Digest №15: On the Potential of Chlorine Dioxide in Cancer Care

Bless!

I've spent the last two-ish months looking at the use of chlorine dioxide solution in the treatment of cancer. I was first made aware of this by a Argentinian friend of my mother's and was at first very sceptical of it. What I've since found in terms of anecdotal reports, peer-reviewed case studies, and mechanistic investigations has made it a very worthy topic for a digest, indeed.

Let's start out by looking at what chlorine dioxide is, before moving on to look at reports of its success and some nuancing considerations.

Chlorine dioxide (henceforth 'ClO₂') is a chemical agent used as a disinfectant, which consists of two oxygen atoms bound to a single chlorine.¹ As such it's found wide-spread use in water treatment, preservation of fruits and vegetables, and purification of indoor environments.

In its action as a bactericidal disinfectant, ClO₂ doesn't seem to cause the same damage to cell morphology as other disinfectants. Instead, it permeabilises the cell membrane, inhibits the synthesis of proteins, and destroys genetic material, when in excessive concentrations.

In its action as a virucidal disinfectant, ClO₂ disrupts the shell of viruses and degrades exposed viral RNA. It may thus be unsurprising, that ClO₂ has shown efficacy against COVID-19.²

So, ClO₂ is a fantastic disinfectant, used in a wide variety of applications, but what has that got to do with cancer?

There have been multiple case studies published on the use of ClO₂ as an anti-cancer drug.^3–4 These are incredibly promising in their own right, but it's really difficult to apply a pharmaceutical intelligently without knowing its mechanism of action and nigh impossible without knowing its safety.

Luckily, due to the wide-spread use of ClO₂ in water treatment and disinfection, we know this particular pharmaceutical candidate quite well.⁵ As with every pharmaceutical, the use of ClO₂ carries risk, but given the long-standing use of this pharmaceutical candidate for self-medication in low-income countries (it is extremely cheap to produce and purchase), we have quite a lot of data on its use. You should, nonetheless, be under medical supervision and monitoring, when using this yourself, especially for methaemoglobinaemia, thyroid issues, and blood glutathione depletion.

I personally think, that when faced with the nigh certain death terminal cancer provides to our medical establishment, we should indeed consider the use of unorthodox treatments, especially when they show promise and we know how to use them safely, as we have done so in water treatment and other uses for decades.

Whilst there's always risk, there also seems to be evidence for the selectivity toxicity of ClO₂ toward cancer cells, as one study in cell culture has indicated.⁶ In this study, the authors showed, that ClO₂ was selectively toxic to DMS114 small-cell lung cancer cells over human umbilical vein endothelial cells. It remains open, whether this differential toxicity holds true in vivo, and whether this differential toxicity is similar for other cancers and other healthy tissues. 

Fascinatingly, despite this research being simple exploratory work, whose methodology was fine for what the authors wanted to investigate, it has been retracted for having 'fundamental errors and methodological flaws which undermine the credibility of the study’s results and conclusions'. The authors quite understandably disagree with this editorial assessment.

I cannot see this as being anything other than a silencing of interesting cursory research, as neither the 'fundamental errors', nor the 'methodological flaws' are listed (which would be proper scientific conduct), and as I cannot find such flaws, when considering the cursory nature of the work. From all available evidence, the editors are in breach of scientific conduct, whilst the authors are not.

You will find this kind of almost organised suppression of information about ClO₂ and its putative therapeutic applications to be quite abounding, if you ever decide to look at ClO₂. I get that it's been used by charlatans, who overpromise results not backed by prior observations, but ClO₂  is nonetheless simply a promising pharmaceutical candidate, seemingly exhibiting:

• selective toxicity to cancer cells,
• good tolerability in patients, and
• anti-cancer effect.

Obviously, more research is needed, though the publication of such research is seriously hamstrung by editors and other personnel in breach of scientific conduct. Sadly, I cannot find a more positive note to end this digest on.

So, I wish you swift healing and lasting health.

God bless,
Merlin L. Marquard