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Laetrile

By Zachary Bauer
Posted on: 6/3/2005

All correspondence received by Skeptic Friends Network or its staff becomes the property of Skeptic Friends Network, and may be printed without the consent of the author.

Kil is informed that - despite the available evidence - Laetrile is THE cure for cancer.


Re: SFN Article “B17

From: Zachary Bauer
To:   David Glück (Kil)
Date: May 22, 2005

B17 or Laetrile is indeed the cure for cancer. Can you imagine the
panic if it was found out that a non-patented product such as the
apricot or peach held the cure for cancer? Jobs would be lost, cancer
centers would have to close down, the economy would take a nose dive.
How much of our medical industry is built around treating cancer... no
wonder the FDA is scared you or I might find out about this and thus
made it illegal to sell these seeds in the U.S.

Why else make an otherwise harmless fruit seed illegal? HMMMM??

Being skeptic is one thing... doing research to educate yourself is
another.

Here you go.

oasisofhope.com
Hospital just south of California where doctors are allowed to perform
legal cancer therapy. B17 and diet treatments.

apricotpower.com
Vendor of Apricot Seeds

worldwithoutcancer.org.uk
Complete information on how to battle cancer with B-17 and not
radiation treatment.

vitaminb17.de
Supplier of B-17 injectable solution. BEST EFFECTIVE TREATMENT



To:   Zachary Bauer
From: David Glück (Kil)
Date: May 25, 2005
Thanks for writing. I am always a bit flummoxed at first when I receive a letter like yours. I have to wonder whether your support for what is widely considered to be a quack remedy for a very serious illness is motivated by personal reasons. I hope not.

You said, “B17 is indeed the cure for cancer.” Not a cure, or a possible cure, but “the cure.” That is a bold statement. It is also not supported by either of the National Cancer Institute studies of laetrile done in the late seventies and early eighties. In fact, beyond that, as far as I can see (even after visiting the sites that you recommended), there is only anecdotal evidence presented mostly in the form of testimonials. I could not find research papers on trials anywhere that support the claim that laetrile works. Apparently, even in countries that allow laetrile treatment for cancer, no one has bothered to do any rigorous testing or has published any research for peer review. If I am wrong about that, please feel free to direct me to a peer-reviewed study, done anywhere, that supports your assertion. So far, in the literature that I have examined, I have seen nothing that would cause me to change mind and view claims about the effectiveness of laetrile as something more than a false promise and a somewhat effective way to get cyanide poisoning.

You also said:
Can you imaging the panic if it was found out that a non-patented product such as the apricot or peach held the cure for cancer?  Jobs would be lost, cancer centers would have to close down, the economy would take a nose dive.  How much of our medical industry is built around treating cancer… no wonder the FDA is scared you or I might find out about this and thus made it illegal to sell these seeds in the U.S.
It is illegal to sell the seeds as a treatment for disease. But think about it: employees of the FDA, physicians doing research and all of the others who would have to be part of this great conspiracy to keep a real cure from us also sometimes die of cancer. So do their family members. Are they sacrificing themselves and their families to protect the medical industry? Furthermore, there have been cures for major illnesses (polio and smallpox come to mind). Did those cures negatively impact the medical industry? Believe it or not, the industry makes more money curing people than they would by killing them. There is enough illness going around to keep them busy for some time to come. The idea that it is better to keep people sick in order to protect the industry from ruin is both cynical and ridiculous.

People love conspiracy theories, especially when they involve traditional authorities that do have some regulatory power over us. Sometimes there is reason to be suspicious of what we are being told. In fact, it often pays to be cautious when regarding the claims made by those who have some authority over us. Attacking the official truth can be very satisfying and is therefore a great selling point. It falls on us to sort out what is true and what is not. We must actually get off our duffs and look at the evidence being presented. We have the choice of falling in line behind every crackpot who says the government (or some authority) is out to get us, we can believe everything we are told by every person in a position of authority or we can evaluate the evidence, and learn to recognize baloney no matter which direction it is coming from.

