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The
Merciless Fight about Cancer Therapy
G.
Edward Griffin: “World Without Cancer: The Story of Vitamin B17”,
paperback 1997. American Media, Westlake Village, California 91359-1646.
ISBN: 0-912986-19-0
Norwegian
edition: “En verden uten kreft – Historien om vitamin B17”,
Kolofon forlag 2007, Preface by Roald Strand MD.
When this book was first
published 30 years ago, it stirred quite some attention. When this new
edition now is published in Norwegian the question of Laertril or
Vitamin B17 is just as controversial. But the book is something more. It
is, as Roald Strand writes in the preface: “a severe judgement of the
politics of health due to research institutes and pharmaceutical
industry. Griffin tells how commercial forces direct research and
development in cancer therapy. This is provocative reading. There is no
doubt that cancer therapy has developed into a gigantic industry that in
large part is financed by public means and charitable donations. … This
industry knows how to defend itself against competing interests and
does, according to Griffin, not abstain from criminal means to serve its
aims.” – The strength of the book is that it is solidly documented. This
is a story which we in all its hideousness need to take seriously.
The American
biochemist Ernst Krebs proposed in 1952 a theory that cancer is a
disease of deficient nutrition, and that the nitrilosides which are
soluble in water and are found in great concentration in apricot kernels
and other fruit kernels, are a significant factor. He gave this the name
Vitamin B17. A preparation of this that can be administered in
injections was given the name Laertril. The biochemical explanation he
gave why this has a selective effect on cancer cells is too complicated
for me to discuss here. But Krebs also gave epidemiological arguments,
pointing out that cancer is unknown among the people of the Hunza valley
in Northern Pakistan, an isolated mountain people who has the highest
life age of all people of the earth. The Hunza people grow large
quantities of apricots, and the kernels of apricots and the oil you get
from them has a special place in their diet.
Several American
physicians started using Laertril in their treatment of cancer victims.
Apparently they had positive results and negative side effects were not
observed. In 1953, however, a negative report was published by the
cancer committee of the AMA (American Medical Association) in
California, concluding that there was no proven anti-cancer effect of
Laetril. As it is well documented in the book, the basis for this
conclusion was quite dubious. It got, however, a decisive significance
for how the medical association, the public authorities and the media
were to handle the question of Laertril. In spite of positive
indications both from clinical experience and experimental research, the
supreme medical authority, the FDA, concluded in 1971 that their experts
had found that there was no acceptable evidence for a therapeutic
effect. And on this basis they decided that Laertril should not be
allowed to be promoted, sold, or even tested in the United States.
An additional
argument for this drastic decision was claims that apricot kernels, and
thereby Laetril, might be poisonous. The background for these claims was
that a couple in California who had eaten 30 apricot kernels that had
fermented over night, became ill and were admitted to a hospital with
stomach ache and nausea. Although these were common symptoms of food
poisoning and it was quite doubtful if it was due to the apricot
kernels, this story was blown up in the media and later used to frighten
people. It is well known that apricot kernels contain some cyanide acid
that may be released, and this was actually a part of the argumentation
Ernst Krebs gave for the effect on cancer cells. There are, however, no
known cases of serious poisoning or side effects due to the use of
Laertril.
It is rather the rule than the exception
that drugs that are used in cancer therapy have a toxic effect on the
body. It is, therefore, remarkable that this argument about apricot
kernels being toxic is used against Laertril and is repeated even now in
the year 2007 by Norwegian health authorities. At Amazon com. you can
now order a “Cyanide Cooking Book”. This is a nice example how the
humour of common people sometimes overrides the stupidity of experts!
Medical doctors who used Laertril were
now arrested. Others moved over the border to Mexico and established
health clinics there where they could treat American cancer patients.
The controversy about Laertril continued, however, due to the many
patients who claimed they had been cured from cancer by this therapy,
and a few medical doctors and serious researchers who dared to oppose
the official medical opinion. Towards the end of the 1970.s, however,
the battle was lost. The official cancer therapy had won and the media
lost interest. Yet, however, a few thousand American cancer victims go
outside the US each year to countries like Mexico and Germany to get
treatment with Laertril. And doctors from these and other countries
report satisfactory results from the therapy. During the last years,
however, general opinion is changing, as we are getting more acceptance
for the significance of vitamins and nutrition both in the prevention
and the treatment of cancer.
The second part of the book deals with
the politics around cancer therapy. It is, according to Griffin, not the
medical doctors as a professional class that are responsible: “It is
important to stress again, however, that the average physician is not
part of this opposition – except, perhaps, to the extent to which he
trustingly accepts the official pronouncements of these prestigious
bodies. Most doctors, however, would be more inclined to give Laertril a
try before passing final judgement. As a result, an increasing number of
physicians all around the world now are testing and proving the value of
vitamin therapy in their own clinics. Doctors in the United States,
however, are forbidden both by law and by the pressure of peer review
from experimenting with unorthodox therapies. Consequently, they are not
able to find out if Laertril works, only if it is said to work.”
