CARE 2000 Presenters: Ralph Moss, PhD and Mark Blumenthal AUDIENCE MEMBER: Does either of our speakers have any information about the efficacy of some of the Chinese herb preparations, SPES and PC-SPES for cancer? DR. MOSS: Well, I should have mentioned at the beginning -- the question is do I have any information about the efficacy about SPES and PC-SPES, two preparations that were brought from China and refined by Sophie Chen, who also is at this meeting. And, yes, there is some data on this, more published data about PC-SPES. SPES means hope in Latin, and PC for prostate cancer -- two papers at the American Society for Clinical Oncology this year and a couple of other peer reviewed articles in the previous couple of years, which demonstrate a very interesting thing, which is that the mixture, it is a mixture of eight herbs, has an effect on both hormone-responsive and also on hormone refractory, or androgen-insensitive prostate cancer. This may be the first agent, I don't know of any other, that actually can dramatically lower prostate-specific antigen in hormone refractory patients, as well as in hormone-sensitive patients. Now there was confusion, is some confusion, over this because there is no doubt that one of the actions of PC-SPES is as a hormonal or anti-androgen agent. And in fact, it is pretty similar to DES in some respects. Of course, DES would be a tiny fraction of the cost. And in fact, it is interesting that this controversy over PC-SPES has reenergized the use of anti-androgens or estrogens in the treatment of prostate cancer, which of course goes back to the days of Huggins (?) in the early 1940s, really first chemical treatment for prostate cancer. So it is definitely that, okay? But what got lost in some of the early papers was the fact that in addition to that, there is that other aspect, maybe another herb in the mixture that has an effect on the hormone refractory patient. And that would be extremely valuable, and it would be worthwhile knowing and doing. And Sophie, who, you know, may even be in the audience -- I don't know. But, you know, she is working on this. She is at the New York Medical College, and she is aware also of the extreme problems, production problems, that occur in making this highly concentrated product in China, although now PC-SPES is a viable product in the marketplace. But the future of SPES, I would say, is much more in doubt, although it is, as many of you know, the herbal mixture that Bill Fair is using to treat his own cancer, and based on some good scientific testing. His case -- I don't think I am giving away any confidences here.
8/23/01 LEF Discussion of SPES
8/26/01 Haelth Alternative Medicine Clinic, chaired by Dr. William Fair
6/7/01 PC-SPES.Com Website Collection of info about SPES and PC-SPES, where to buy, other info
7/19/01 HealingEdge Sciences Source of SPES
7/19/01 Vivacity Professional Health Products Source of SPES
7/21/01 UCSF Trials on PC-SPES
7/21/01 Apoptosis and cell cycle effects induced by extracts of the Chinese herbal preparation PC SPES H. DOROTA HALICKA1, BARBARA ARDELT1, GLORIA JUAN1, ABRAHAM MITTELMAN2, SOPHIE CHEN3, FRANK TRAGANOS1 and ZBIGNIEW DARZYNKIEWICZ1 Paper also talks about SPES
7/21/01 BotanicLab Maker of SPES
7/21/01 LEF Discussion about SPES Anecdotal Reports
6/7/01 SPES References from PC-SPES.com A Chinese Herbal Formula for the Treatment of Pain and Associated Symptoms of Cancer Forty cancer subjects received SPESTM orally for a two month course of treatment. Results indicate. that of the subjects treated, 74% had significant pain relief, 88% had significant improvement in one or more of the disease-associated symptoms, and four cases of cancer were found to be in remission. Results also indicated that overall quality of life for SPESTM patients improved almost immediately - within 24 to 48 hours of starting on SPESTM: 88% of the subjects reported improvement with the symptoms and/or pain associated with cancer.
6/7/01 PC-SPES RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FIGHTING PROSTATE CANCER by Robert Wall There is a paper on this web site that indicates that 4 patients who used SPES in a study by a Canadian doctor, found their cancer was placed in remission. This SPES (not PC-SPES) study included patients who had many different types of cancer (breast, colon, prostate, etc.) and the paper did not specify which of the patient's cancer was placed in remission. SPES has anti-pain properties and is compared to morphine in its capability regarding pain reduction. For that reason alone, it may be a useful cancer therapy in that it provides relief to those who have pain caused by bone mets or soft tissue pain. SPES has apparently demonstrated cancer tumor volume reduction in colon, breast cancer and other types of cancers
6/7/01 Dr. Fair's Tumor 10/26/98 What Dr. Fair needed was a sort of therapeutic smart bomb, and that required, first of all, learning more about the nature of the target. Heston, in his fourth-floor lab, harvested a portion of Dr. Fair's cancer cells from the incubator cultures and analyzed the cells for altered genes. A specific derangement of a gene called p53 was found. The P53 Gene normally restrains cell division; when it's mutated, cells can grow wildly, which is to say cancerously.... In an effort to slow the cancer's progress, Fair's colleagues recommended a toxic chemotherapy drug called CPT-11. Dr. Fair struggled with the advice. The drug had been developed generically, like all other chemotherapeutic agents-screened against prototype cancer-cell lines and then given to end-stage cancer patients. It had a very small chance of causing significant shrinkage of his tumor and no real likelihood of eliminating it. "If you have only a hammer, everything looks like a nail," he concluded. There had to be something else at hand. He had his experimental animals all set up. Now he just needed something to test on them. He came up with two agents, reaching into the past for one and into the future for the other. ......The first was a Chinese herb, packaged and available under the name "spes." The second was a tumor vaccine. Both preparations were selected rationally, using the tumor cells that Dr. Heston was growing in the incubator and in his mice. Both represent powerful trends that promise to have a notable impact on contemporary medicine. It's easy to imagine how the old Dr. Fair would have regarded talk of treating cancer with herbs: narrowed eyes, flared nostrils, and all. Alternative medicine has customarily been long on promises and short on research-an area where charlatans prey upon people who are at their most susceptible.... . "Dr. Wang asked me if my cancer had a p53 mutation," Dr. Fair recounts. Then Wang provided him with the parent preparation, spes, which he believed was worth screening against tumors that had this signature aberration. Fair says he was skeptical: "When you look at some of the claims of these herbal potions, they are said to do everything for everyone." But he knew he had nothing to lose, and he was impressed by Dr. Chen's scientific rigor, so he decided to test it out. Dr. Heston added a water extract of spes to the regular diet of the immune-deficient mice carrying Dr. Fair's colon cancer. Other tumor-bearing mice were fed the regular diet as controls. Within a few weeks, the tumors in the spes-fed mice had shrunk by fifty per cent, while the tumors in the control mice had continued to grow.
6/7/01 Comprehensive Cancer Care: Integrating Complementary & Alternative Therapies Complementary Therapy is an Essential Part of Cancer Treatment William Fair, MD June 13, 1998
4/10/01 Dr. William R.Fair, SPES
6/5/01 Dr. William R. Fair The Doctor and the Survivor Prevention Magazine, March 2001 SPES - Chinese Herbal Medicine
7/19/01 A Promoter of Programs to Foster Heart Health December 29, 1998 AT DINNER WITH / DEAN ORNISH Dr. William Fair
6/7/01 Hope in an Herb Mix Nov. 27, 2000 By Charles Downey WebMD Medical News "The alternative to PC-SPES is chemotherapy," says Jeffrey Pirani, MD, co-author of the University of Kentucky study. "I see many patients on chemo and I think it is worse than the disease itself." So Pirani and many other doctors aren't waiting for the results of more complete studies before recommending the herbal concoction for patients with advanced cancer.

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