INTERVIEW
                   WITH DR. DANA FLAVIN-KÖNIG

The Foundation has two main purposes, the first is to inform and educate colleagues and patients about the essentials of nutrition and nutrient supplements in cancer therapy – how they work, why they work, where they work.  To enhance the efficacy of conventional therapies, immunotherapy and all aspects of other therapies, and to decrease the side effects – we’re seeing good results.

The other is looking into new areas of research and new areas of therapy that can be applied now to patients with for example unusual cases or unusually resistant cases, we are having good results finding treatments in Africa, in Italy, China and Japan, and many are actually available now for patients’ use.  In Italy for example, treatment of pancreatic cancer is very successful, from the National Cancer Institute in Naples.  Dr Mancini’s patients’ cancer disappears in a matter of months and stays away for years. This is new, it is patented and is now being developed for marketing, but some patients might have to go to Naples for now for treatment. New treatments in China are successful in treating many types of cancer, and we are actually applying these in patients now, and they has been proven safe and effective.

There is so much data coming to doctors, too much, that is why they don’t know about these advances.  No one has time to filter it, to research the ground areas, so they wait until it is product, actually on the market.  Many of these treatments also are not actually products at all, so are not marketed. They have been shown to be effective but can’t be patented so are not a valuable asset to a pharmaceutical company.

Q: How do you get the data to doctors?

I give presentations, this is written up but is also shown to them, told to them at meetings, conferences, so they can know what is available for their patients now.

 Q: Are you completely independent?

 Yes, the Foundation is completely independent, I’m not promoting any products.  We receive funding from Foundations and organizations involved in cancer research, who see what we are doing and the results in the patients.

 Q: Is your work more alternative than conventional?

No, in fact it is both.  For example Dr Mancini’s protocol is chemotherapy plus a substance he has isolated himself, an enzyme, so it is in fact both alternative and conventional.  And other studies, for example with brain metastases, we are having excellent results using a plant which has already been proven to work in primary brain cancers but it also is extremely successful with brain metastases.

 Q: Are you unique?

 The Foundation is unique because we are not representing any company, we are not selling any products.  There are companies which claim they are helping patients and are selling on the internet, some of the treatments are partially good, some are very good, some of them are terrible, what’s important is the patients need to know what to take and why, I don’t care where they get it as long as it is effective.

The Foundation is actively involved in researching, finding or designing treatments which are effective now or in the future.

As the top toxicologist at the FDA, I began writing a book on the molecular biology of cancer, reading approximately 150-250 articles a week, minimum, and this has continued on from 1979, up until now.   It is constant reading, we are always reading and informing each other, the Foundation is networked all over the world.   For example, the information on the plant material which helped to remove the brain metastases from my breast cancer patient, came to me from my colleague Dr Zander down in Austria.  Foundation advisors are all over the world, any new information which is proven safe and can be applied for the patient, we are putting together.

Q: What happens to donations?

Any donation to the Foundation will help to support further research on combinations of treatments, conventional and complementary, also new areas of conventional medicine, and to inform our colleagues of success we are having now.  They must be informed, and that costs money.  We are not supporting particular products, we are supporting research and also supporting individual patients using combinations together, that is new.  Other Foundations work hand in hand with companies, essentially providing research areas to test their products.  That is about money.  Our Foundation is about lives.

One of the essential advantages of combining conventional and complementary medicine is that complementary medicine enhances the efficacy of conventional treatments.  One reason is that the immune system is supported, another is that there is a slow detoxification of the body, for example heavy metals and fungus etc, and regulation of the body ph which is too acidic in every case.  This is why it is imperative, we are not just talking about getting rid if a tumor or a handful of tumors now, but five years down the road and ten years down the road so the patient can stay in remission.  For the patients, they can learn to strengthen their own bodies, eliminate their own cancer so they can stay in remission and have a healthy happy normal life.

Q: Advisors?

All of the advisors are working together – that is what I am doing. I organize them together, the Israelis with the Chinese, the Italians with the Germans, all the advisors the scientists and the physicians working together to get all of this data out for our patients.

In medicine today we are much too specialized, things tested as a single substance.  A new chemo out, extremely strong, but we know the side effects can be lessened with alphalipoeic acid, however it has not been done with a research project, although colleagues know this and use it in their patients sometimes, but it’s not general information and many patient have gone through agonizing side effects because they did not know of this natural substance.

This is information which much be given out, to colleagues and to the patients through the internet, grass roots meetings and conferences.

General information will be on the website, if patients want specific treatment and dosages they should contact me directly, I don’t believe any patient should be denied information.

Q: What gave you the idea for the Foundation?

One of the turning points in starting the Foundation was when I had a patient with acute mylogonous leukemia, already received one gram of chemotherapy and colleagues asked me to give her nutritional support.  I said yes although leukemia was not my primary area, from the literature I knew what would help her.  We started on a natural supplemental combination I had designed, and she then received two grams of chemo, a whopping dosage, she should have been violently ill.  The consultant called me in and said, “Mrs S’s white blood cells have all sunk, but she didn’t have any side effects”, and I said, “We must do this for the children, they suffer so much with the side effects, they can’t have bone marrow transplants because they can’t stand the chemo, we must do a study”.  She looked at me very coldly and said, ”Oh no colleague, no one will pay for it.”  How can you deny children something that is natural, non-toxic, that won’t affect their chemo, but will reduce their side–effects?  That will help them live?  I came to America and spoke with colleagues to raise money to do the study, and it had to go to a Foundation.  We have seen the result when they are given a supplemental nutritional treatment, it enhances the results of their therapy.

I have had tremendous response to conventional treatment of lung cancer with accompanying therapies.  I’ve seen brain metastases disappear; I’ve seen primary tumors disappear.  The problem with lung cancer is that the patients don’t stay long in remission, and I’m now looking into treatments from two different companies, and I want to combine these treatments, put them together and get a new regime because the preliminary results are promising. Lung cancer is one of the difficult ones.  I used to think that pancreatic cancer was difficult until I saw Mancini’s work, and we are very successful with liver cancer, prostate, breast, bone cancer, but lung is still difficult.  Best advice- don’t start smoking.

I wrote a book on tumor promotion – many can be prevented or stabilized buy nutrition and lifestyle, avoiding toxins.

With the internet, the patients will say let me have access to these treatments, to demand from the HMOs, they start to change.

The ovarian,  cervical and endometrial cancers are on the rise.  Fortunately there is a new vaccine developed for pepaloma virus – that’s the one that causes cervical cancers in most situations – it’s unusual to find cancer without the virus, but the ovarian and endometrial cancers are on the rise and we suspect it may have to do with hormone replacement therapy that the dosage is perhaps too high – lots of pros and cons in this area, controversial – but the cancers are on the rise.

There are treatments…several years ago the Japanese proved that hyperthermia combined with chemotherapy actually destroyed the peritoneal spread of ovarian cancers, very effective work.  The normal treatment has been an operation if you can reach it, but many of these tumors are found later and it spreads, so it is wonderful that there are new treatments, combining the best of conventional and complementary medicine, together.

One of the biggest problems patients have today is, who can they believe.  I’ve seen patients lied to, I’ve seen colleagues competing for patients, and even when there is a good treatment people don’t even recognize it.  So many people making claims, like the boy crying wolf.