aryl Khan was desperate when he first considered using concentrated hydrogen peroxide — more than 10 times the strength typically found in drugstores — to treat his wife Susan’s uterine cancer. Susan was diagnosed in 2010, underwent surgery and radiation, and thought she had it beat. But in October 2015, a recurring pain in her abdomen twice landed her in the emergency room. A few weeks later, doctors gave her the news no one wants to hear: The cancer was not only back, but it was spreading.
“It’s hard to fathom the level of grubby exploitation you’ve reduced yourself to, to turn a buck off of people who are watching their loved ones die in slow-motion.”
“They did the whole regimen thing that they do to everybody and it sucked, it really sucked,” said Khan, who says he has a deep mistrust of mainstream medicine. Susan was very sensitive to the medications she was given, he recalls. “She just kept getting worse and worse.”
Khan says he soon began combing the internet for alternative treatments, and eventually found several sites selling what was called “35 percent food-grade hydrogen peroxide.” Sites with names like Pure Health Discounts, Guardian of Eden, Jutrian RX, and more
carried testimonials and detailed
informational pages suggesting the use of the chemical to treat a dizzying array of ailments, from Lyme disease and skin problems to leukemia and even brain tumors. “There were
lots and
lots of testimonials for the fact that it worked on certain cancers,” Khan says.
“I was groping and struggling and searching,” he added through tears.
Khan was an easy target for internet marketers who promise health benefits from drinking just a few drops of hydrogen peroxide diluted in a glass of water. It’s a folk remedy that reaches back decades, and one that continues to flourish at the margins of alternative medicine, and in those corridors of the internet frequented by people who are desperate for a cure. Scientifically, there is no evidence supporting the practice as a remedy for anything — and ample evidence suggests that it can even be dangerous.
