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The maker
of the controversial herbal treatment PC SPES, once taken
by as many as 10,000 men for prostate cancer, has announced
it will go out of business June 1.
The product,
which many men and some doctors believed was effective against
late-stage prostate cancer, has been off the market since
December, first because of supply problems and then a recall
driven by discoveries that the product contained prescription
drugs.
The California
Department of Health Services announced in February it had
found traces of the prescription drug warfarin, a synthetic
blood thinner marketed as Coumadin, in PC SPES. And other
researchers subsequently announced they also had found the
anti-inflammatory drug indomethacin and the estrogenic drug
diethylstilbestrol (DES) in PC SPES samples.
BotanicLab,
the California-based manufacturer, denied that prescription
drugs had been knowingly added to its products, which would
be illegal without prior approval by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration. And it announced just a month ago that it
intended to resume production of PC SPES in China.
But Barre
Rorabauch, chief of operations for the company, said the decision
to go out of business "was a combination of the recall
and being shut down for five months. We just didn't have the
financial capabilities."
The decision
may also have been influenced by a class-action suit filed
against the company and its officers by several prostate cancer
patients who had used PC SPES, alleging unlawful business
practices, false and misleading advertising, negligence and
"medical battery."
But many
prostate cancer patients who have been trying desperately
for months to find a store that might still have a few bottles
of the product expressed regret that it will no longer be
available.
"It
saved many lives; it was a very good medication," said
Charles Reinwald, 75, chairman of the nonprofit Cancer Cure
Coalition in Scarsdale, NY.
Source:
Prostate Cancer
Week of May 19, 2002
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