Matthew is a professor emeritus in the College of Media at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on social and cultural history, and his most recent book is The Krebiozen Hoax: How a Mysterious Cancer Drug Shook Organized Medicine (University of Illinois Press, 2024).
- What is the primary focus or central question(s) of your history research?
My new book The Krebiozen Hoax focuses on an alleged cancer treatment of the 1950s and 1960s that was rejected by doctors and medical agencies but embraced by many cancer patients and people in good health. The treatment’s rise and fall took place against the backdrop of America’s never-ending suspicion of educational, scientific, and medical expertise. The book explores how people readily believe misinformation and struggle to maintain hope in the face of grave threats to well-being.
- How did you come across this subject? Why did it interest you?
The impetus came from my previous book, Dangerous Ideas on Campus, which focused on two academic freedom controversies at the University of Illinois while David Henry was president. Henry had become president after his predecessor George Stoddard was forced out in 1953 during an uproar over Krebiozen. I decided that the Krebiozen affair would make a good book of its own. University of Illinois vice president Andrew Ivy had dragged the school into the affair by sponsoring the drug, which had been introduced to him by a mysterious Yugoslav doctor named Stevan Durovic. Stoddard had bitterly opposed Krebiozen and ended up losing his job. Eventually the American Medical Association, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Cancer Institute, and even the president of the United States would all get involved in the controversy. I thought that this would make for an interesting story with parallels to what higher education, science, and medicine are confronting today.
- What archives or research materials did you use? Please share strategies or tips and tricks.
I drew on the University of Illinois Archives in both Urbana and Chicago; the American Medical Association Archives in Chicago; the Chicago History Museum; the Northwestern University Archives in Evanston, Illinois; the Harry Ransom Center and the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas; the National Archives in College Park, Maryland; and the American Heritage Center in Laramie, Wyoming. Those archives contained the personal papers of the protagonists in the Krebiozen saga as well as the records of the FDA. I also drew on newspapers.com to find contemporary news coverage of the controversy. (As for research strategies, see below.)
- What’s your organizational strategy when working on a project? Any advice or recommendations?
When visiting archives, I use my phone to scan or photograph any document that looks as though it might be useful. I don’t try to read everything first—it takes too long, and the idea is to maximize the time I have on site. (This is especially true when I have only a limited number of days to do research at a particular archive.) I keep a charger handy to keep the phone from running out of juice. Afterward, I transfer the photos or scans corresponding to each document to my laptop computer and collate them into a scrollable PDF file that I then can look over and digitally highlight and annotate. I organize the PDFs into online folders and create subfolders as necessary. I periodically do an inventory to keep track of what’s located where, and of course I also regularly back up everything I’ve done. I’m not sure this system is for everyone, but it works for me.
- How does your research relate to journalism history? How is it relevant to the present?
The book shows how some journalists presented stories celebrating Krebiozen without convincing evidence that the drug represented a breakthrough in cancer treatment. Other journalists presented scrupulously neutral accounts that didn’t provide much guidance as to which side of the controversy was more credible. Obviously, we still have concerns today about uncritical news coverage of what turns out to pseudoscience, as well as false balance or “bothsidesism” in news stories.
- What advice do you have for other historians working on projects related to your topic?
The advice I usually give is to try to tell a good story with compelling characters and show why it matters in the present historical moment.
- What would be your six-word pitch about your research if you met a book editor or grant funder in an elevator?
A phony cancer drug makes history.