World Without Cancer

In addition to the California Report, there have been numerous
other Laetrile studies by supposedly qualified and reputable
organizations. These include a 1953 project at Stanford University,
a 1961 study at the University of California-Berkeley, one in
1962 at the Diablo Labs in Berkeley, and a 1965 study on behalf of
the Canadian Medical Association at McGill University in Montreal.
Every one of these has been tarnished by the same kind of
scientific ineptitude, bias, and outright deception as found in the
1953 California Report. Some of these studies openly admitted
evidence of anti-cancer effect but hastened to attribute this effect
to other causes. Some were toxicity studies only, which means
they weren't trying to see if Laetrile was effective, but merely to
determine how much of it was required to kill the patient.
In most of these experiments, the only criterion used to
measure the success of Laetrile was reduction in tumor size. That
may sound reasonable at first, but one must realize that most
tumors are a mixture of malignant and benign cells and that the
transplanted tumors used on laboratory mice contain only about
ree or four percent outright cancer tissue. The more malignant
tissues are rejected by the healthy mouse and cannot be successfully
transplanted. Even if Laetrile eliminated one-hundred
percent of the cancer, these tumors would be reduced only three or four percent at the most. Life extension, not tumor size, is the
only meaningful test of therapeutic success.
In 1973, after months of extensive Laetrile studies on mice, the
Southern Research Institute in Birmingham, Alabama, released a
report of its findings to the National Cancer Institute. The NCI
then announced that these studies once again proved Laetrile had
no effect in the treatment of cancer. Upon further investigation,
however, all was not as it appeared. Digging into the raw data
contained in the report's tables and charts, Dr. Burk discovered
that there were three groups of mice in the experiment: (1) a large
group that received too little Laetrile, (2) another large group that
received too much, and (3) a small group that received an
optimum dose. Those that received too little died just as quickly
as those in the control group which received none at all. Those
that received too much died sooner than those in the control
group. But those that received the proper dosage survived
significantly longer than those that received none at all!
In view of these results, one may wonder how the National
Cancer Institute could have said that Laetrile was of no value.
Here is how it was done. All three groups were lumped into the
same statistics—including those which received too little and
those that received too much. When these large groups were
added to the small group that survived significantly longer, they
brought down the average to the point where they honestly could
say that these mice, as a total group), did not survive significantly
longer than those which had received no Laetrile at all. The
statistics didn't lie. But liars had used statistics.(1)
Meanwhile, the number of recovered cancer patients singing
the praise of Laetrile continued to grow. These patients and their
families established a national, grass-roots organization called
The Committee for Freedom-of-Choice in Cancer Therapy.
Several hundred chapters across the country held public meetings
and press conferences, and provided testimony before state
legislative committees calling for the legalization of Laetrile.
Somehow, these "laetrilists" had to be answered.
So, in 1978, the National Cancer Institute launched yet
another study to debunk the movement. Ninety-three cancer

cases were selected in which the medical records indicated that
Laetrile had been effective. The details were submitted to a panel
of twelve cancer specialists for evaluation. Cases involving traditional
therapy were also mixed in, and the panel was not
informed which cases received which treatment. Judgment would
be based only on results. NCI sifted through the Laetrile cases
and rejected most of them, so the panel was allowed to review
only twenty-two.
How does one evaluate the success of a cancer treatment? Is it
the length of life? The quality of life? The feeling of well-being
and absence of pain? The ability to function normally on a daily
basis? All of these are the criteria used by doctors who apply
nutritional therapy. They are not concerned with the size of a
tumor because, as stated previously, they know most tumors are a
mixture of malignant and benign cells, and that most tumors have
only a small percentage of cancer cells. If Laetrile succeeds in
removing 100% of a patient's cancer, his tumor may only decrease
by 5% or 10%. But who cares? The patient is back among the
living again. The tumor is not the disease; it is merely the
symptom of the disease.
Orthodox medicine, on the other hand, is totally focused on
the tumor. To most oncologists, the tumor is the cancer. If they
remove it surgically or burn it away, they happily announce to the
patient: "Good news. We got it all!" They may have all of the
tumor, but did they get what caused the tumor? And, in the
process, did they dislodge some of those malignant cells, causing
them to migrate through the circulatory system only to find new
homes elsewhere in the body? Is that the reason so many cancer
patients die of metastasized cancer to multiple locations only a
few months after hearing those ludicrous words: "We got it all"?
In any event, Laetrile practitioners have always warned that
reduction in tumor size is the least meaningful of all the measures
of success. So what was the primary criterion chosen by NCI?
Tumor size, of course. Not only was that consistent with the
orthodox view of cancer, but it also would skew the results in
favor of treatments, such as radiation and chemotherapy, which
have a more pronounced effect on tumor shrinkage than Laetrile.
A living and healthy patient with a tumor reduced by only 15%
would be classified as a failure. A sick and dying patient with a
tumor reduced 60% would be a success.
In spite of this stacked deck, here is what the panel found:
Among the Laetrile cases reviewed, 2 patients showed completeresponse (total tumor disappearance), 4 had partial regression
(greater than 50%), 9 were "stabilized" (tumors had stopped
growing), and 3 had "increased disease-free intervals." In other
words, 18 out of 22, or 82%, had some kind of beneficial response
—even when using tumor size as the criterion. There are very few
"approved" anti-cancer drugs that can show a report card as
good as that.
None of these encouraging numbers made any difference. The
official report of the NCI stated: "These results allow no definite
conclusions supporting the anti-cancer activity of Laetrile."(1) The
wording was brilliantly deceptive. No one was expecting "definite
conclusions" from a single study. But an honest and full
report of the results would have been quite nice, thank you.
Nevertheless, the carefully structured statement conveyed the
impression that Laetrile once again had failed a scientific test.
Words had been used, not to communicate, but to obfuscate.
The next act in this drama of pseudo science was a clinical
trial involving 178 patients at the Mayo Clinic. Amygdalin was to
be tested again, but this time it was to be combined with
"metabolic therapy" consisting of diet, enzymes, and nutritional
supplements—exactly what the nutritional doctors had been
advocating. The leading Laetrile practitioners, however, bitterly
objected that the protocol used was not comparable to theirs.
Furthermore, there was serious doubt about the purity of the
amygdalin being used. It was suspected that the entire experiment
was carefully crafted to fail. And fail, it did. The Mayo
doctors reported: "No substantive benefit was observed."
It is hard to beat this unbroken record of deception in the
cloak of science, but the granddaddy of them all occurred a few
years later at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in
Manhattan. For five years, between 1972 and 1977, Laetrile was
meticulously tested at Sloan-Kettering under the direction of Dr.
Kanematsu Sugiura. As the senior laboratory researcher there,
with over 60 years of experience, Dr. Sugiura had earned the
highest respect for his knowledge and integrity. In a science
laboratory, where truth is sought to the exclusion of all else, he
would have been the perfect man for this test. For the purposes of
Sloan-Kettering, however, he was the worst possible choice.