With that in mind:

Tim Bolen, defender and bulldog for Hulda Clark and her (strange) The Cure for All Cancers, says in response to criticism of Clark’s ideas by Dr. Stephen Barrett of “Quackwatch” (see “The Bizarre Claims of Hulda Clark”):
The “quackbuster” operation is a conspiracy.  It is a propaganda enterprise, one part crackpot, two parts evil.  Its sole purpose is to discredit, and suppress, in an “anything goes” attack mode, what is wrongfully named “Alternative Medicine.”  It has declared war on reality.  The conspirators are acting in the interests of, and are being paid, directly and indirectly, by the “conventional” medical-industrial complex.

Quackpot Watch
Hmmm. I wonder if it was accidental that Bolen used the term “medical-industrial complex?” It sound so much like “military-industrial complex”…

There is this from an alternative medicine site, “Medical Truth Online”:
Industry. Politics. Big money. Health care. Buying and selling. You know — life. More people living off cancer than ever died from it, and that’s saying quite a lot since by the 1990s the amount spent for cancer research and treatment had jumped to $80 billion annually. But by this time more than 500,000 deaths per year in the U.S. were attributable to cancer, now second only to heart disease on the list of killer diseases. All this money has not improved the overall chances of survival from cancer even slightly.

Medical Truth Online
That last sentence is a bald-faced lie. And they go on:
The American Cancer Society, for example, collects upwards of $400 million per year. Very little of this money ever finds its way to research. The majority of the money goes into investments and towards administration — lavish salaries and perqs for the Society’s officers and employees. A funny thing is that written into the charter of the American Cancer Society is the clause that states that if a cure for cancer is ever found, on that day, the Society will disband. (The Cancer Industry) So think about it — is this an organization that is going to be motivated to find a cure for cancer?
So what they are saying, to drive home the point that the American Cancer Society is not interested in curing cancer, is that ACS has a vested interest in keeping us from a cure. It’s written in their charter. So, what is the ACS supposed to say in their charter? “On the day that a cure for cancer is found, we will pretend that didn’t happen, stay open for business and keep taking donations?” Gee whiz, the only way out is for the ACS to disband now. How else can they prove that they are honest to this group of deep thinkers?

“Medical Truth Online” links to a very long list of products and treatments for curing cancer, including Hulda Clark’s The Cure for All Cancers and the “Oasis of Hope Cancer Treatment Hospital.” Apparently, in the world of alternative medicine, there are a lot of cures for cancer.

There is so much more out there like the above that I could go on like this for a very long time. I think it’s only fair to point out that alternative medicine has become a multibillion-dollar industry. And unlike conventional evidence-based medicine, the alternative medicine industry operates almost unregulated. With a small disclaimer and/or careful wording, almost anything can be sold or purchased. Especially on the Internet. Even B17…

You also asked, “why else make an otherwise harmless fruit seed illegal?  HMMMM??” Well, here’s the deal. If you are planting fruit trees with the seeds, yes, they are harmless. But if you are using them as an oral treatment for cancer, you run the risk of poisoning yourself with cyanide. Amygdalin (laetrile) becomes cyanide after it is orally ingested, and it is the cyanide that is supposedly killing the cancer cells, selectively. Since it is doubtful that the treatment actually works, the powers that be do not think it is a great idea for people to be poisoning themselves. Go figure.

And Zac, I have done plenty of research on this subject. I would love it if those who claim that laetrile cures cancer had solid evidence to support that claim. I would love to see cancer wiped out. The problem is the proponents of laetrile have offered no credible studies, and the studies that have been done using medically and scientifically accepted protocols on animals and people, failed.

Based on that, if any member of my family had cancer, I would strongly recommend evidence-based choices for medical treatment. I would be wary of those physicians who offer testimonials and articles published in non-peer-reviewed publications as proof of whatever treatment they are offering to deliver. Where time may be precious, I would want to know that the doctor who is presenting the medical options has the largest and most rigorously tested body of medical evidence in the history of mankind to draw upon.

But maybe that’s just me.

Thanks again for writing, Zac.

See also,


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