The Quack and the Hacks—Milan Brych and Modern Quackery’s Reliance on Facilitative Networks

In 1977, self-proclaimed cancer doctor Milan Brych set up a clinic in the Cook Islands offering to cure 80 percent of terminal patients. Patients from Australia and New Zealand flew to Rarotonga to have the $12,000 treatment. Most died within months and were buried in the Rarotonga cemetery, locally known as the “Brych Yard”: Brych had not discovered a cure for cancer but was a quack and con man. This article looks at this notable case of cancer quackery and examines the associations that facilitated Brych’s activities. It argues that, given the late twentieth-century context of an established, influential medical profession well-policed by government regulation, the web of interests that facilitated Brych’s activities was critical in enabling him to achieve the scope and influence that he did. Both modern quackery and its brethren misinformation can be considered as an activity of an interlinked network of diverse, but complementary, interests.