Aids 'cure' volunteers were asked to pay 95 pounds: 'Bogus doctor was a crank and a crook'
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Your support makes all the difference.A WOMAN who claimed she was a doctor was not only a crank, but a crook, because she falsely said that a wonder drug could cure cancer and Aids, a jury was told yesterday.
Elizabeth Marsh, 49, who has no medical qualifications, claimed in a booklet she wrote that CH6 or Cancell could cure cancer in 80 to 85 per cent of patients, Isleworth Crown Court was told.
'The booklet purports to tell people . . . 'Throw away your oxygen bottles and this medicine will cure you',' David Ross, for the prosecution, said.
Mrs Marsh, of Northolt, Middlesex, who put a string of letters after her name, denies issuing a misleading advertisement in relation to the booklet, Cancer and Aids. Is there any hope left for us?
She is being prosecuted by the Department of Health under the Medicines Act 1968, which makes it an offence to sell or produce any drug that has not been through clinical trials.
The booklet - which also made claims about multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, haemophilia, asthma, herpes and sickle cell anaemia - was sent with a covering letter to a homosexuals' pub in Camden, north London, in early 1991 asking for volunteers for clinical trials for the drug which would be distributed free, although there would be an initial consultation charge of pounds 95.
But Keir Starmer, for the defence, said that this did not amount to a commercial interest in the product, which the prosecution needed to show to prove Mrs Marsh's guilt.
He said that even though Mrs Marsh had contracted for 300 copies of the booklet to be printed in November 1990, the Crown had produced no evidence to show that she was responsible for its distribution.
But even then, said Mr Starmer, the booklet stated from the outset that it was a discussion document looking at possible cures for cancer.
However Mr Ross told the court that it was plainly designed to promote the drug to people who would then be charged if they took up the offer. He said expert witnesses had derided the claims made for the drug.
The trial continues today.
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