I am furious.
There’s nothing I’d love more than to have my field discussed openly among people. There’s nothing more I’d love than to make people more aware about cancer, about the different treatment modalities. I’d even teach people all the pharmacology I know about cancer drugs if I were able to.
I approached the latest – currently airing – Kalam Ennas episode with caution. I had a faint clue who Nabil Habib was. They were discussing one of the most funded, most controversial, most challenging aspects of medicine lately. I figured I’d tune in.
Yes, I’m furious.
I’m not a chemist nor do I aim to be. But when it comes to protocol – when it comes to every single facet of what makes medicine works, what makes this branch of our lives that has cured so many people all around the world functional, he has blown to bits. And he’s condescending about it.
I have no idea who figured it was a scientifically sound idea to get a chemist who has a proposal for a cancer drug on air to discuss his work, have almost no opposite scientific opinion to what he was saying save for the few questions the show’s host got spoon-fed moments before going on air. But do you want to know what’s the great idea? It’s quoting the bible left and right for some scientific credibility.
First, an accomplished scientist wouldn’t need to go on media to discuss his work in order to convince people about it. Regular viewers are not those who need to be convinced about any scientist’s work – other scientists need to be. Getting a one-sided opinion on a talk-show is not having a scientific discussion. Getting people who have been “cured” by your methods is not science. You know what’s science? It’s having data that supports what you’re presenting without any shred of doubt. And then people will follow.
Second, the thing about scientific data is that there are ways for it to be amassed. And those rules exist for a reason: because science takes time, because such “cures” have to be so thorough as not to give people false hope, because arguments such as “this disease is ripping our societies” are not valid scientifically. Each step of the development of the drug from the lab to the clinic has to be monitored and submitted to the FDA. Nabil Habib has not done that. These are the steps to be followed for a drug development (link – you need to create an account to read it). Nabil Habib has blown these steps to pieces. But fear not, he has patented it – never mind that he used it on people as a “secret recipe” prior to the patent process.
Third, the drug development procedure is a process that costs at least half a billion dollars. I’m sure Dr. Habib doesn’t have such means under his disposal. If his drug had been as wondrous as he’s making it out to be, then he would have definitely sold it to a major pharmacological company by now. He would have been a billionaire already and the drug would have been much further along development. And he’d have had the chance to cure much people than the 600 he claims he’s currently treating, an odd claim since I didn’t know chemists usually have patients who are people that suffer from a disease where any glimpse of hope is enough to get them going.
Such a TV show is not the platform to host a scientific discussion. I have no idea if the molecule in question is as beautiful as it has been portrayed to be simply because there has been no opposite opinion to its merits. I have no idea if the claim that this molecule has no side effects is valid: a molecule that can affect so many different types of cancers, affect different types of tissues cannot not have absolutely no side effects worth mentioning. I have no idea if what this man is claiming, even when it pertains to all the different kinds of cancers, is correct or not. But fear not, I have no right to know whether what he’s saying is a fact or not.
Such a TV show, aiming to capitalize on the interest of people, doesn’t get to screw over physicians who either refused or are not allowed to be hosted on it just because it’s what gets viewers. Dr. Georges Chahine will face hell tomorrow because the segment he gave prior to the Lebanese syndicate of physicians issued its decision on the episode was not amended to reflect that decision. The excuse? “It’s not our property anymore.” Excuse me? Whose property is it?
Such a TV show doesn’t serve to educate people. It doesn’t serve to expose a facet of Lebanese society that’s troubling us all. It doesn’t even better things for any of us. What it does is serve as a marketing ploy, nothing more and nothing less, to this chemist and his molecule while ridiculing every single physician who has taken more than a decade of his life to know how to do his job and get guests to tell everyone that those physicians are nothing but ignorants trying to ride people’s backs.
Lebanese TV doesn’t discuss science. Lebanese TV only deals with trash. There are Lebanese scientists who are working tirelessly on ways to deal with cancer (link). But we get this instead. My mother, a current cancer patient, felt this show ridiculed her struggles with her disease. But let’s just keep on making shortcuts, bypassing regulations and proclaiming persecution in order to emerge as messiahs. We’re Lebanese and we just roll like that. There are absolutely no standards whatsoever that can faze us.