Sugiura broke his experiments down into a series of tests
using different types of laboratory animals and different tumors:
some transplanted and some naturally occurring. At the conclusion
of his experiment, he reported five results: (1) Laetrile
stopped metastasis (the spreading of cancer) in mice, (2) it
improved their general health, (3) it inhibited the growth of small
tumors, (4) it provided relief from pain, and (5) it acted as a
cancer prevention. The official report stated:
The results clearly show that Amygdalin significantly inhibits
the appearance of lung metastasis in mice bearing spontaneous
mammary tumors and increases significantly the inhibition of the
growth of the primary tumors.... Laetrile also seemed to prevent
slightly the appearance of new tumors.... The improvement of
health and appearance of the treated animals in comparison to
controls is always a common observation.... Dr. Sugiura has never
observed complete regression of these tumors in all his cosmic
experience with other chemotherapeutic agents.(1)
The reader is advised to go back and read that last section
again for, as we shall see, just a few months later, spokesmen for
Sloan-Kettering were flatly denying that there was any evidence
that Laetrile had any value.
To fully appreciate what happened next, a little background is
in order. The board of directors at Sloan-Kettering is virtually
controlled by corporate executives representing the financial
interests of pharmaceutical companies. Most of that control is
held by the Rockefeller dynasty and their cartel partners. At the
time of the Sugiura tests, there were three Rockefellers sitting on
the board (James, Laurance, and William) plus more than a dozen
men whose companies were within the Rockefeller financial
orbit.
The history of how the Rockefellers became involved in the
pharmaceutical industry is contained in Part Two of this book.
But, to appreciate how that effects this part of the story, we must
know that John D. Rockefeller, Sr., and his son, J.D., II, began
donating to Memorial Hospital in 1927. They also gave a full
block of land on which the new hospital was built in the 1930s.
Nothing was given without something to be received. In this case,
was control over one of the great medical centers of the world.
How that happened was described by Ralph Moss, former

Assistant Director of Public Affairs at Sloan-Kettering. Speaking
of the expansion of Sloan-Kettering after World War II, Moss
wrote:
The composition of the board of trustees at that time reveals a
kind of balance of power, with the Rockefellers and their allies in
overall control, but with those representing the Morgan interests
assuming many positions of power.... From this period forward the
world's largest private cancer center was ruled by what looks like a
consortium of Wall Street's top banks and corporations.
By the mid 1960s, the MSKCC board had begun to take on a
rather uniform appearance. What stood out was that many of its
leading members were individuals whose corporations stood to lose
or gain a great deal of money, depending on the outcome of the
"cancer war." (1)
With this background in mind, it should come as no surprise
to learn that Sugiura's findings did not please his employer. What
goes on inside the laboratories is generally of little interest to
board members. It is assumed that, whatever it is, it will result in
a new patented drug that will keep the cash flow moving in their
direction. They were slow to pick up on the implications of
Sugiura's work but, when they did, all hell broke lose in the
board room. If a cure for cancer were to be found in an extract
from the lowly apricot seed, it would be a terrible economic blow
to the cancer-drug industry.
Never before had Sugiura's work been questioned. In 1962,
more than 200 of his scientific papers were published in a fourvolume
set. The introduction was written by Dr. C. Chester Stock,
the man in charge of Sloan-Kettering's laboratory-testing division.
Dr. Stock wrote:
Few, if any, names in cancer research are as widely known as
Kanematsu Sugiura's.... Possibly the high regard in which his work
is held is best characterized by a comment made to me by a visiting
investigator in cancer research from Russia. He said, "When Dr.
Sugiura publishes, we know we don't have to repeat the study, for
we would obtain the same results he has reported."
All that was forgotten now that Sugiura's findings were
threatening the cash flow. The same Dr. Stock who wrote those
words was now a Sloan-Kettering vice-president and part of the
pack howling for a whole new series of tests. Sugiura had to be
proven wrong!