Cancer 3

Examples of dishonesty and corruption in the
field of drug research; a close look at the first
major study which declared Laetrile (vitamin
B17) "of no value;" proof that the study was
fraudulent; the FDA's ruling against the use of
Laetrile because it had not been tested; and the
refusal then to allow anyone (except its
opponents) to test it.
This year 550,000 Americans will die from cancer. One out of
three of us will develop cancer in our lifetime. That is eighty-eight
million people in the United States alone.
The purpose of this study is to show that this great human
tragedy can be stopped now entirely on the basis of existing
scientific knowledge.
We will explore the theory that cancer, like scurvy or pellagra,
is a deficiency disease aggravated by the lack of an essential food
compound in modern man's diet, and that its ultimate control is
to be found simply in restoring this substance to our daily intake.
What you are about to read does not carry the approval of
organized medicine. The Food and Drug Administration, the
American Cancer Society, and the American Medical Association
have labelled it fraud and quackery. In fact, the FDA and other
agencies of government have used every means at their disposal
to prevent this story from being told. They have arrested citizens
for holding public meetings to tell others of their convictions on
this subject. They have confiscated films and books. They even
have prosecuted doctors who apply these theories in an effort to
save the lives of their own patients.
The attitude of Big Brother, expressed bluntly in 1971 by
Grant Leake, Chief of the fraud section of California's food anddrug bureau, is this: "We're going to protect them even if some of
them don't want to be protected.(1)
Early in 1974, the California medical board brought formal
charges against Stewart M. Jones, M.D., for using Laetrile in the
treatment of cancer patients. It was learned later, however, that
Dr. Julius Levine, one of the members of that board, himself had
been using Laetrile in the treatment of his own cancer. When Dr.
Jones' case came up for review, the political pressures were so
great that Dr. Levine felt compelled to resign from his post rather
than come out openly in support of Dr. Jones and his patients.(2)
This is happening in a land which boasts of freedom and
whose symbol is the Statue of Liberty. For the first time in our
history, people are being forced to flee from our shores as medical
emigrants seeking freedom-of-choice and sovereignty over their
own bodies. Laetrile has been available in Australia, Brazil,
Belgium, Costa Rica, England, Germany, Greece, India, Israel,
Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, Spain,
Switzerland, Russia, Venezuela, and Vietnam—but it is not
allowed in the "land of the free."
In spite of this, however, many doctors have defied the
bureaucracy and have proved in their own clinics that the
vitamin-deficiency concept of cancer is valid.
With billions of dollars spent each year in research, with
additional billions taken in from the cancer-related sale of drugs,
and with vote-hungry politicians promising ever-increasing
government programs, we find that, today, there are more people
making a living from cancer than dying from it. If the riddle were
to be solved by a simple vitamin, this gigantic commercial and
political industry could be wiped out overnight. The result is that
the science of cancer therapy is not nearly as complicated as the
politics of cancer therapy.
If there was any good that came from the Watergate scandals
of the Seventies, it was the public awakening to the reality that
government officials sometimes do not tell the truth. And when
caught in such "mendacities," they invariably claim that they lied
only to protect national security, public health, or some other
equally noble objective.
This Watergate syndrome is not new. Several years ago, an
FDA agent who had testified in court against a Kansas City
1. "Debate Over Laetrile," Time, April 12,1971, p. 20.
2. "Laetrile Tiff, State Medic Out," San Jose Mercury (Calif.), April 10,1974.