THE BÉRES LIFE PROGRAMME - A Conversation with Klára and József Béres
THE BÉRES LIFE PROGRAMME - A Conversation with Klára and József Béres

Summary/Abstract: The Béres Story began in the early 1970’s, when Dr. József Béres Sr., a biologist in Northeast Hungary who studied the diseases of agricultural plants, developed a medicine based on trace elements, that helped strengthen the human immune system. The “Béres drops”, probably the first such medicine ever, was banned by medical authorities, and the Kádár regime began to persecute him, who treated patients with his drops without payment. He was suspended from his job and harassed by the police, and a documentary movie shot by Cannes Prize winner director Ferenc Kósa and consisting of conversations with cancer patients who had recovered was banned by the authorities. Thus in the late 1970’s Dr. Béres became an iconic figure in Hungary, representing intellectual freedom, courage and integrity. In the meantime Béres drops were successfully tested in Japan and Western Europe by physicians sympathetic to his work, and in 1987 the Hungarian authorities allowed the Kósa film to be shown to audiences and Béres drops to be sold as a non-prescription drug. In the early years of the transition the Béres family company took production into its own hands, and management was gradually taken over by József Béres Jr. and his wife Klára. In 2002 József Béres Sr. was given the Széchenyi Award, the most prestigious Hungarian scientific prize. These days Béres Drops are the most popular medicine in the country with the highest turnover in pharamacies. The conversation below explores the family mentality underlying one of the success stories of Hungary’s change of regimes.

• Details
• Contents