Charlotte Gerson is currently 93 years of age, and has mostly retired from the The Gerson Institute, based in San Diego as well as The Gerson Therapy Clinic in Playas de Tijuana, Mexico. Now, the daily activities of the clinic are handled by the physician-owners of the clinic, who by now have over 30 years’ experience treating and handling Gerson Therapy patients. The Gerson Institute is headed by Ms. Anita Wilson, Executive Director, and a capable and responsible Board of Directors of their own.
Hard Life
Born in Bielefeld, Germany, Charlotte Gerson and her family fled the Nazi Holocaust to Austria, where at age 12, she was diagnosed with bone tuberculosis, a normally fatal disease. Her father, Dr. Max Gerson, started her on The Gerson Therapy which he had developed in Germany, and which had a shining success record against tuberculosis of all kinds. The Gerson Therapy is an all-natural therapy that boosts the body’s immune system to fight off any harmful disease or injury. When Austria fell into the Nazi orbit, the family relocated to France, then, later, to London. From there, they moved to New York City, where Charlotte helped her father run his clinic for very seriously ill patients. She attended Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts for two years before leaving college to marry Irwin Straus.
When Dr. Gerson died in 1959, there was nobody to champion the Therapy or sell the books that Gerson had published, so Charlotte took up her father’s banner by default, lecturing, selling books, and eventually setting up and training staff for Gerson Therapy clinics in the US and Mexico. These clinics have helped thousands of patients with cancer and other “incurable” diseases to recover their good health and return to long and productive lives with their families.
Boosting Immune Power
Though there are many cases of The Gerson Therapy helping people energize their bodies’ immune and healing systems by flooding the body with organic nutrition and juicing, detoxification and supplementation, Charlotte made enemies in the powerful pharmaceutical industry. The “cancer industry” was building an immense and highly profitable business treating, but not curing or preventing, the disease, so they were not delighted to see these potential billions of dollars of profit eliminated by people changing their diets! She never changed her goal of demonstrating that her father’s therapy was valid and that she herself was living proof, having survived a fatal disease with The Gerson Therapy. In 1978, she co-founded the Gerson Institute with Normal Fritz, President of The Cancer Control Society, an organization set up to open alternative cancer therapies to the world, give people choices other than allopathic medicine in their cancer treatment, and exchange ideas among alternative practitioners.
Next Generation
Charlotte Gerson used her father’s basic ideas, and cautiously added adjunctive therapies to his treatment protocol, such as ozone therapy, hyperthermia, Laetrile and others to enable the body’s immune system to fight off cancer without using surgery, expensive, ineffective and often harmful chemotherapy and radiation therapies. She has written many books about her experiences, some of which have become bestsellers around the world. She has also appeared in or been the subject of numerous documentaries where she has explained her father’s principles, his vision, her contribution, and constant fight to keep his dream alive, through her hard work and the efforts of her children, who are dedicated to keeping The Gerson Therapy flame burning far into the future.
When Charlotte Gerson was 12 years old, she was healed of tuberculosis by her father, Dr. Max Gerson and it is important to note that at the time, tuberculosis was considered a death sentence, Now 89, she has the longest survival record of anyone who has been treated by the Gerson therapy. She is also the world’s leading authority on its theory, background, and practice. The youngest of Max Gerson’s three daughters, she began in her teens serving as her father’s assistant, studying with him and working in his practice.