SEARCH
SEARCH DIRECTORY
logo
The UK’s integrative cancer care charityHelpline 0870 163 2990
menu
This window has opened in a new tab in your browser. Your Search Results can still be seen in the original tab. You can keep several tabs open if you wish, or simply close each one as you finish reading it.
Important Information:
Yes to Life's website content is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, nor is it intended to be used for medical diagnosis or treatment. The information is for educational and informational purposes only and has not been reviewed by medical doctors or oncologists. Cancer is a highly complex group of diseases, and it is known to manifest differently in different people, often responding more favourably to individualised approaches to treatment and care. Yes to Life advocates that any person diagnosed with, or suspected of having, cancer, consults with a suitably qualified and experienced medical professional before initiating any type of therapy or supportive treatment. Click here to read our full Disclaimer.
Hoxsey Therapy
Summary:

Herbal therapies that have been used by vast numbers of patients, with many startling reported successes. Thought to have its origins in ancient American Indian culture, the ingredients have all been found to possess anti-cancer properties under laboratory conditions. Hoxsey used red and yellow paste with external cancers and a tonic for internal.

Description:

Hoxsey Therapy is a concoction of herbal ingredients including Buckthorn bark, Cascara, Barberry root, Potassium iodide. It is named after Harry Hoxsey who formulated the herbal mixture. The preparation is used either directly on the skin (external) or drunk as a tonic (internal). The external mixture is said to be selectively destructive of cancerous tissue and consists of a red and a yellow paste. The red paste contains antimony trisulfide, zinc chloride and bloodroot; the yellow powder contains arsenic sulfide, sulfur and talc. The internal mixture is a liquid containing licorice, red clover, burdock root, stillingia root, barberry, cascara, prickly ash bark, buckthorn bark and potassium iodide. This internal mixture is considered to be cathartic/cleansing and/or immune boosting. The dose of the therapy varies depending on the specific needs of each patient and whether the cancer is internal or external.

Harry Hoxsey considered cancer a systemic disease, however localised its manifestations might appear to be. The therapy aims to restore physiological normalcy to a disturbed metabolism throughout the body, with emphasis on purgation, to help carry away wastes from the tumours that he believed his herbal mixtures caused to necrotise.

People often combine Hoxsey therapy with other approaches like Laetrile.

History:

Harry Hoxsey a miner, developed a herbal formula that he believed was a help to people with cancer. According to his autobiography, it was his great-grandfather, a horse breeder named John Hoxsey, who originated it in the mid-nineteenth century, out of grasses and flowering wild plants which John took from the pasture where a favourite stallion, afflicted with a cancerous growth, grazed daily until the growth necrotised.

According to Harry, John Hoxsey reasoned that the wild plants had caused the stallion’s recovery. He therefore concocted a liquid out of red clover and alfalfa, buckthorn and prickly ash (and other plants which John could not identify), gathered from the area where the stallion had apparently cured himself. Although he was not a doctor, Harry Hoxsey treated thousands of cancer patients. He opened his first clinic in Taylorville, Illinois, in the 1920s, but was forced to move to Dallas following hostile encounters with the local American Medical Association (AMA).

In 1949, he sued the Hearst publications, the AMA and Morris Fishbein, editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), for libel and slander after a negative article. The judge found in favour of Hoxsey, but only awarded him $2. In the 1960s, when he closed the clinic in Dallas, he gave the formula for the tonic to one of his nurses, Mildred Nelson, who reported that her mother had been cured of cancer at the Hoxsey clinic in 1946.

In 1963, Ms. Nelson set up a clinic in Tijuana, Mexico, where she and a full medical staff treated cancer patients. Ms. Nelson died in 1998, but the clinic is still operational and sees approximately 1200 patients annually for cancer and other conditions. Adaptations of the formula are being used by some naturopathic physicians in the US.

Notes:

This therapy can be used for patients who have been treated with radiation and/or chemotherapy.

Some of the ingredients in the Hoxsey formula can cause side effects. For example, buckthorn bark can cause nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea if taken in large quantities. Cascara can cause diarrhoea. Diarrhoea can lead to dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. Barberry root administered to rabbits (dose unspecified) caused swelling of the kidney and cardio toxicity. Potassium iodide could cause adverse reactions in sensitive patients.

Costs:

The option for lifetime supply of the tonic is no longer offered.



Report An Error
Practitioners
+
Dr Ray Lendvai
Vernon, Canada

Dr Lendvai practices Naturopathic Medicine, Homeopathy, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Acupuncture, Nutritional and Lifestyle Counselling and Chelation and IV Therapy ...
Clinics
+
Bio-Medical Center (Hoxsey Clinic)
Tijuana, Mexico

The Bio-Medical Center (Hoxsey Clinic) has been providing therapy since 1963. Originally set up by Mildred Nelson, who was Hoxsey’s chief nurse in the Dallas Clinic, it is now run by her sister. ...
Cancer Options
Nottingham, UK

Patricia Peat, founder of Cancer Options, support people with cancer by looking at their individual needs, taking a metabolic, integrative approach to develop support plans ...
Vital Health Naturopathic Clinic
Alberta, Canada

Vital Health Naturopathic Clinic provides a broad range of natural services including allergy testing, acupuncture, IV therapy and herbal medicine ...
Information & Advice
+
Cancer Information and Support Society (CISS) (The)
St Leonards, Australia

CISS provides information about alternative cancer therapies and support for those who choose to use them ...
Canhelp Inc
Livingstone, United States

CANHELP serves patients and/or family members who wish to take an active part in the healing process and are willing to think outside the conventional medical box ...
Yes to Life
London, UK - England (South East)

Yes to Life is a charity that offers support to people with cancer in the UK who want to take a proactive role in their treatment ...