THE DRAMA

When A. T. W. Simeons published his brief synopsis of the Cura Romana program in the The Lancet (vol.2, pp 946-947, 1954), the paper attracted a lot of attention from the medical profession, drawing doctors from all over the world to Rome to learn about the program, and who then took what they had learnt back to their own countries and began to practice it.

Cura Romana's popularity was an irresistible invitation to doctors and the general public to offer their opinions on whether or not it worked and if it did, how. These came flooding in - reports of phenomenal successes, as well as aggressive attacks from those who were determined to prove it was a fraud. This, in turn, led to massive confusion about the protocol and distortions in how it was being used, as well as widespread misinformation and disinformation in regard to what it was and how it worked.

In 1962 The Journal of the American Medical Association issued a warning that "continued adherence to such a drastic regimen is potentially more hazardous to the patient's health than continued obesity." In 1974 the FDA demanded that all companies producing hCG label their packaging to say that hCG was not to be used for "weightloss or fat distribution." All labeling and advertising of hCG was required to carry a warning label: "HCG has not been demonstrated to be an effective adjunctive therapy in the treatment of obesity. There is no substantial evidence that it increases weightloss beyond that resulting from caloric restriction, [neither Simeons nor his colleagues ever claimed it did] that it causes a more normal distribution of fat, or that it decreases the hunger and discomfort associated with calorie-restrictive diets." Canada's Task Force on the Treatment of Obesity followed suit with its own warning, declaring that the use of hCG for weightloss "touches on possible malpractice." By this time, negative studies and government action as good as wiped out the use of hCG for weight control in North America. Meanwhile, in Europe, South America, and elsewhere, doctors, plastic surgeons and endocrinologists went right on using Cura Romana and getting fine results.

The US government's Pub Med database reports more than 18,000 published papers on hCG. The majority of these articles are about hCG – usually given in huge doses – as a fertility treatment, about its role in pregnancy and about using it to detect malignant tumors. Almost none examine its potential in the treatment of other illnesses – from Kaposi's sarcoma to depression. As far as studies on hCG used for weightloss are concerned, only a few dozen have ever been done. Most of these were poorly designed and carried out on too small a sampling of subjects to be statistically significant. Many seem to have been done with a deliberate intent to prove that it does not work. Others didn't even attempt to follow Simeon's protocol accurately.