A MEDICAL MECCA | Thousands travel to Tijuana for a go at alternative clinics
The San Diego Union - Tribune; San Diego, Calif.; Feb 8, 2001;
Penni Crabtree;
pqasb.pqarchiver.com
Copyright SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY Feb 8, 2001
TIJUANA -- For the desperate and the dying, Tijuana's estimated 50 to
70 "alternative clinics" have become a medical mecca.
Thousands of cancer and AIDS patients, most of them from the United
States, come each year and pay hefty sums to sample a hodgepodge of
unproved therapies -- from extract of apricot pits, known as laetrile, to
shark cartilage.
Yet many U.S. medical experts dismiss such therapies as quackery,
useless at best and potentially risky -- including the offerings of BioPulse
International, a publicly traded company based in San Diego that has
opened a clinic in Tijuana.
So why do terminally ill patients continue to flock to Tijuana's cluster of
alternative clinics?
Patients say the short answer is: "Wouldn't you?"
Dan Pember, a Wisconsin construction worker who has been battling
lymphoma since 1994, has tried and failed with chemotherapy and other
traditional treatments in the United States.
Pember, who now requires regular infusions of blood because his bone
marrow is compromised, has tried three clinics in Tijuana -- and BioPulse
is his fourth.
"The doctors in the U.S. say the only thing we can do now is give you
blood -- see you in heaven," says Pember, 63. "This (BioPulse's
approach) sounds interesting, and the only thing I've got to lose is money.
"If it works, it's worth the money. If it doesn't work, I won't need the
money."
Loran Swensen, BioPulse's president and co-founder, says his clinic
seeks to offer cancer patients access to the kinds of experimental
therapies usually reserved for limited numbers of patients enrolled in
studies -- called clinical trials -- in the United States.
Swensen says BioPulse will seek permission from the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration this year to test its vaccine in the United States.
Meanwhile, it will continue to use it on willing patients in other countries.
"We can work out this protocol, streamline it, get it down to where all the
bugs are worked out of it, it's safe, it's effective or it's not, and then take it
in and set it up in a clinical trial (in the United States) in all the normal
studies and say, `Here is how it needs to be done,' " Swensen says. "And
do it for hundreds of millions of dollars less than what it takes to take a
drug from concept to the market (in the United States).
"At the same time that we've acquired data here that was useful in setting
up the protocol, we may have helped a few people along the way,"
Swensen adds. "We haven't hurt anybody any more than they were going
to be hurt on the other side (of the border)."
While the strategy might appall medical ethicists, it clearly appeals to
BioPulse's desperately ill clients.
Patients interviewed at the BioPulse clinic expressed anger at the U.S.
health-care system and the limited access patients have to experimental
therapies.
Cancer, the second-leading killer disease in the United States, surpassed
only by heart disease, claims the lives of more than half a million
Americans each year.
In 1999, there were 354 different drugs in cancer trials, according to a
survey by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
Yet less than 25,000 cancer patients take part each year in clinical trials
to test these experimental therapies, according to the latest figures from
the National Cancer Institute.
Many patients don't qualify for the limited slots in a clinical trial, often
because their diseases, their ages or other factors rule them out.
Others are unwilling to enroll because they are discouraged by the study
demands or the possibility that they will be placed in the placebo control
group that doesn't get the experimental drug.
With limited options, some patients turn to anything that offers hope --
even when it comes with a big price tag and a questionable scientific
pedigree.
"There is something very basically wrong with our health system when
people who have run out of conventional choices are forced to go to
Mexico or Holland or Germany" for options, says Silvia Drucker, a New
Jersey cancer patient who last month was told by her U.S. doctors that
she had six to 18 months to live.
"I would say to the scientific community: If it was you, or your daughter or
sister or wife, would you like it?"
Despite support for Tijuana's alternative clinics among some U.S.
patients, Baja health authorities are less enthusiastic.
Dr. Alfredo Gruel Culebro of the Baja California Health Department says
it is difficult to keep track of all the alternative clinics that spring up in
Tijuana, many without authorization. Baja officials close about a dozen
each year.
BioPulse registered in Baja last year as an ambulatory clinic performing
traditional medicine, according to Gruel. Inspectors found "a very nice
facility, very well-equipped," he says.
But the permit, issued last November, did not include any authorization
for alternative treatment. There is a permitting procedure that allows for
some forms of alternative therapy, but BioPulse did not seek it, Gruel
says.
By performing alternative treatments without authorization, the BioPulse
clinic could face fines or closure. Gruel says his department will reinspect
the clinic, based on information provided by The San Diego
Union-Tribune and his own perusal of BioPulse's Internet site.
Told of Gruel's comments, Swensen said BioPulse passed all inspections
and should not be considered "alternative."
"What we do here is not alternative," Swensen says. "It's not considered
standard, but it's not alternative." |
