Eastern Europe's Biological Chamber of Horrors
A little more than a year ago, in 2005, John Fusto, my wife, Kathy, and I visited Barbados on a Human Life International pro-life missionary trip. We had no idea that we were taking the first steps toward uncovering an international conspiracy involving corruption at the highest levels of government, mad scientists by the dozen, a Nazi-style eugenics breeding program, mass murder, and Russian Mafia executions of witnesses.
During our stay in Barbados, Fr. Leonard Alfonso mentioned a strange facility located in the remote highlands of the island. The Institute for Regenerative Medicine, or IRM, claims on its web site to completely cure or substantially ameliorate every disease or injury known to man — including spinal cord trauma, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, and diseases of the liver, nervous system, blood, heart, and bowel.
Its most alluring promise, however, is offered by its intriguingly named "Age Reversal Therapy."
The IRM has promised to make Barbados the "Embryonic Stem-Cell Capital of the World." It imports aborted baby parts from Ukraine, liquefies them into a kind of "preborn purée," then injects them directly into the arms or body organs of customers. According to the IRM, these cells use a kind of "radar" to seek out diseased or damaged cells in the patient's body and repair them. The IRM claims an astonishing 96% improvement rate in curing virtually every disease ever recorded.
Rich English and American women find their way to this remote complex (at their own expense, of course), and are injected with fetal stem cells at $25,000 per session. Barnett Suskind, CEO of the IRM, says that "it's the most natural form of healing there is. You think better, sleep better, look better. Your quality of life improves and your libido certainly improves."
Kathy and I just had to visit this place to see if the "fetal fountain of youth" was for real.
Two uniformed guards stood watch at the perfectly manicured entrance to the IRM. They informed us that the facility was closed, but then allowed us to enter when we told them that we were rich Americans and prospective clients. An attendant named Jenny met us at the door and I asked her if the IRM treatment could cure my chronically dry skin; she replied without hesitation that it would.
Jenny then printed up a four-page contract for us, which emphasized that the entire $25,000 was due for deposit at the First Caribbean International Bank at least two weeks prior to the treatment. The document also said that the treatment could be repeated every six months if desired — for a further $25,000 per session. The contract went on to describe the "treatment" as involving an intravenous transfusion of fetal stem cells lasting about one hour, or injection into "targeted areas such as muscle, joints, directly into the spinal canal, or near the eye . . ."
The contract also said that "it is believed that these injected multipotential human fetal stem cells can replicate and differentiate in the body, and via a process called 'chemotaxis,' migrate to the site of injured/damaged cells or tissues, to subsequently regenerate, repair, and/or replace these damaged or destroyed cells or tissues."
Jenny also gave us a document loftily entitled "STEM CELLS: The Key to Unlocking the Mystery of Aging." Among the many medical benefits listed in the document were "a sparkle in one's eye" and "enhanced sexual function."
Our host gave us the grand tour, beginning with one of the "procedure rooms." These consisted of two hospital beds boxed in by four bare walls, with an IV drip bag and hanger next to each bed, and a box of latex gloves sitting on an upright metal toolbox. There was nothing else in the room — no resuscitation gear or any other kind of emergency equipment in case of adverse patient reactions. The IRM is located in the most remote part of mountainous Barbados, and the nearest hospital, in Bridgetown, is more than a half-hour drive away on winding country roads.
Adjoining one of the "procedure rooms" was the office of the Great Man Himself — Yuliy V. Baltaytis, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc., director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine. His desk was surrounded by a dozen framed documents, most of which were in Ukrainian, proclaiming that he had applied to membership in various medical societies; but he is a proctologist by training.
Digging Deeper
Upon arriving back at Human Life International, I was curious to see if the Institute for Regenerative Medicine is just a fluke, a unique facility unlike any other in the world. It turns out that the IRM is anything but singular. It is just a small part of a worldwide network of trafficking in human stem cells and organs — not only from embryos and fetuses, but from late-term aborted babies and even newborn babies. In fact, I found web sites and newspaper articles on more than 50 "clinics" that specialize in the alleged treatment of various diseases using fetal materials.