A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares 
He is the inventor and the owner of the drug. He is not its administrator and that is why he said he works with around 40 doctors. Stop criticising what you dont understand and with an open mind and try to conduct your own evaluations with a constructive dialogue and debate with Dr Nabil. The documents he presented on the show deserves the very least and admiration to the huge discovery he has made by the accounts of american and european doctors and specialists.
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If I discovered a molecule that cures AIDS tomorrow I cant start giving it to random people the day after ! there is a process that takes years that the molecules should go through before even finding its way to society! and if it s really a miracle drug, then he can take the accelerated new drug approval process from the FDA that needs less studies and less year for studies (it happened a few times in history with few vaccines and drugs). finally, if u have such a discovery you don’t go to the media and market ur work to cancer patients (yalli m3ala2in bi 7bel el hawa) ! you take ur data to the professional! i didn’t see the discoverer of Herceptin, a breakthrough molecule in breast cancer, go to the media and market his work (that changed the whole perspective of breast cancer treatment with minimal side effects … MINIMAL … not “none”) to cancer patients.
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Spot on! What was horrible was them basically saying eno this man is Lebanese ye3ne we should give him a shot. No! The world of science is not a jungle.
You go through criteria, you get your miracle cure up to standards then we talk about an achievement. Horrible.., just horrible. L mouhem l lebnene ydall yenfokh b 7alo!
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I watched the entire episode based on this specific blog post. The topic is highly intriguing and based on that, I drew the following observations and conclusions. The below is not a constructed defense of Mr. Habib’s current practice, but a counter-argument to the biased piece written above.
1. This is a biased blog-post, stemming from one important aspect which is leveling Mr. Habib with the other Lebanese alternative medicine practitioners (Zein el atet and the fraudulent club). This leveling is unfair because this specific person (Habib) has the necessary academic qualifications to conduct rigorous academic research which cannot be compared to unfounded claims by X or Y.
2. You claim that Mr. Habib is not following the proper scientific procedures before promoting his drug (or whichever other name you wish to label it), knowing that he has multiple papers published about this discovery in prestigious journals, which as you probably know, the papers undergo a rigorous peer-review cycle before accepting any research paper or publication! It’s also worth noting that this body itself is currently being questioned word-wide regarding its efficacy and the quality of the papers published. I have not yet reviewed the self-proclaimed published papers by Mr. Habib, but the number of citations for the work and the number of conferences he attended would be a clear indication of the success of the research or not. There is some due-diligence required on your behalf before formalizing your claim above.
3. Mr. Habib doesn’t claim to be the hero and/or eliminating all aspects of collaboration or even review from others. Even with his condescending attitude, which I think is originating as a defense mechanism towards the unjustified prejudice of the Lebanese medical body based on the leveling mentioned in point 1, he does seem quite qualified to thoroughly discuss and defend his work.
4. Charles Keserwani which was a guest MD., clearly stated with humility his experience and one important aspect, which is that Mr. Habib doesn’t practice medicine himself and doesn’t provide his drug without the supervision of practicing MD. under strict supervision of patients. He clearly states and points out that Mr. Habib doesn’t play the role of the doctor, but the role of the researcher providing his drug for experimental trial runs after the legal consent of patients themselves.
5. What infuriates me is the Lebanese government’s and the Association’s role in this case. They’re playing the hot-potato and throwing the responsibility of due-diligence to each other without taking a proper stand for 12 years! 12 years of indecisiveness towards how they wish to approach this situation.
6. The pity is not having the proper legislation to solve and work with these cases once and for all, not having a researcher do his work. The proper cycle for action not only doesn’t exist in Lebanon, they’re not willing to create one!
I do believe Mr. Habib is at fault, he is. His ethics are under questioning as well, but under questioning merely because I have not seen/understood the full story yet. I am a cynical person by nature, as a scientist, I’m very pessimistic about these miracle cures. But this is a guy who has shown proficient and effective knowledge in the field of oncology and bio-chemistry that merits him the right to the benefit of the doubt and further assessment of his work. This marginalization and judgement is unfair.
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I watched the entire episode based on this specific blog post. The topic is highly intriguing and based on that, I drew the following observations and conclusions. The below is not a constructed defense of Mr. Habib’s current practice, but a counter-argument to the biased piece written above.
1. This is a biased blog-post, stemming from one important aspect which is leveling Mr. Habib with the other Lebanese alternative medicine practitioners (Zein el atet and the fraudulent club). This leveling is unfair because this specific person (Habib) has the necessary academic qualifications to conduct rigorous academic research which cannot be compared to unfounded claims by X or Y.
