Emanuel Revici, MD: efforts to publish the clinical findings of a pioneer in lipid-based cancer therapy—Part 2

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, Oct, 2004 by Marcus A. Cohen

This second part of a four-part series about the late Emanuel Revici, MD, recounts efforts to circulate his clinical insights and results through peer-reviewed literature and presentations at medical conferences. Part 1, briefly chronicling his life and summarizing his scientific discoveries, appeared in the Aug/Sept. issue.

Revici's publishing history began in Paris on the eve of World War II. It continued until the end of the war in Mexico City, where US physicians visiting the medical facility he had opened witnessed the results of his lipidic treatment for cancer. Most of the history took place in New York City, after Revici moved to the US in 1946 and a year later founded the Institute of Applied Biology, which specialized in clinical cancer research. Revici's 50-year struggle to publish exemplifies the problems most originators of nonstandard approaches to cancer experience in seeking mainstream understanding and acceptance of their therapy.

Publications, 1930s & 1940s: Emanuel Revici's medical research commanded attention during his years in France (1936-41). Between 1937 and 1938, the sub-director of the Pasteur Institute deposited five papers by the Romanian-born physician in the National Academy of Sciences, a prestigious way of registering scientific innovations. (8) These papers summarized observations he had made about the influence of lipids in pathological pain and cancer.

In 1943, a year after establishing his Institute in Mexico City, Revici sought to acquaint visiting US physicians with his findings, hoping they would assist in publishing them in peer- reviewed English-language journals. His associate and friend Gaston Merry, in a personal letter dated 9/5/45, aired his suspicion that the US doctors had intended to publish Revici's findings as'their own.

Perhaps with that aim in mind, these physicians took a glancing swipe at Revici. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), on 8/18/45, printed a letter signed by them under the heading, "A Mexican Treatment For Cancer--A Warning." The letter, not referring to Revici by name, disparaged both his theories and results.

"What seems to be behind the paper," Merry wrote, "is the desire to work along the ideas of Revici and to claim the paternity of some of his ideas. A hint is given by an article published in Cancer Research on page 480 of the August number and called "The Effects of 3-4 Benzpyrene on the Auto Oxidation of Unsaturated Fatty Acids.' It is signed by G.C. Meuller and H.P. Rusch,' the latter being the doctor from Wisconsin who came at the end of 1943 to spend about 5 weeks here and who came again at the end of 1944.

"His article," continued Merry, "is the reproduction of an experiment made in Paris, the conclusions of which having been published at two or three occasions. When Dr. Rusch was here in December 1943, I was present to the conversations as an interpreter and Revici candidly discussed his findings at length, mentioning specifically the linoleic and linolenic acids which are also the ones used by Dr. Rusch who took plenty of notes during the conversations.... As you know, according to Revici's classification, 3-4 Benzpyrene is one of the first bodies to be-considered as Lipobase. Dr. Rusch does not go so far as to talk about Lipobases and Lipoacids--but his method is a close reproduction of the technique mentioned by our friend. I am afraid that--all the notes taken 18 months ago and later will serve as subjects for publications which so far could not be made from here."

Merry ended: "I guess the best thing would be to liquidate what we have here and have Revici working in a Laboratory in the States with the proper help to repeat all his experiments in support of his theory and especially the suitable collaboration for writing up the publications. It is a great handicap for him that his English is too poor for writing the necessary articles. This is what we asked for when the Texas and Wisconsin gang came here but they acted deaf." (9)

From the moment Revici coestablished the IAB in Brooklyn, New York, in 1947, the Institute reported on its investigational programs. Summaries of Revici's findings prior to the opening of the IAB appeared in booklet form, printed and bound in blue paper covers, with each booklet devoted to a single subject. Itemizations of new or ongoing studies periodically circulated as mimeographed typescripts.

For example, a "Report on the Research Conducted at the Institute of Applied Biology," issued 10/15/48 by the Cancer Research and Hospital Foundation (the IAB's funding arm), listed over 20 different experiments. "The fixation of oxygen, sulfur and selenium in unsaturated fatty acids" was the second experiment in this itemization. The 21st was "The influence of lipids in healing of tissue injured by radium emanation." (10)

Revici's research on radiation injury had blipped onto the US Navy's radar screen 18 months earlier. A letter from a Colonel Thomas G. Cassady, dated just four days before the IAB report, confirmed the Navy's interest: (Military scientists were testing nuclear weapons on isolated atolls in the Pacific Ocean in the late 1940s, seeking to protect servicemen on the battlefront from lethal radioactive fallout.)