Joseph Alioto, former Mayor of San Francisco, died January 29, 1998 at age 81 after a long battle with prostate cancer. In the last months of his life Mr. Alioto took an experimental drug.
     A news story on the Internet last spring shortly before Mr. Alioto died announced "Alioto recovering from cancer." This story (on BayInsider.com) said Mr. Alioto had been dying in early November but two months later had "regained enough strength to read, chat with visitors and even consult on legal cases by telephone."
      BayInsider reported that Mr. Alioto credited his recovery to "an experimental cancer therapy provided by an Israeli physician, as well as the prayers of San Franciscans." They said the doctor was Dr. David Rubin of Jerusalem. "The drug," Bay Insider reported, "a chemical compound called Glycosole, is manufactured in Israel and has been used to treat a handful of terminally ill patients who have not responded to conventional cancer treatments, Rubin said."
      Glycosole is manufactured by Dr. David Rubin M.D. M. Sc., Medical Director of Co-Enzyme Technology, Ltd. of San Diego, CA and Tel Aviv, Israel. In April 1998 we checked to see if Dr. Rubin is Board Certified in California. He was not. We were unable to find out if he has a license to practice medicine in the USA. He is not listed as a member of the American Medical Association.
      A Culver City oncologist, Dr. Stephen Strum, reportedly cut off discussion with Dr. Rubin about his drug four years ago when he found that Dr. Rubin persistently evaded reasonable questions. A San Diego urologist, Dr. Israel Barken, who is fluent in Hebrew, told us that he had tried to find out if Dr. Rubin has a medical license in Israel and was unsuccessful in his inquiries. One person Dr. Barken spoke to who had worked with Dr. Rubin urged caution, saying: "He is fire."
     Glycosole has not been tested or approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. According to BayInsider, "the FDA allow some patients with untreatable conditions to import such drugs for personal use." In March 1996 the FDA said it was "actively encouraging companies to submit expanded access protocols in the United States for cancer therapies that have been approved by recognized foreign regulatory authorities." Dr. Rubin apparently has yet to take this route.
      Dr. Rubin has been developing and patenting versions of his drug since the late 1970's. He describes the latest version of Glycosole as a non-toxic prodrug. He presents records of tests on prostate cancer patients at two hospitals in Mexico.
      Last spring, we became concerned that men with advanced prostate cancer, including candidates for relatively effective FDA-tested therapies covered by health insurance, were being urged to contact Dr. Rubin to buy his drug. We contacted Quackwatch. We also examined several of Dr. Rubin's patent claims. Soon after our report, Dr. Rubin arranged to mail us a folder of material including records of his prostate cancer clinical trials in Mexico. Is this a magic bullet? We think it's a dud. You can read our translation of the results of one these trials and draw your own conclusions.  

      In 1980 David Rubin co-published an article in Medical Hypotheses. Dr. Wallace Sampson looked at the abstract we sent him and connected it with the theory behind laetrile. Was this similarity accidental? We searched Rubin's patents and found laetrile there at the start. Then we looked to see of results were rosy in a clinical trial of Glycosole for prostate cancer in Mexico.