Nicholas Gonzalez (physician)

Nicholas Gonzalez (physician)

Nicholas James Gonzalez, M.D., is a New York-based physician. Gonzalez has received significant attention for his controversial therapies that target cancer. His practice is currently based in New York City. He developed the Gonzalez protocol, based on the belief that pancreatic enzymes are the body's main defense against cancer and can be used as a cancer treatment. Gonzalez's treatment methods have been rejected by the medical community, and Gonzalez has been characterized as a quack and fraud by other doctors and health fraud watchdog groups. In 1994 he was reprimanded and placed on two years' probation by the New York state medical board for "departing from accepted practice," although he never explicitly rejected more orthodox treatments and practices. In 1999 Gonzalez published an article describing prolonged life in a small group of patients with pancreatic cancer in the peer-reviewed journal Nutrition and Cancer; subsequently others concluded that the longer survival time reported by Gonzalez was due to selection bias and other confounds.

A test of his protocol, published in 2009, found that Gonzalez's patients died faster than those treated with conventional chemotherapy, and had significantly worse quality of life.