Hoxsey Therapy

Hoxsey therapy is an alternative treatment promoted as a cancer cure, combining a caustic herbal paste for external tumors or an herbal mixture for internal cancers with laxatives, douches, vitamin supplements and dietary changes. Harry Hoxsey, a former coal miner and insurance salesman, began marketing it in the 1920s with radio personality Norman Baker, claiming the formula descended from his great-grandfather's observation of a self-healing horse. The FDA, National Cancer Institute, American Cancer Society, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center have all found no evidence it is effective, and the FDA banned its sale in the United States in 1960 as a worthless and discredited remedy, forcing the closure of Hoxsey's clinics; it remains available through a clinic in Tijuana, Mexico.