Hello everyone,

Is anyone familiar with G. Edward Griffin's book titled "World Without Cancer"? Griffin advocates laetrile treatment--otherwise known as Vitamin B-17. The underlying assumpion behind this treatment, which was developed by Dr. Ernst Krebs, is that cancer derives from a vitamin deficiency.

In his book, Griffin also claims that much of cancer research is politically driven and that there are vested interests in insuring that only conventional cancer treatments be granted legitimacy. In other words, if people were to know that there is a much more effective (and much cheaper) way of treating cancer--it would undermine the multi-billion dollar cancer industry.

I was wondering whether anyone is familiar with laetrile treatment and what they think about it.

regards,
Gino

Gino,
The Laetril scam has been around since the 50's and is covered extensively on Quackwatch.com

Chuck

NO

Gino, best to stay with the establishment on this one. You are not dealing with a case of bunions here, but a nasty disease that needs a big stick to thump it out of existence. Unfortunately, there are always scams designed to separate vulnerable people from their money. Don't fall victim to one.

Laetrile was shown to be ineffective decades ago. The only places that still talk about it are some clinics in Mexico and some third world countries where their primary purpose at these facilities seems to be to separate those with no alternatives left for treatment, (and therefore a terminal prognosis) from their money, doing something that has NEVER worked. In spite of the fact that it is useless, in foreign countries where medical care is to a large extent unregulated, charlatans like this can thrive doing not only this but feeding you full of shark cartilage and more... All with the same outcome. You and your family are broke, and your physical outcome will be the same as before you went there.

By the way, just because someone wrote a book, or it apapears ona website....that dosen't make it true. There are enough self published books out there promoting quack ideas about curing illness, dieting, and more, to replace half of our old growth forrests if their pages could be turned back into trees.

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your responses. I had never heard of laetrile until a few days ago. I picked up Griffin's book and immediately questioned its legitimacy, as many of his footnotes consisted of "personal notes" and/or "personal letters." I was simply curious as to what your opinions were.

Your opinions seem to echo a vast literature devoted to debunking laetrile, much of which one can find in scholarly databases that I happen have access to. Nonetheless, there are quite a few folks out there who swear laetrile treatment has cured them--something I find rather curious.

Brian, I'm quite familiar with the publishing industry and agree that there's a lot of crap out there.

best,
Gino

It's right up there with pixie dust and the tooth fairy. That's just the tip of the iceberg in bogus cancer cures out there...

The first amendment gives the right to publish whatever crap they want.

Try chasing down one of those people that claims a cure... it's an exercise that has been done before. Almost impossible to find them and most are probably made up. I also access major medical databases as a matter of routine, and I can't find one documented cure for this stuff. Like I said, you can say anything you want in print or on the web, but the peer reveiw process eventually weeds out the bogus stuff. It's too bad that it lives on in the realm of media that people who don't know how to do good research about something will find. It's a disservice to the public, and I think that this crap ( and much more that falls into this same bogus take your money for some promises realm) should be criminal and not allowed to be still out there for people to stumble on. Of course then we'd be stepping on someones first amendment rights to say what they believe, even if it is horseshit.

My first cousin went to Mexico for Laetrile treatments after he was diagnosed as terminal. They did nothing except, like Brian said, separate him from a large chunk of his money. He died over 12 years ago.
Darrell

The laetrile scam is a good one. People with bad diagnoses really want to believe in the magic of nature, or of something from the sea, or some newly discovered miracle. We just aren't there yet with cancer treatment. Perhaps one day, but not today, and not with laetrile. Tom