«Moscow news», No. 17, April 29-May 5, 1994
An unknown Russian scientist has solved a world riddle
but is not in a position to give vent to his ideas
SOLUTION IS NEAR?
In 1975 Victor Solopov, a military
engineer-chemist, was discharged from the USSR Armed Forces. A year
later he became a student of the 2nd Moscow Medical Institute. Upon
graduation he took clinical studies and then the postgraduate course at
the chair of internal medicine. When there, the future scientist met
Alexander Chuchalin, full member of the Academy of Medical Sciences, who
was a recognized authority in pulmonology and an invariable consultant
of the 4th Main (Kremlin) Administration. The academician noticed the
beginning scientist and spoke highly of his methods for investigating asthma. In the late 1980s Viktor Solopov defended a thesis for the degree of Candidate of Science.
True, already at that time his colleagues at the chair took a sceptical view at his claims that the mystery of asthma
would soon be solved. If the world's finest brains did not come any
nearer to the solution in 200 years, what can a young complacent
Candidate of Science do? Incidentally, he was tolerated, first, due to
the favor of the influential chief, and second, because he was feared -
civilian physicians knew practically nothing about the sphere where
Solopov had come from: what if military science had already made some of
its own secret discoveries?
Who knows what turn our hero's destiny would take were it not for perestroika. With the beginning of the cooperative movement Dr. Solopov
started his business at a polyclinic on an outskirt of Moscow. The very
first experiments in treating seriously ill patients convinced him that
he was on the right track.
WHY PEOPLE FALL WITH ASTHMA?
For many centuries we have breathed
without any problems. Then industry appeared. Tons of carbon and metal
oxides, coal dust and petrol exhausts got into the air... Already the
first studies of asthma showed: some of these substances may cause a strong spasm of the bronchi. If allergy has not been coped with in time, asphyxia will acquire a chronic form. There will be a need for urgent medical intervention.
How to cure asthma? For this, at the minimum, there is a need to know
what you are treating. On this question the Soviet and West European
medical schools diverged in their opinions. In the USSR it was believed
that there existed a large variety of asthmas: gastric, essentially
psychic, aspirin caused, infectious, allergic. Western medicine
identified two causes of the disease - external (occupational harms,
allergens) and internal.
And all of a sudden Dr. Solopov
managed to establish: although the causes are different, the disease
unfolds in accordance with strict laws. And this means that, knowing the
disease's «program»; it is possible to accurately model its development
and manipulate it. Some abstracts and articles of unknown scientist
were published in foreign scientific magazines. Shortly after Victor
Solopov came to Dr. Harald Limpan, First Secretary of the Embassy of
Great Britain in Moscow, for a reception. Having knew about his ideas,
the Briton offered his help. Soon British firms learned about Solopov's
work.
SUCCESS
In 1992 Solopov brought together
representatives from official medicine and journalists in Moscow and
made a sensational statement: a unique computer program had been
developed, making it possible to predict the development of asthma,
predict the efficiency of treatment at each stage and - what was the most surprising - «automatically» direct the treatment.
A means was found to restore breathing at the most advanced stages. And
soon the scientist solved the riddle of the sudden death of asthmatics.
It turned out that harm was done by pharmacologists themselves:
improving adrenalin, they lost many of its useful properties. As
everyone knows, refined (i.e., cleansed) fats and carbohydrates have led
the population of Europe and America to obesity, atherosclerosis and
the diseases of the cardiovascular system. Today everyone in the world
(save Russia) has given up the use of such products.
But the synthetic, «refined» derivatives of adrenalin can also enter
into a deadly conflict with the organism's own adrenalin. That is why
asthmatics died more often at the moment of great stress. And the more
they sprinkled with aerosol spray, the stronger the deadly reaction
developed in the organism.
Having put a full stop in his new book, Solopov was horrified. All over
the world millions of asthmatics were using ever new modifications of
sprays, they had already appeared in Russian drugstores. And in these
sprays there was death.
But the way to salvation has also been charted. A computer network
connecting hundreds of medical centers in Russia (and maybe in the whole
world) would make it possible to ascertain by the initial parameters of
the disease who and at what moment should by no means use the spray, at
what moment the disease can be arrested and then reversed.
MAN-INSTITUTE
Solopov believes that two years are left
till the end of research studies. The fourth and last book dedicated to
the new theory and the new approach towards treating asthma will be
prepared during this time. It will also include the latest research
studies. As it has turned out, the main causes of the disease appear
already at the age of three or four.
By the irony of fate it is in Russia that giant headway may be reached
in treating asthma. Ultrasonic inhalers, the use of which is directed by
a computer programme, are incredibly cheap in this country - in Germany
such instruments cost from 2,000 to 4,000 marks, whereas in our country
the price is 200,000 rubles.
While the book has not yet been written. Dr. Solopov is busy at work and
strives not to think about the future. He says that there is no future
for him in this country. And this is true. As before nobody in Russia
except patients knows anything about his research studies. Patients,
however, hurry to him from all over the world - for instance, our former
fellow-citizens come to him from Germany. In the summer of last year
Victor Solopov was again invited to Britain and he discussed his
discoveries. Having visited the leading British clinics, he found with
surprise that even there financial attitude towards asthmatics was not
better than ours. Not a single Western insurance company will now pay
for treatment which lasts on the average for nine-twelve months. The
result was a sad conclusion: in our days the natural reproduction of a
healthy population is much more profitable for the state with any social
system than the costly and long treatment of chronic cases.
Incidentally, there is a hope that something will soon change - even if a
new age is setting in and humankind is bound to enter into it with new
ideas.
It has been estimated: if the large-scale application of the new
technology for treating asthma were commenced today, it will take at
least ten years. NEARLY 20 MILLION SICK PEOPLE WILL DIE DURING THIS TIME
IN THE WORLD. But, alas, today nobody is going to translate the
«Solopov method» into lives.
Vyacheslav NEDOGONOV
