Criminal Story of a Prevention - Ukrainian Anti Cancer Institute

‘When a Soviet citizen has something very important to say to the head of the KGB he
ought to be allowed to say it,’ answered Nowicky.
He was accompanied to the door. He left his name and the address of the hotel.
Next day he appeared again.
The boss was not there.
Nowicky would wait.
‘What’s it about?’
‘I will tell him personally.’
Next day he was there again.
The boss is away on business.
Nowicky would wait.
This scene was repeated for twenty-seven days. On the twenty-eighth day a letter was
waiting for him at his hotel. He should make himself ready to be picked up at ten o'clock. On
the dot of ten a big black KGB car arrived in front of the door and took him to the Lubyanka.
And then he was standing in front of Andropov to say something ‘very important’ to
him - that his subordinates were not obeying the law, that they had suspended Nowicky
without good reason. His father had even been threatened, without any justification, by
Andropov's own people.
Suddenly Andropov stood up, his face red, and banged on the table with his fist.
Nowicky was also overcome with anger and banged on the table. He protested against being
punished without reason. ‘I'm a human being, just like you are!’
The head of the KGB calmed down. Glancing at his watch, Nowicky got up to go.
‘Stay here,’ Andropov barked at him.
‘I asked you for three minutes and the three minutes are up. I had to wait twenty-eight
days for these three minutes.’ Nowicky turned to the door and went out. Andropov called him
back but he continued on his way. In the outer office Andropov's staff were talking excitedly
but Nowicky remained unflustered and left the building in which he had stood up to the most
powerful man in the Soviet Union.
Back in Lvov, he was told that after four years he had been rehabilitated and even that
some people who had reported him, including fellow teachers, had been punished.
However, what sounds like a success story, nevertheless cost several years and very
much in energy and effort. Even today, when Nowicky talks about these times, there are
almost tears in his eyes, so strong are the memories.
The minor government officials in Lvov had not reckoned with his tenacity. They
were later also to discover that they should not underestimate his perseverance.
Nowicky did of course use these apparently lost years for other purposes. With a
group of scientists from the medical faculty in Lvov, he began working on the development of
a treatment for cancer. This was triggered by his brother being diagnosed with testicular
cancer. Nowicky recalled that in his country, herb women had always used greater celandine
against cancer and had reported cases in which skin cancer had been cured through the long
and repeated application of the milk of Chelidonium majus L. (greater celandine), whose
popular name in his language was ‘wart herb’.
Nowicky discovered that a young assistant doctor in Ivano-Frankivsk (previously
called Stanislav) was working with greater celandine and had achieved some interesting
results with some patients and also with animals. The doctor, Anatoli Ivanovich Potopalsky
was producing an injection solution from greater celandine and Thiotepa, which he called
‘Amitosin’.
At first, the doctor denied having such a drug but Nowicky was not willing to leave
empty-handed.
‘I know that you have a drug. If you don't give it to me, I'll break into the institute,’ he
threatened. ‘I only need the extract.’
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