Dying to Have Known

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When Ned Wright came down with testicular cancer in 1999, surgery, chemotherapy and radiation all failed to cure him.

After each treatment, the cancer returned. When his doctor offered him another option: a bone marrow transplant followed by a high does of chemotherapy, which offered a 20% survival rate, Wright decided to try something different.

He opted instead for Gerson Therapy, a whole-body approach to healing that uses natural foods and juices.

It worked.

"The diet was tough and time consuming, but I followed it just as the Gerson doctor had prescribed," Wright said. "As you can see by my testimony, it is 2009 and I am alive by God's grace and the Gerson Therapy. I am now a Gerson person, because of a little-known man's passion for healing."

Wright's testimony to the Gerson Institute was similar to many others captured by filmmaker Steve Kroschel, who produced the film "Dying to Have Known," a documentary aimed to unearth the facts and myths behind an alternative, and often discredited, approach to curing cancer.

 

The film was shown at Willow Bridge Books Feb. 26 by Dr. Carl Bosco, who has been a practicing naturopathic chiropractor in Coarsegold for 35 years. Kroschel, who has made movies with Disney, BBC and IMAX for 20 years, traveled around the world gathering testimonies about the treatment.

Bosco is showing the film again at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 16 at the Produce Place in Oakhurst next to the Grocery Discount Center. The documentary includes interviews with various patients that have been cured by Gerson Therapy, along with medical experts and doctors for and against the treatment.

Gerson Therapy uses a whole-body approach to healing that boosts the body's immune system and other defenses to cure cancer, arthritis, heart disease, allergies and many other chronic conditions. The therapy stimulates the metabolism through the addition of the natural thyroid hormone, potassium and other supplements and by avoiding heavy animal fats, excess protein, sodium and other toxins.

 

These changes help the body regenerate, become healthier and prevent future illness.

Gerson discovered the natural cancer cures after experiments with a special "migraine diet" cured one of his patients suffering from tuberculosis. He soon studied and developed many different natural diets, each specialized to cure a different type of cancer.

One of the movie's segments includes interviews with doctors at a medical hospital in Japan that is conducting studies of Gerson Therapy - a project taken on by one of the doctors after he was cured from cancer using Gerson Therapy.

According to testimonies from doctors there, of more than 500 patients being studied in Japan undergoing the therapy, more than half are now cured from cancer or recovering.

Dr. T.Colin Campbell of Cornell University, interviewed in the film and credited as the,

"foremost nutrition specialist in the world," said Dr. Max Gerson, who developed the Gerson Treatment in the 1930s, has been incorrectly labeled as a "quack" by many in the medical community.

Some interviews in the movie centered on the idea that with a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry, natural cures for cancer like Gerson Therapy are often not welcome.

"The scientific definition is so narrow that the only thing that can be tested are drugs," said Howard Strauss, grandson of Max Gerson. "Medicine is an advertisement for drugs rather than research for the truth. Our pollution-damaged bodies are in need of this (Gerson Therapy) now more than ever."

"We need to take the filters off our minds, start thinking out of the box, and have confidence in what you learn on your own," said Bosco, whose spent his life researching nutrition - a hobby that began when he was sickly as a youth.

Shirley Lay, who attended the film showing at Willow Bridge, said the Gerson Therapy principles work for curing other ailments beside cancer.

Lay said she had been on 10 different prescription drugs for various medical problems, many prescribed simply to treat side affects of a prescribed drug. After chiropractic work from Bosco and changing her diet - cutting out things like sodas, candy bars and fast food - she got off all of her medications and didn't have any more pain.

 

Lay has been without all medications for 12 years now.

"Keep it simple," Bosco said.

"The No. 1 thing you can do is eat real food. If you do that, you're 90% there. You've got to cut out sodas and keep fast food sources to a bare minimum. Get back to wonderful foods like cabbage and carrots. Simplicity is where it's at, and like in the movie, get plenty of sunshine and exercise."