Rob Koene, M.D., Ph.D.

Tullio Simoncini claims that cancer is caused by a fungus and can be cured with the administration of sodium bicarbonate. There is no scientific evidence to support this claim, and there is good reason to believe that the treatment is dangerous. In October 2007, a charge was brought against the Clinic for Preventive Medicine (CPM) in Bilthoven, the Netherlands. This clinic houses a mixture of small enterprises, where physicians and nonphysicians offer a great variety of “alternative” treatments. A 50-year- old patient with breast cancer who was treated at this clinic was admitted to the emergency department of the University Medical Center of the Free University of Amsterdam, where she died within a few days. The attending physician refused to sign a death certificate, because …