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WRONG TO JUDGE: PREMIpR
Cancer therapist
arrested in US
The Premier of Queensland, Mr
Bjelke-Petersen, told the State's Par
liament yesterday that it was wrong to
make judgments from such a distance
about the arrest of cancer therapist Mr
Milan Brych in Calfornia on Wednesday.
Mr Brych and an orthopaedic surgeon, Dr
Richard O'Connor, were arrested in West
Covina, California, on charges of conspiracy
and providing unapproved cancer treatment,
after accepting $10,000 from an undercover
policcman as the first instalment for a $60,000
course of six cancer treatments.
Mr Brych had no Calfornian. medical
liccncc, and was using a form of treatment,
fmmuno-therapy, which had no proven use
fulness, according to reports of the arrest.
Mr Brych had been deregistered as a
medical practitioner in New Zealand in 1977
and had then opened a cancer clinic in the
Cook Islands. It was during 1978 that his
efforts to set up a clinic in Queensland had
received the support of Mr Bjelke-Petersen.
These moves had been vigourously opposed by
the then Minister for Health, Dr Edwards,
and the State's medical authorities.
Mr Bjelke-Petersen said yesterday that he
did not believe he had ever said that Mr
Brych's treatment was a "cure" for cancer. "I
can only say that I am a person acquainted
with a large number of people who were given
up for dead by their doctors in Australia and
today are leading useful lives after visiting Mr
Brych's clinic in the Cook Islands", he said.
"I have had no personal contact with Mr
Brych since he was in Queensland in 1978. My
attitude on this question is the same as my
attitude on any other question: that is, my
belief is that anyone with a claim for a medical
treatment... should be given a chance to
explain what he has. I am sorry to say that
I believe Mr Brych has been subjected, by
some sections of the medical profession, to a
deliberate campaign of persecution".
The president of the Australian Cancer
Society, Professor John Williams, saiS yester
day that the arrest was "a great relief'.
Professor Williams, who is professor of
biochemistry at the ANU, said immunother
apy was the least effective of the cancer
treatments and that faith in this method was
"a pious hope".
He said Mr Brych had had several op
portunities to demonstrate his treatment and
medical qualifications to authorities in Aus
tralia, but had never done so. Neither the
society nor other medical bodies had a "dog
in-the-manger" attitude about alleged cures.
0 . In fact, he said, the society had a vested
interest in doing itself out of business.
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