Hoxsey: When Healing Becomes a Crime (2005)

• 79%
• 2005
• Documentary
• Kenny Ausubel

The saga of Harry Hoxsey is often called "the wildest story in medical history" and could have been written by Mark Twain. In 1924, Harry Hoxsey claimed a cure for cancer, herbal remedies discovered by his great-grandfather. Thousands of patients swore the treatment cured them, but medical authorities branded Hoxsey the worst cancer quack of the 20th century and he was arrested more times than any other man in medical history. By the 1950s, Hoxsey's Texas clinic was the largest private cancer center in the word with branches in 17 states. Two federal courts upheld the therapeutic value of the treatment. Even his arch-nemesis, the AMA, admitted his treatment was effective against some forms of cancer. Although Hoxsey won almost all the battles, finally he lost the war and moved the clinic to Tijuana, Mexico, where it continues to claim an 80% success rate today. The film exposes the overall failure of the War on Cancer, while revealing how yesterday's "unorthodox" treatments are emerging as tomorrow's medicine. It probes other promising unconventional cancer treatments that have also been condemned without investigation, delving deeply into the powerful economic forces behind this suppression.