Establishing Contacts Outside India
Even though the PBHRF was set up in 1993, the process aimed at helping homeopathy acquire a scientific basis had begun as early as in 1976. Dr. Prasanta Banerji, the Managing Trustee, who had always been conscious of the need to project the academic and scientific aspects of homeopathy, submitted articles and presented papers at the meetings of the Liga Medicorum Homeopathica Internationalis, Geneva, held at Athens in 1977 and 1988, Hamburg in 1979,
Acapulco in 1980, Rio de Janeiro in 1986, Cologne in 1991 and Cordoba in 1992. At these meetings, along with his son Dy. Managing Trustee Dr. Pratip Banerji from 1991 onwards, Dr. Banerji endeavoured to show how diseases and ailments could be effectively cured by following their system of treatment, and by so doing, bring about changes in the thinking of the very conservative homeopaths of that time this process has gradually led to Drs. Banerji’s work receiving worldwide attention.
In 1995, Drs. Banerji presented a paper ‘Regression of Brain Tumors by Medicine’ at the 5th International Conference of Anticancer Research at Corfu, Greece, to which they were invited, attended by 1200 delegates from all over the world, showing the regression of 16 cases of brain tumor by the use of the medicines Ruta Graveolens and Calcarea Phosphorica. The researchers among the delegates were very impressed by the presentation, and offers for scientific collaboration were received from the USA, UK, Australia and the West Indies.
The offer from the USA (from the Head of Cellular Biology and Genetics of The University of Taxes MD Anderson Cancer Center, the foremost and most respected center for cancer research in the world) was accepted, and research on the two medicines begun, with Drs. Banerji’s firm beliefs that homeopathy needed to evolve as a science and gain acceptance in the world of conventional medicine.
In 1996, PBHRF was approached by the Director of the Office of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (OCCAM) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) of the US Government to submit their best cases for the treatment of cancer for stringent evaluation by independent reviewers of the conventional system of medicine to their Best Cases Program (BCS) initiated in 1992. PBHRF submitted their best cases in 1997; these were accepted after every kind of scrutiny possible in 1999, and the PBHRF was the only group ever to receive an invitation to present their best cases before the Cancer Advisory Panel on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAPCAM) – the highest body in the USA at that time for the evaluation of cases of complementary and alternative medicine. PBHRF’s presentation received acclaim from CAPCAM’s 17-member panel composed of icons of the field of conventional medicine, and was subsequently published as a peer reviewed scientific paper ‘Cancer patients treated with the Banerji Protocols utilizing homeopathic medicines: a Best Case Series Program of the National Cancer Institute, USA’ in the journal Oncology Reports.
PBHRF has over the years received documented offers for scientific collaboration from internationally well-known institutes of the USA like
1. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the US Government’s National Institutes of Health (NIH).
2. The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
3. The Columbia University.
4. The University of Southern California.
5. The University of San Diego.
6. The City of Hope Hospital in Los Angeles.
7. The University of Kansas Medical Center.
8. The V. A. Medical Center in Kansas City.
9. The St. Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City.
Several collaborative research projects have been completed; some more are now in progress.
Apart from these well-known institutes in the USA, the PBHRF has also received offers from medical research institutions in Spain, Japan, Israel and various South American and African countries.
