The story of baking soda as a miracle treatment for cancer has been dragging on the local online media for years, along with the advice and recipes of a doctor that “patented” it. But none of these articles stated the facts about the Italian doctor who lost his medical license because of this practice and had been sentenced to 5.5 years in prison for medical negligence and murder of a patient.
There are multiple versions of the story that the cancer is actually a fungus and that it can be cured with baking soda that “alkalizes the acidity of the tumour”, for which there is no official confirmation, nor any scientific study to prove it. One of the main proponents of this “therapy”, which, for some reason, has attracted the attention of local online media is Tullio Simoncini, a former doctor from Italy.
Simoncini was prosecuted several times because of this practice, and each time he has been connected to the death of the patients he “treated” by injecting the mixture of water and baking soda into the tumour, which caused him to lose his license to practice medicine in Italy.
These are the facts that cannot be found in the dozens of the published articles on online media across the region, which state that baking soda has been proven to cure malignancies, often followed with the claim that this “secret” is hidden by drug manufacturers, that is the “pharmaceutical mafia”. These are some of the headlines featured in the articles:
Doctor Simoncini claims: Cancer is a fungal infection and can be treated with ordinary baking soda, using this method!
The biggest pharmaceutical lie of all times: Hidden, powerful, but cheap – RECIPES FOR TREATMENT
Baking soda is not baking powder, it does not contain aluminium, it cures cancer and many other diseases!
Dr. Simoncini: “Cure cancer with baking soda”! We give you the recipe and a revolutionary discovery about cancer that has been hidden!
Fight cancer with regular baking soda
Cancer treatment: Some claim – that this combination is 10.000 stronger than chemotherapy!
RECIPES AND THERAPY FOR USING BAKING SODA TO CURE CANCER
Lemon and baking soda – a marvellous combination in cancer treatment
PAY ATTENTION Baking soda can save your life if you use it in this way!
MY MOTHER HAS BEEN DIAGNOSED WITH CANCER, BUT I DIDN’T WANT TO GIVE UP: This is the recipe that helped me SAVE HER LIFE!
Baking soda can save your life: Just use it in this way!
He claims that he cured stage 4 CANCER with BAKING SODA: This is his 2-ingredient recipe!!
Tullio Simoncini was first prosecuted in Italy in 2004, after the death of three people he “treated”. All three cases suffered from malignancies in the final stage, which could no longer be cured. Simoncini, who was then working as a clinical oncologist, assured patients that he can cure them by injecting baking soda. In the first case, the patient paid €400 for the “therapy”. One day later, the patient died. In the other two cases, the “therapy” lasted a little longer, and Simoncini and his brother, who was his assistant, charged two patients a total of €15.000. Both patients died for the duration of the “treatment”.
BOX: Simoncini about the verification of his “method”
According to Simoncini’s official website, he never conducted any research, study, or clinical testing of the therapy before he began the treatment on patients, and despite this, he “sold” it to his patients as a miraculous medical discovery.
In the “Frequently Asked Questions” section, Simoncini literally states that his treatment has not been recognized by the official medicine, because it “prefers to work with scientifically validated therapies and medicines”; that his work has never been published in expert journals because “a series of clinical trials have yet to confirm that his therapy is effective” and that these results must be proven “on hundreds of cases, which is only possible if somebody works at a clinic.”
Simoncini, however, does not state that he has actually worked at a clinic until he lost his medical license because of the usage of untested and unconfirmed “therapy”.
Details of the trial can be found in the report of “Corriere Della Serra,” published in May 2006, which explains the outcome of the judicial proceeding against Simoncini. The report states the following:
Three deaths that led to the indictment against oncologist Tullio Simoncini for the murder and aggravated fraud, occurred in 2002. The first death occurred on February 8. It was the death of Massimo Civette (34), who suffered from bowel tumour. On March 1, Marica Grazia Canegrati died of adenocarcinoma, and on November 15 Grazia Cicciari di Milazzo died from lung cancer, with both deaths occurring in Milan. After it was found that Simoncini “treated” his patients by injecting water and baking soda, he lost his medical license.
In the first case, 34-year-old Massimo Civetta was diagnosed with a late-stage tumour, and the prognosis stated that he could not be cured. According to the testimony of the family, Civetta then turned to Simoncini, who, at a cost of €400 euros, treated Civetta’s cancer by injecting a mixture of water and baking soda into the tumour. One day after he received the injection, Civetta died of bowel perforation, in severe pain. Simoncini’s lawyer Cesare Piraino said that the court was not able to determine the exact cause of death, given that the patient had already been bleeding for two days earlier, and that there was a possibility that the perforation had occurred because of the tumour itself, rather than the needle insertion during Simoncini’s “treatment”.