2. You claim that Mr. Habib is not following the proper scientific procedures before promoting his drug (or whichever other name you wish to label it), knowing that he has multiple papers published about this discovery in prestigious journals, which as you probably know, the papers undergo a rigorous peer-review cycle before accepting any research paper or publication! It’s also worth noting that this body itself is currently being questioned word-wide regarding its efficacy and the quality of the papers published. I have not yet reviewed the self-proclaimed published papers by Mr. Habib, but the number of citations for the work and the number of conferences he attended would be a clear indication of the success of the research or not. There is some due-diligence required on your behalf before formalizing your claim above.
3. Mr. Habib doesn’t claim to be the hero and/or eliminating all aspects of collaboration or even review from others. Even with his condescending attitude, which I think is originating as a defense mechanism towards the unjustified prejudice of the Lebanese medical body based on the leveling mentioned in point 1, he does seem quite qualified to thoroughly discuss and defend his work.
4. Charles Keserwani which was a guest MD., clearly stated with humility his experience and one important aspect, which is that Mr. Habib doesn’t practice medicine himself and doesn’t provide his drug without the supervision of practicing MD. under strict supervision of patients. He clearly states and points out that Mr. Habib doesn’t play the role of the doctor, but the role of the researcher providing his drug for experimental trial runs after the legal consent of patients themselves.
5. What infuriates me is the Lebanese government’s and the Association’s role in this case. They’re playing the hot-potato and throwing the responsibility of due-diligence to each other without taking a proper stand for 12 years! 12 years of indecisiveness towards how they wish to approach this situation.
6. The pity is not having the proper legislation to solve and work with these cases once and for all, not having a researcher do his work. The proper cycle for action not only doesn’t exist in Lebanon, they’re not willing to create one!
I do believe Mr. Habib is at fault, he is. His ethics are under questioning as well, but under questioning merely because I have not seen/understood the full story yet. I am a cynical person by nature, as a scientist, I’m very pessimistic about these miracle cures. But this is a guy who has shown proficient and effective knowledge in the field of oncology and bio-chemistry that merits him the right to the benefit of the doubt and further assessment of his work. This marginalization and judgement is unfair.
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Nabil habib mentioned in his very 1st episode with Marcel Ghanem that his product is made out from the Cedar tree and that’s why he named it Lebanus Cedra. In yesterday’s episode (24-9-2013), he said that his product is made of soya..So we can notice a contradiction here not to say a lie!
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He said, specifically in his presentation, that this “molecule” named X, an extract of cholesterol (long name, can’t remember) and is synthetically produced. A high number of molecules used in medicine (I’m not a pharmacology expert) have high levels of similarity with other molecules that exist in nature if not even the same!
The difference that you can’t see between Mr. Habib’s discussion and the other illiterate frauds, is that he explained briefly the mode of operation of this molecule: How it infiltrates the cell, replaces regular cholesterol molecules in the cell and kills it. Whether this is correct or not, I don’t know. Further explanation would be highly technical for the average audience.
Multiple other cancer research look into how they can use the properties of the AIDS virus in an in-vitro produced pathogens to kill cancer cells with it.
Again, I really believe the public doesn’t have the necessary technical information/knowledge to judge.
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Maybe if the drug prices to be a success, we would change the cedar in the flag to a soya bean, and who knows, we would replace cedar tree preservation and marujuana too with soya plants
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Even if this guy were a genius, no drug should ever be offered or discussed to a patient, let alone on TV, without well documented peer reviewed phase II and III studies.
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My mother is 56 and currently dying of Ovarian cancer here in Toronto. We have gone through rounds of chemotherapy, radiation and medications sine she was diagnosed 2 years ago. The doctors have pretty much told her we have no hope. This medication from Dr. Habib arrives to us tomorrow and my mom is going to take it. She has nothing to lose. She was given the worst case scenario as it is but if it is able to help or even extend her life by even a little bit, then it was all worth it. Don’t be so quick to judge or criticize what you don’t know. For these poor people who are dying of cancer and have been given no hope by conventional doctors, maybe this will instill a little faith in their hearts and give them the strength to keep fighting. Even the psychological aspects of a patient feeling he is getting cured or feeling better can have extremely positive results. At least he is providing hope for people who would otherwise have none. God bless all the sick people around the world and maybe one day the cure for cancer that I’m sure we already have can be made available to people instead of the pharmaceutical companies withholding it so they can continue to profit off chemo drugs.
