A Marked Man
Baker also claimed that the AMA had offered him $1 million dollars for his cancer cure so they could remove it as a treatment so that they could continue to use surgical means to remove tumors. The Des Moines Register reprinted the JAMA’s story and conducted their own investigation into Baker. Their investigation revealed that many patients of the Baker Institute had died and that Baker’s claims of having a cure for cancer were completely false.
Baker took legal action against the AMA for libel and defamation. He claimed that the AMA had sent three assassins to his KTNT station to silence him. In the gunfight, Hoxsey was alleged to have shot one of the men, before all three made their getaway. A police investigation into the matter was later dropped due to lack of evidence. In May, Baker decided to hold an outdoor public demonstration of his cure to quell any doubts about its validity. An estimated crowd of forty to fifty thousand came to see Baker’s exhibition. Supposed former patients of the Baker Institute lined up one after another, telling of how Baker’s treatment had cured them.
Baker drank a large quantity of the formula to prove that it was harmless. This was followed by a surgery performed on a man named Mandus Johnson, who allegedly had a brain tumor. While Johnson was still conscious, the formula was applied, and afterward, Baker told the crowd, “Cancer is cured!” He once more launched into the AMA and his tirade continued daily on KTNT. Rumours abounded of the authenticity of Baker’s claims and cancer sufferers continued to seek treatment at the Baker Institute.
The JAMA continued their quest to expose Baker. They described the surgery performed on Mandus Johnson as a hoax, claiming that Johnson had a condition which caused inflammation of the outer part of his skull. They lobbied the Federal Radio Commission to take him off the air, and in May 1931 the FRC refused Baker’s application to renew his license. He lost his court case against the AMA. An arrest warrant was issued against him for practicing medicine without a license.
Baker left Muscatine and went to Mexico where he set up a new radio station as well as a small cancer treatment facility. After a few years in exile, Baker returned to Muscatine in 1937. He served one day for practicing medicine without a license. He ran for Governor of Iowa and later the Senate but failed miserably in both cases. Later, he moved to Arkansas and bought a Victorian hotel (modern-day Crescent Hotel, Arkansas) which was converted into yet another hospital for cancer patients. The Baker Hospital was very successful for the two years it was open. It reportedly made in the region of $500,000 a year.
However, time was running out for Baker. He was a marked man by federal authorities. Seven letters advertising his Baker Hospital sent in the mail was enough evidence to charge Baker with using the mail to defraud. In January 1940 he was found guilty. Baker later appealed the decision, but it was denied, and the court stated that Baker’s cancer cure claims were “pure hoax.” Baker continued to throw out accusations that he was the victim of a conspiracy against him.
He claimed that the jurors in his case had been bribed with whiskey and women. He served three years and four months at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. After his release, Baker tried unsuccessfully to reopen the Baker Institute in Muscatine in 1946. He moved to Florida and lived there until his death in 1958.
The question remains as to whether Baker was a charlatan and a fraud who preyed on vulnerable people or was he just simply deluded? A psychiatrist who evaluated him in prison believed that Baker was the latter. However, during Baker’s trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Leon Catlett quoted Baker as saying that he would “reap one million dollars out of the suckers in the state.” Regardless of his motive, his cancer cure claims resulted in many deaths and robbed cancer sufferers of the opportunity of receiving potentially life-saving treatment by genuine medical professionals.