Daughter Of Former Patient Calls Tulsa Cancer Clinic's Treatment A Scam

The FDA and FBI are investigating Camelot's possible use of a substance called Laetrile, which is not approved and has been shown to lead to cyanide poisoning.

Thursday, April 25th 2013, 11:35 pm



The Camelot Cancer Care center was shut down this week by the Food and Drug Administration.

Thursday, we found that its owner Maureen Long has been at the center of numerous lawsuits.

Long has gone by a number of aliases - Mary Balch, Mary Alice Valentine - and some former patients say her names are as phony as the treatments she offered.

Long opened Camelot Cancer Care in 2005. Thursday, she opened the door to her south Tulsa home, to News On Six Reporter, Dan Bewley.

4/25/2013 Related Story: Tulsa's Camelot Cancer Care Owner Has Complicated Past

"What I want to say to my patients is that there is plenty of hard evidence that we have saved many lives," Long said.

The FDA and FBI are investigating Camelot's possible use of a substance called Laetrile, which is not approved and has been shown to lead to cyanide poisoning.

"There was never any intentional wrongdoing on our part, never," Long said.

But there's a bizarre twist to Long's story. She and her now deceased husband, Lazarus Long, had plans to charter their own country in the Caribbean, called the Principality of New Utopia. They even declared their south Tulsa home the country's U.S. Embassy.

New Utopia has a website, where Maureen Long is listed as a co-founder and Princess.

"If you want a brief statement on that, it was not my doing. My husband was 81 years old and a bit of an eccentric character," Long said.

Lazarus Long's testimony is on Camelot's website, claiming he was the clinic's first successful patient, but it doesn't mention he was married to the clinic's founder.

4/24/2013 Related Story: Investigation Into Tulsa Cancer Clinic Over Use Of Medicine Banned By FDA

Some former patients say that was just another part of the fraud worked in a place that promised to heal the sick.

"It's a group of people who have no moral inhibitions about lying to, and cheating very sick and dying people out of their time and their money and any alternative treatments they could have pursued," said Sally Meyers.

Meyers' mom, Jean, went to Camelot in April 2010 for oral cancer.

Meyers said, when the standard treatment didn't work, Maureen Long wanted her mom to try a new treatment, a "Renaissance machine."

"And said, 'This is something that we've seen at our clinic in Mexico. It's a miracle machine, would you like to come up and try it?'" Meyers said.

She said it turned out the be a machine used to treat sports injuries. Her mom turned down the offer and passed away in December of the same year.

Not everyone thinks Long is a fraud.

We talked with an author, who recently founded the American Anti-Cancer Institute. He said nothing at Camelot would hurt anyone. You can hear more of his interview in the web extra video above.

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