Bowel Bacteria Treatment Fails

NOTW first reported successful “stool implants” among family members in 2007 (to cure infections such as C. difficile by introducing the donor’s “good” microbes to overcome an imbalance of “bad” bacteria in a relative’s intestine). In 2012, however, two University of California, Davis, neurosurgeons boldly extended the cutting-edge treatment for three patients with a highly malignant brain tumor unresponsive to treatment. The doctors tried infusing bowel bacteria directly into the tumor, but the patients died, nonetheless. Though the patients had given fully informed consent, the school in August 2013 pressured J. Paul Muizelaar and Rudolph Schrot to resign for having violated internal and FDA procedures.