A friendly skeptic looks at Escozul

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, July, 2004 by Ralph W. Moss

Escozul is a folk remedy for cancer, made from the diluted venom of the Caribbean blue scorpion (Rhopalurus junceus). Escozul is gaining popularity in Cuba, its birthplace, and in many other countries as well. Since the early 1990s, even some US citizens have gone to that "forbidden island" for treatment with this unusual substance, which was first developed in 1980 by a Guantanamo province biologist, Misael Bordier. Some years ago, Bordier conceived the idea of trying scorpion venom as a treatment for certain chronic conditions including cancers of various kinds. It seemed to have good effects and word quickly spread. Now many doctors in that area are said to frequently administer diluted doses of the toxin by mouth to patients with malignancies, as well as to those suffering from pelvic inflammation, renal failure, and Parkinson's disease. (Although pure venom is harmful to humans, this product is reputedly non-toxic when diluted and administered orally.)

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Some readers have asked me if there is any truth to the glowing reports that are finding their way onto thousands of websites concerning its use as a cancer treatment. My basic answer is that while it shows some promise, it is still a very uncertain remedy. One should not abandon any well-documented therapy in favor of undertaking a treatment about which so little is yet known.

Despite the fact that Cuba has a modern public health system, it is also a country with an entrenched belief in folk medicine. Although surgery, radiation and chemotherapy are provided free for all cancer patients, these treatments have all the limitations there that they do in other countries. In Cuba, as elsewhere, the public is on the lookout for safer and more efficacious treatments for cancer.

I for one do not think it impossible that blue scorpion venom could have a positive effect on some patients. There are over 100 articles in PubMed on the examination of scorpion venom in basic cancer research. A Chinese group has isolated neurotoxins from another species of scorpion, called Buthus Martensii, that has both anticancer (Liu 2002) and immune stimulating effects (Yang 2000). At the University of Alabama they have found that a scorpion product called chlorotoxin specifically binds to the surface of brain cancer (glioma) cells and impairs their ability to invade normal tissue (Deshane 2002). This is a very promising finding. If venom can paralyze or kill normal cells, it can plausibly do the same to malignant cells. But it needs emphasizing that none of the articles currently in PubMed is a clinical study and none refers specifically to the Cuban product Escozul. The jury is therefore still out on how useful this treatment may ultimately prove to be.

Since the outset, educated opinion in Cuba has been divided on the topic of Escozul. Some people considered the well-publicized reports of clinical benefit to be merely wishful thinking. Another group considered Escozul an outright fraud. A smaller group believed the treatment to be a "scientific challenge," according to the official Communist Party newspaper, Granma (January 16, 2003). Among this latter group is an engineer named Omar Cantillo, a nuclear physicist who has risen to be head of science and technology at the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment. He has long been open-minded towards this new treatment. According to Granma, a certificate of product registration has now been awarded by the Cuban Office for Industrial Property, under Resolution 3136/99, and it is due to come into effect in 2005. The license describes this by-product of scorpion venom as "an anti-carcinogenic component that has new, inventive activity and application." The remedy is also said to have shown interesting results in HIV-AIDS patients who received it in outpatient clinics at the University hospital in Mbarara, Uganda, where Cuban physicians are working.

To date, more than 50,000 people in Cuba (an island of less than 12 million people) have received Escozul. Pro rata, this would be equivalent to more than a million Americans being treated with what is essentially an unproven remedy--something that dwarfs any of the similar crazes that have occurred here. Thousands more people in Mexico, Colombia, Spain, Italy, Argentina, the Dominican Republic, the Netherlands and even the United States have now used Escozul.

Bordier presented the remedy at the International Conference of Traditional Medicine and Alternative Therapies, which took place in Mexico in 2001. He toured the country giving speeches (PlanetSave.com 2001). According to Granma, the Mexican press dedicated substantial space to revealing that 300 citizens of the Federal District who were suffering from malignant abnormalities were benefiting from the Cuban treatment, and reported Bordier's contributions to the Forum.

The Cuban government itself seems well disposed towards the product (which, incidentally, could bring in some desperately needed foreign exchange dollars). "In the battle between the scorpion and the crab," (i.e. cancer, ed.), "the scorpion will win," said Bordier.