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Hi Zeina, I hope your mom responds well to the new drug. Please keep us posted if you can in a few weeks or months.
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Yo! My mom has cancer, so drop the patronizing attitude.
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Hi Zaina,
How is your mother doing after taking those pills given by Nabil Habib? I am also very sorry for your family’s suffering.
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Hi Zaina, je m’appelle Jocelyne je vous écris pour voir si votre maman a pris le médicament du Dr Nabil Habib et si elle a eu des complications a cause de ce médicament? Ma mère est gravement attaquée et je pense aller chez lui est-ce que vous me conseillez?
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Hi all, it is good to criticize and judge when you’re expert in the matter but it is called ignorance when you reject something that you don’t know.
I think none of us are experts. Even the doctors, oncologists and all the professionals in the field do not know enough about cancer. Otherwise, surviving the disease would not have been in general impossible.
I think giving a chance for another type of medication would be fair enough when the traditional medicine fails.
In fact one of my friends was diagnosed with breast cancer 8 years ago and it propagated to her lungs and other parts of her body. The doctors did their best to stop it and told her she had only few months to live. Desperate, she started the treatment with Dr. Habib, the progress of the disease has stopped after 2 months and started to heal after that. As of today,she’s still living in good health and she had 2 kids.
Of course many other cases failed to cure with Dr. Habib but the same applies to traditional medicine. I believe there’s nothing wrong in giving the patient a second chance when the traditional medicine gives up hope…
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Dear Bassem, Could you please provide us with the link to the articles published by Habib N.? As I checked on Pubmed, and I found nothing…
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Again, I’m not a promoter or support for Habib’s cause, however I believe in every researcher’s right to a fair hearing and a serious discussion of one’s work with a panel created from his(her) qualified peers. With that said, the below is a link to the patent filed by Habib for his work.
Publication number: WO2007064691 A1
http://goo.gl/Tygc3a
The patent above should (by theory) describe every single detail about the discovery, how it works and how to replicate it or else it would not have been accepted. Of course there’s a shitload of problems with the US patenting office and a lot of granted patents do not qualify.
And this is the abstract of the published paper in the ASCO 2012 annual meeting:
http://meetinglibrary.asco.org/content/91404-114
I was not able to find however, any further research published by Habib through Google Scholar.
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Thanks a lot for your reply.
I have already read the abstract, which I found (as a scientist-Immunologist) not so exceptional. The results are comparable to any immunotherapy known to us.
On the other hand, I was not able, just like you, to find any research published by Habib N. (or even mentioning him) dealing with these compounds, which is very strange. If his results are true and his molecule patented, publishing his findings and trials in a respectful scientific journal should do him no harm, on the contrary, it will promote his work and bring him more fundings without “stealing” his work…
Anyway I will read the patent in detail.
Thanks again
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Juste allez visiter l’endroit dans lequel il reçoit ses patients…
ce type doit être arrêté et trainé en justice, c’est de l’escroquerie pure…
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What Nabil Habib is doing is illegal and criminal… Check this page for more info https://www.facebook.com/NabilHabibVictims
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Reblogged this on Dr Nabil Habib: Victims Speak Out and commented:
An important blog post by Elie Fares:
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Hi all,
I think none of us are experts. Even the doctors, oncologists and all the professionals in the field do not know enough about cancer. Otherwise, surviving the disease would not have been in general impossible.
I think giving a chance for another type of medication would be fair enough when the traditional medicine fails.
In fact one of my friends was diagnosed with breast cancer 8 years ago and it propagated to her lungs and other parts of her body. The doctors did their best to stop it and told her she had only few months to live. Desperate, she started the treatment with Dr. Habib, the progress of the disease has stopped after 2 months and started to heal after that. As of today,she’s still living in good health and she have 2 kids now.
Of course many other cases failed to cure with Dr. Habib but the same applies to traditional medicine. I believe there’s nothing wrong in giving the patient a second chance when the traditional medicine gives up hope…
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Nabil habib is just a big fake and liar
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Nabil habib just kiled one more person
Charles Keserwani died today.
In gods name, in Allah name, in science name, Nabil habib stop what you are doing you are killing people instead of treating them , you shall all go to hell( team of Nabil habib) you make money from people due to your intelligence
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