All of these "clinics" possess features that should warn off the naive and desperate. Every single one of them is located in tourist destinations. Not one of them is regulated by any local or national government body. Not one of them has any form of medical oversight, except from those who are closely associated with the operations themselves. And all of them have refused to become members of the only recognized board regulating ethical stem-cell research — The International Stem Cell Forum.
And, of course, their "cures" don't work.
These clinics require only six things in order to set up shop and rake in millions of dollars: A little space, a poor government hungry for cash, someone with "M.D." after their name, a web site, a source of "fetal material," and desperate patients.
Let's begin with Malibu psychiatrist William C. Rader's anti-aging Medra clinic in the Bahamas, which he cofounded with Yuliy Baltaytis. Rader's specialty is eating disorders, but he raked in more than $30 million in just three years before being kicked off the island. Rader says that he has not published anything in the medical literature because it would leave him vulnerable to attacks from a "conspiracy of scientists, government authorities, and pro-lifers."
Medra's web site (www.medra.com) claims to cure every known disease, including brain damage.
Biomark International was founded in a condominium by a former model with no medical training whatsoever. She "treated" at least 220 patients at a cost of up to $21,000 each by injecting them with fetal stem cells, regardless of the disease they were suffering. The cofounders of Biomark fled the USA after their operation was shut down by the Food and Drug Administration, and they promptly set up a Swiss bank account and began operations in London, contracting with Mexican doctors to do fetal stem-cell injections.
Kiev's Embryonic Tissues Center (EmCell) is operated by Alexander Smikodub and Alexey Karpenko, who have treated more than 2,000 patients at a total cost of more than $30 million. Both have worked with William Rader in the past. EmCell's web site (www.emcell.com) makes the usual bombastic claims about dramatic improvements in treating a stunning range of infirmities and diseases. When the ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) Therapy Development Foundation investigated EmCell, all of its employees refused to answer any of its questions on procurement, procedure, or follow-up.
Doctors from the ALS Foundation found that EmCell personnel do not understand even the most basic principles of stem-cell physiology.
There are dozens of other "institutes" offering miracle cures from the injection of fetal or embryonic stem cells and the transplantation of fetal tissue. These include EmbryoTech (www.embryotech.com); The Kharkov Clinic "Dr. Alex" (doctor-alex-ua/e/clinica.html); Stem Cell Therapy International (SCTI) (www.scticorp.com); StemCure, cofounded by disgraced cloner Panayiotis Zavos (www.stemcure.com); and Donetsk's VitaCell (www.vitacell.com.ua).
Featured Menu
In late 2006, I heard about Vadym Lazaryev and Vladymyr Ischenko, two Ukrainian medical doctors who set up a small pro-life group which finally pierced the shroud of secrecy around the ghastly activities in Eastern Europe for the first time in the mid 1990s. After numerous death threats and then an actual attempt to murder them, the two doctors flew to Shannon, Ireland, and requested asylum.
Fr. Tom Euteneuer, president of Human Life International, sent me to Ireland to interview Doctors Lazaryev and Ischenko. Dr. Ischenko was reluctant to testify because he feared retaliation against his family in Ukraine, but Dr. Lazaryev talked for hours, and spun a most fascinating tale.
While practicing medical oncology in Donetsk, Dr. Lazaryev began to wonder why doctors tell almost all pregnant women in Ukraine that there is a very high probability that their preborn children have serious birth defects. His own wife Elena was advised to have an abortion on the grounds that her preborn son would have severe birth defects — which, of course, he did not. His own mother had 13 pregnancies, 11 of which ended in abortion between his older brother and him.
It turned out that all Ukrainian women are advised to abort because preborn children are excellent sources of organs and stem cells. Dr. Lazaryev found that the abortion rate in Ukraine is much, much higher than the official figures would suggest — in fact, about 1.2 million annually in a nation with a population of about 46 million, or more than six times higher than the abortion rate in the United States.
Continuing his investigations, Dr. Lazaryev found that women were paid $200 to $300 — three months' salary — to carry their pregnancies to a very late stage and to deliver the babies alive in a kind of forced premature birth. This procedure allows the living baby's organs to be harvested while they are still as fresh as possible.
