Being a disease that is so destructive, so persistent and so random, Cancer, perhaps among the most dreaded diseases in recent history, has attracted the attention of not only the scientific community, but the public in searching for a cure. Some show their support by donation, others by organized activity. There are always some however, who, through either good or bad intentions, claim to have discovered a ‘cure,’ which only later turns out to be not so.

Nearly a century ago, when radio waves were still a somewhat new discovery, a man by the name of Albert Abrams fashioned what he called a “Dynomizer,” which was essentially a box of wires Abrams claimed could cure disease through a process he dubbed “Electronic Reactions of Abrams.” Medical practitioners became not only suspicious, but alarmed as Abrams claimed his Dynomizer could cure virtually every disease known to man, including Cancer. The patient wouldn’t even have to be in the same room: He/she could receive the cure via telephone call (And how convenient!).

It probably doesn’t need to be said, but it turns out Abrams was full of it. Not only did the Dynomizer do nothing, Abrams apparently knew it did nothing. His legacy? Being considered “The Biggest Quack of the 20th Century.”

But can’t an ordinary Joe discover something useful to the world of medicine? And can’t radio waves have any potential medical application?

Enter John Kanzius and his radio frequency transmitter.

The last time we followed Kanzius, he discovered a fairly efficient way of separating hydrogen from oxygen in a saline solution. Only, as is typically the case, this discovery was marred by gross misunderstanding by the media, which touted the false claim that water could therefore be used as a fuel, and could then solve the world’s energy crisis.

Well, today, I profess, I’m experiencing a bit of déja vu.

Kanzius’ latest exploit involves using his RF transmitter to, according to the press, “cures cancer?” That is, according to the title of the article, since the media has long-known that it can state things outright, however fallacious, so long as it’s worded as an interrogative. Anyway, according to the article, Kanzius has experimented with a possible “cure” for cancer by use of his faithful RF transmitting device. By subjecting a tumor injected with a stew of metallic “nanoparticles” to intense radio waves (which themselves are relatively harmless to human beings), tumors can be, in a matter of speaking, microwaved into oblivion. The result is a non-surgical, non-invasive method of destroying tumors with simple radio waves.

That, I’ll admit, is a very promising discovery if found to be both credible and feasible through additional research. I, personally, would be concerned with how effective this procedure would be at eliminating the margins of a tumor (as any remaining cell could later simply metastasize and form a new tumor). Further research into exactly this, I feel, could make or break the method as an actual medical procedure.

Therefore, there is some promise in Kanzius’ latest discovery. But we couldn’t leave it just there, could we? It’s that gosh-darned title. It’s the media-fabricated claim that this, if at all a possibility, is a cure for Cancer.

No media, bad! Bad media! As much as I’d love to agree, this is currently not, by any stretch of the imagination, a cure for Cancer. What it is is a potentially useful treatment for Cancer:

So far, the Kanzius method has only been applied to solid, localized tumors in animals. The ultimate goal is to treat cancer that has metastasized or spread to other parts of the body. Those undetectable rogue cells are what most often kill people with cancer and the trick is finding them.

“If we can’t target the microscopic cells this is not going to be a cure,” Curley said.

That’s why Curley is trying to use special molecules that are programmed to target cancer cells and attach nanoparticles to them.

He showed Stahl an animation of how he hopes the targeting will work in people one day, with a simple injection of gold nanoparticles into the bloodstream.

“What we’re seeing here is an example of a gold nanoparticle in this case with an antibody on it, so the antibody would be the targeting molecule,” Curley explained. “You can see it is tiny compared to a normal red blood cell just imagine all of these billions of these gold nanoparticles circulating through the body and then once they get into the blood vessels going to the tumor, these nanoparticles would go through and bind on the surface of the cell.”

Therein lies the problem. As it stands, there is no way to bind these nanoparticles, or anything we wish, for that matter, only to Cancer cells. This is indeed the essential problem faced when looking for a cure. In the case of malignancy, no one has found a way to specifically isolate malignant Cancer cells in the body. The best treatments we have so far, radiology and chemotherapy, damage both healthy and Cancer cells, and the newest potential treatments, immunotherapy and gene therapy, still have considerably far to go. Confronting this problem has been the goal of oncologists for years, and while we may hopefully find the answer in the years to come, we haven’t yet reached that point.

And so, as was the case with his supposed cure for our dependence on fossil fuels, I can’t determine with much certainty whether Kanzius is an honest man whose discoveries are overstated by the media, or if he himself has had a role to play in the exaggerated claims that follow. I furthermore have trouble deciding, given the evidence so far, whether I can call Kanzius a madman, a genius, or both.

Until the day he installs ten-foot tall Tesla coils in his garage, I suppose, I’ll never be certain.