Original source URL: http://www.tierramerica.net/2001/0819/iacentos.shtml Scorpion Venom a New Weapon in Fighting Cancer By Dalia Acosta * The 'medication' produced from this unique source is registered under the name Escoazul at the Cuban Office of Industrial Property, but it remains to be seen how it will be marketed because clinical trials are still underway. HAVANA - The diluted venom of the blue scorpion has been used in Cuba as an anti-carcinogenic for more than a decade, though the scientific community is cautious about employing the formula, which is still in the research phase. A queue of people can usually be found at the pharmaceutical laboratories Labiofam in the outskirts of Havana, waiting for the chance to try the product. It is provided free-of-charge if doctors determine it to be appropriate for the individual's case. Patients from abroad head to Labiofam as well, drawn by the success stories circulating about the venom. ''For the last year I have been taking 15 mm a half-hour before each meal to let the stomach absorb it. My last visit to the doctor showed that the tumor in my lung had disappeared,'' says Eva Gutiérrez, a 42-year-old woman from Venezuela. There are many other testimonies like hers. In Jaguey Grande, 200 km from Havana, an adolescent girl, 14, was on the verge of death, her body invaded by cancer. Ten years later, she is a healthy woman with a normal life, though she has never quit the venom treatment. The final product of the scorpion venom is registered under the name Escoazul at the Cuban Office of Industrial Property, but it remains to be seen if it can be more broadly marketed - it depends on the outcome of the clinical trials underway. More than 3,000 people have participated in studies conducted in the province of Guantánamo, 970 km east of Havana, and many individuals are receiving the ''medicine'' directly from the Labiofam laboratories. The island's health authorities, however, are mum about the research and its preliminary results as a cancer treatment. Tierramérica's attempts to obtain official information proved fruitless. But Misael Bordier, researcher at the Medical Sciences Faculty in Guantánamo and head of the team that created Escoazul, acknowledged that there have been satisfactory results. ''Although the percentage of patients who have recovered from their illnesses following treatment with the toxin is high, it is too early to raise hopes about a medication that is still in the experimental phase,'' stressed Bordier, who for seven years tested the preparation on white mice. He said that Escoazul has been effective in treating a wide range of cancers, Parkinson's disease, pelvic inflammation and kidney problems. The only official word on the product has come from the governmental National Information Agency, which has assured that the product is not harmful to human health and serves as an anti-inflammatory and stabilizer of the immune system. Escoazul is prepared from the venom of the blue scorpion, which is only found on the Caribbean island. There are 32 scorpion species in Cuba, 29 of which are endemic, and some 1,600 known species worldwide. Sources close to the research efforts told Tierramérica that Escoazul inhibits protease, an enzyme that acts as a membrane around different kinds of cancer. ''It is known that protease serves as a sort of habitat in which the tumor reproduces and expands, cell by cell. By impeding the formation of this membrane, the tumor halts its expansion and begins to break down,'' explained Venezuelan patient Gutiérrez. That was the information she received in Cuban when she refused to begin chemotherapy in Venezuela and headed to the island-nation to get another opinion about the evolution of the cancer in her right lung. In March 2000, she underwent surgery in which her thyroid and 10 ganglia were removed. At the Oncology Hospital of Havana, doctors confirmed the cancer diagnosis, but Gutiérrez heard about the scorpion venom from a leukemia nurse. Gutiérrez's recovery since she began taking the venom has been amazing, she says. The doctors ''do not necessarily recognize its virtues, but they tell you not to quit taking it.'' * Dalia Acosta is an IPS correspondent. * Cuba Searches for an AIDS Vaccine Copyright © 2001 Tierramérica. Todos los Derechos Reservados -- -------------------------------------------------------- Escaping the Matrix website http://escapingthematrix.org/ cyberjournal website http://cyberjournal.org subscribe cyberjournal list mailto:•••@••.••• Posting archives http://cyberjournal.org/show_archives/ Blogs: cyberjournal forum http://cyberjournal-rkm.blogspot.com/ Achieving real democracy http://harmonization.blogspot.com/ for readers of ETM http://matrixreaders.blogspot.com/ Community Empowerment http://empowermentinitiatives.blogspot.com/ Blogger made easy http://quaylargo.com/help/ezblogger.html
