PC SPES Update
October 30, 2002
The Alliance for Prostate Cancer Prevention (APCaP) announces support of Natural Approaches to Prostate Cancer, Inc (NAPC - pronounced Nap-Sea) in its effort to revive a PC SPES analog for men who previously had attained remissions on this preparation and who desire to be maintained on it. NAPC is working with Dr. Sophie Chen, creator of PC SPES, to produce a contaminant-free PC SPES analog. Please join us in supporting this effort.
PC SPES, prior to January 2002, had been used by thousands of men with advanced or recurrent prostate cancer. PC SPES was becoming accepted by the conventional medical community as a reasonable complementary intervention to conventional medical management, especially in cases of advanced prostate cancer and cases resistant to combined hormone therapy. Side effects and potential complications had become quite well recognized. In January 2002, laboratory analysis by the California Department of Health Services (CDH) detected warfarin in samples of PC SPES. Warfarin is a synthetic blood thinning drug that requires a doctor's prescription. CDH claimed that warfarin does not occur naturally. BotanicLab voluntarily recalled PC SPES from the marketplace in February 2002 in response to DHS' request for product recall. With the subsequent permanent closure of the manufacturer of PC SPES by BotanicLab on June 1, 2002, PC SPES is no longer available to men as a complementary management tool for prostate cancer. The withdrawal of this product has been devastating to the prostate cancer survivor with advanced disease.
The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), National Institutes of Health (NIH) who had funded four research studies of PC SPES to learn about its safety, efficacy and mechanism of action, had placed these studies on hold in June, 2002. NCCAM recently announced they would allow the three laboratory studies of existing PC SPES supplies to resume. These laboratory studies will seek to learn the cellular and molecular mechanisms of action of the herbs.
Three former PC SPES users, each of whom benefited from PC SPES, founded NAPC. The three founders are Bob Herman, a 60 year old therapist from Chicago, Illinois, Chris Williams, a 59 year old businessman from England and Fulton L. Saier, MD, a 59 year old, retired Obstetrician and Gynecologist from Portland, Oregon and president of NAPC.
If you are interested in supporting the revival of the PC SPES analog and in receiving the PC SPES analog upon its availability, complete the registration form on the website at www.napc.info. By registering you can also let your voice be heard in the effort to bring a "clean" PC SPES product back on the USA market. Copycats - food supplement manufactures and distributors who market a variety of herbal blends claiming their product is as good as, if not better than PC SPES, have begun to fill the void left by the absences of the original PC SPES.
The prostate cancer survivor community must unite around this issue and create "critical mass" as NAPC, APCaP and hopefully you move forward in this campaign. Please help us create critical mass by reviewing the work of NAPC at www.napc.info and register today.
NAPC has formed a new PC SPES webgroup for persons interested in discussing PC SPES and keeping up on the latest information in an open forum environment. The address of this webgroup is: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/natural_prostate_treatments/.
Forward the attached email message [pdf] to interested parties and encourage all to join the team.
We appreciate your support.