Herbal cancer remedy is chock full of drugs
By Nathan Seppa
An herbal remedy that had been popular among prostate cancer patients was tainted with three synthetic drugs, according to an analysis of batches of the remedy made between 1996 and 2001. The product, called PC-SPES, has since been recalled by its California-based manufacturer, BotanicLab, which has gone out of business.
Researchers became curious when seriously ill patients taking PC-SPES began to fare better than expected. However, lab experiments showed that the known herbal ingredients in PC-SPES all failed individually to have much success killing prostate cancer cells, says study coauthor Robert Nagourney, a medical oncologist at the University of California, Irvine and Rational Therapeutics in Long Beach.