An Elsevier journal has removed two papers on a discredited alternative treatment for cancer nearly half a century after they were published, after researchers found a quarter of patients in case reports of the therapy, cesium chloride, died from taking the substance.

Marcel van der Heyden, a professor at the University Medical Center Utrecht in The Netherlands, told that he and his students came across the articles while writing a review of case reports on the use of cesium. Although the therapy was supported online and in health books, he said, all pointed to two 1984 papers in Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior: “Cesium therapy in cancer patients” by Hellfried Sartori and “The high pH therapy for cancer tests on mice and humans” by Aubrey Keith Brewer.

“Neither Brewer’s nor Sartori’s results were presented with robust data, long-term follow-up or have ever been independently verified in other studies,” van der Heyden and colleagues wrote. “Nonetheless, their claims have remained influential and are frequently cited in support of cesium therapy for cancer.”

Source https://retractionwatch.com/2026/05/13/elsevier-journal-removes-two-42-year-old-papers-on-cesium-as-a-cancer-treatment/

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