Canegrati and Milazzo died out of cancer, so the murder charges have been dropped in all three cases. However, Simoncini and his brother were convicted for fraud because they received €7.500 from both patients for a “useless cocktail of water and baking soda which they received at the clinic “Madonna della Fiducia”, in which Simoncini treated patients with incurable malignancies.
Simoncini on his legal “persecution”
On his website, called Natural cure for cancer, Simoncini refers to the fact that his license to practice medicine was revoked in just one sentence, stating that it happened because of the “healing” treatment with baking soda.
Simoncini does not mention any of the trials for the deaths of patients, nor the verdict that was taken. Instead, he states that his lawyers have initiated a process for his “judicial rehabilitation at the International Court of Justice in Strasbourg”.
But it is unclear which court does this statement refer to since the International Court of Justice is located in Hague, while the European Court of Human Rights is in Strasbourg.
For this reason, we tried to contact Simonici, via phone and e-mail, but it was unsuccessful. Though we have sent him an e-mail a couple of times, we did not receive a reply, while the number available on his website directed us to an automated reply saying that the user is unavailable.
When he lost his license in Italy, Simoncini continued his “practice” in other “alternative clinics” in other European countries, completely illegally. His “therapy” was also linked to other patient deaths in other countries.
In the Netherlands, 58-year-old Sylvia Trachsler, who suffered from breast cancer, and was given Simoncini’s “therapy” on the private clinic Bilthoven, died in 2007. After Sylvia’s death, the Dutch health inspection banned this clinic from treating its patients with baking soda, after it was found that it has no effect in the cancer treatment. Several doctors then spoke about Simoncini’s “therapy”, with the constatation that it is risky for patients because it can cause “…cramps, cardiac arrhythmias, and heart failure. In patients with heart diseases, it could also lead to suffocation and high blood pressure.”
According to a 2008 report by the Dutch Volkskrant, the inspection stated that it could not initiate disciplinary proceeding against Simoncini, because he has never been registered to practice medical practice in the Netherlands.
The Psiram page had also documented several other patient deaths linked with Simoncini’s “therapy”.
“With these therapies, you have nothing to lose!” online media claims
Simoncini is not the only one who “treated” cancer patients with baking soda, nor his patients have been the only victims of this “therapy”.
A boy who was diagnosed with lymph node cancer died in Croatia in September 2015. His parents refused to leave him at the hospital after he was diagnosed, and “treated” him on their own accord with baking soda and lemon – one of the most common “cancer treatments recipes” recommended in similar articles.
NOTE May 27, 2019: Parents were sentenced to prison after this analysis was published.
In 2012, Naima Houder-Mohammed passed away in the UK, after being treated with the same “therapy” for a couple of months. Houder-Mohammed and her family paid $77.000 for the baking soda “treatment”.
The last court case against Simoncini ended ten days ago. Simoncini was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for illegal medical practice and patient murders.
The latest in a series of deaths occurred in Albania, at a clinic where Simoncini “treated” a patient suffering from a brain tumour. Luca Olivotto, who was 27 years old, had also received a large amount of baking soda through injections. He died in October 2012 in Tirana, from a heart attack caused by a serious metabolic alkalosis – that is, from the same harmful effects that were reported four years earlier by the Dutch oncologists.
Convinced of murder in reality, but still a “healer” on the Internet
In the last few years, Simoncini has also been featured on Facebook where he continued to promote his “revolutionary therapy”. He has also given several Skype interviews, mainly for various obscure promoters of the “alternative cancer treatments”.
His book, “Cancer is a fungus”, is currently being sold on Amazon for a price varying from $69 to $370.
There is a large number of articles written in our language, in which this dangerous deception has been presented as a confirmed cure for cancer – to the extent that we were not able to determine when and where this claim was first published and which medium was its original source. Therefore, we rate all articles that have presented these unverified claims as facts, and even offered the recipe for “treating” malignant diseases with baking soda, as fake news and pseudoscience.
NOTE March 13, 2019:
One year after the initial publication of the analysis, we repeated our search for article uploads and found that dozens of online media continued to upload articles with these dangerous claims. Some of them even pointed out in their headlines that “Simoncini did not kill anyone”.
NOTE May 2, 2019:
Further searches have revealed that since the last update of this analysis, more than 10 web portals have shared the same news in several countries – BiH, Serbia, Macedonia, and Russia. All articles have been added to this analysis and have also received a rate of fake news and pseudoscience.