Dr. Lazaryev also found that every region of Ukraine has twin institutions. One does the late-term "artificial deliveries," and the other dismembers the live-born baby and passes the parts on to other buyers, which screen the material and then sell it at a huge markup to the worldwide network of "clinics" like the Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
Abortion clinics located in the poorest parts of Donetsk and Kharkov sell aborted babies to middlemen, who ship little bodies to cities like Moscow, where there are more than 50 beauty parlors using fetal injections. One of these is the Cellulite Clinic, where rich Russian and Western women go to have fetal injections that supposedly eliminate cellulite from their buttocks, thighs, and arms. The costs of these treatments range up to $20,000.
Dr. Lazaryev also found several Ukrainian web sites that advertised prices for the parts of late-term preborn children. One of these is Cell Transplantation, which features a menu for practically every part of early and late-term fetuses — liver, neuronal cells, thymus and thyroid, ovaries and testicles, eyes, and suspensions of liquefied fetal liver, brain, and spine.
One of the many contradictions of all of the anti-life movements is that they are all absolutely convinced that what they are doing is moral and acceptable — but they savagely attack those who make their activities public.
Pressure On The Doctor
Dr. Lazaryev discovered this principle firsthand.
First, his supervisor called him a "traitor" and fired him. Then a government investigator became a constant and unwanted part of his life, visiting him at home on a weekly basis and grilling him on his activities.
Dr. Lazaryev refused to quit, so the stem-cell empire increased the pressure. He lost his medical benefits, which almost cost him his life when he became gravely ill in 2004. One doctor told him that "your politics are your death." A government official called him and informed him that he was coming over with a gang of thugs to "break his head off."
Then the Tax Police suddenly began a long and exhaustive examination of his business, which shut it down. An SBU (Ukrainian Security Service) official visited him and told him that he had better get rid of all the evidence he had, or his life would be in danger.
Finally, while Dr. Lazaryev was driving to a meeting in Slavyansk on a dark and deserted country road with his colleague Dr. Vladymyr Ischenko, a bus rammed their car at high speed and then drove off into the night. A police investigator said that the incident had been carried out by professionals, because the bus had aimed for the car's fuel tank and had expertly run the car off the road.
In September 2004, Doctors Lazaryev and Ischenko finally concluded that their position was hopeless, and fled the country of their birth, leaving their families behind. Dr. Lazaryev was finally reunited with his wife and children in 2006. Dr. Ischenko's wife and twin infant sons are still in Ukraine (www.savethedoctors.org).
There is no doubt in Dr. Lazaryev's mind that, if he returns to Ukraine, "I will be killed because investors lost money. I will be killed as a lesson for people who one day decide to raise their voice against this evil."
Yet, after all of this, Doctors Ischenko and Lazaryev have still not been granted asylum in Ireland, despite the obvious threat to their lives. Speaking of their cases, Irish Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Kathy Sinnott said:
"Their situation is very straightforward in terms of being genuine asylum seekers," and went on to explain that they are being denied permanent asylum because Ireland wants to become a leader in the pharmaceutical field. Ireland would place no limitations on the activities of drug firms, and would like the Irish people to "get over our ethical problems and get on with the real business of making money and attracting pharmaceutical companies and frontline research."
In other words, the case of the Ukrainian doctors is embarrassing to Ireland. If the nation grants them asylum, it will implicitly be condemning the very activities it would like to attract to the shores of the Emerald Isle.
What drives the fetal and newborn tissue machinery is a huge and increasing demand for stem cells and organs. Dr. Bernard Nathanson has estimated that tons of fetal organs and stem cells will be required annually as the basic material that fuels this gigantic conspiracy against life.
The vast amount of money involved in such transactions is staggering. The international pharmaceutical corporations, laboratories, and all of the fake "rejuvenation" clinics demand a reliable and constant supply of human embryonic and fetal tissue. This fact alone ensures that unethical and inhumane practices will continue, regardless of what legal restrictions are put in place.
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(Brian Clowes, Ph.D., is director of research for Human Life International. For more information, please visit www.hli.org.)
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Please support Doctors Lazaryev and Ischenko by sending them a message at their web site: www.savethedoctors.org and by writing to the Irish Embassy in the United States pleading for their asylum case in Ireland: The Honorable Noel Treacy, Embassy of Ireland, 2234 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20008; telephone: 202-462-3939; fax: 202-232-5993.
This item 7472 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org