The antagonism against Laertril and
nutritional therapy for cancer has indeed in part been motivated by the
generally accepted medical opinion which excluded the possibility of
such a therapeutic effect. But this is not the whole explanation. The
book gives reasonable documentation that the case was manipulated at a
high political level by mighty interests, and that cartel activity and
corruption has been part of the game.
The author pays much attention to a
co-operation between the Rockefeller group and the German giant concern
I.G. Farben that was well established in the United States before the
war, and which escaped the sanitation of Nazi capital after the war.
This is highly interesting historical material which is reasonably well
documented.
In 1995 it was decided by the Congress
that American citizens in addition to other civil right should have a
right to choose their own way to health, including free access to
non-toxic natural medicines and vitamins also in higher dosages. At that
time we got a warning over Internet by an American organization called
“Health Now“ where it was claimed that this resolution by Congress was
the greatest defeat for pharmaceutical industry to date. We were
informed that there had been a secret meeting in Europe on initiative of
German pharmaceutical industry to make up a strategy to prevent a
similar development in Europe. For those of us who have followed what
has happened since, it is apparent that this strategy has been followed
up very professionally and has been close to success.
That pharmaceutical industry is taking
care of its economical interests and tries to both defend and expand its
markets against competing therapies, is no more than we have to expect.
The prior task for the leader of any share holding company is to
increase the income of the share holders. This is our economical system.
And a consequence of this is that pharmaceutical industry is not
interested in developing and testing medicines that can not be patented,
like Laertril.
In addition to this legal motivation it
would not be surprising if cartel activity and corruption somehow have
been part of the game. If, in addition to these economical interests, a
motivation for power also has been involved, is an interesting question
which it is more difficult to answer. Down through history a long tested
strategy for those who wish to maintain power over people is to act on
their fear. The power of the Church has to a large extent depended on
the fear of man for hell. In the secular society of to day the fear of
cancer is perhaps the most dominate one. If not for something else, this
may be a reason why the fight about cancer therapy has been so
merciless.
What may we learn from this story about
Laertril and Vitamin B17?
First of all, Laertril is by all
probability a valuable remedy in the treatment of cancers. As Griffin
writes, it is the conquerors who write history. And in this case it was
the antagonists who triumphed. With unprejudiced eyes we ought to regard
Laertril anew and test out what benefits we may have from it.
The most decisive scientific error in
this story is that research over Laertril was stopped, yes even
prohibited. Not only further testing of what might be a valuable remedy
was thereby blocked, but also a new field of research that might have
given valuable new knowledge about cancer.
It is interesting to see this in light of
the concepts of entropy and syntropy. The general medical opinion has
been that cancer is an irreversible disease. When a cancer first has
developed it will grow further, eventually destroying the organism. The
entropy increases mercilessly. The only possible therapy is either to
remove the cancer by surgery or kill the cancer cells by radiation or
cell poisons. Other cancer therapies that try to strengthen the organism
in its fight against the cancer, have been disclaimed as swindle and
quackery because they give the patient a false hope.
Even the first California report tells
how the doctors who had given Laertril, observed that the patients felt
better, had increased appetite and gained weight, and suffered less from
pain. This was, however, not regarded as a proof of therapeutic effect,
but rather as the opposite. It was expected that a therapy that acted
therapeutically, that means was killing the cancer cells, also would
have a negative effect on the other cells of the body and thus make the
patient feel worse.
With some right we may say that this is a
view of reality corresponding to the law of ever increasing entropy we
have learned from physics. In contrast to this the concept of syntropy
opens for a development towards a restoration of organic order that may
have been lost. In medical science this would signify a healing process.
So far we have, however, no scientific theory to explain healing
processes. We, therefore had difficulties imagining that cancer may heal
spontaneously, although there are some well documented cases where this
actually has happened, even in cases of so called terminal cancer.
Cancer research and cancer therapy would
be better served by a more open and less dogmatic attitude where also
more syntropic possibilities are taken seriously. A part from the
research over Laertril and other nutritional factors, we will here
highlight two other fields of research we have taken up in other
contexts.
According to the new strategy to fight
cancer proposed by theChinese biologist, Yingqing Zhang, cancer cells
are immature cells that have stopped in their development at such an
early embryological stage that they divide without restraint at the
expense of the order of the organism. Therapy therefore should aim to
stimulate the development of cancer cells into more differentiated cells
that respect organic restraints. For this purpose Zhang recommends a
combination of bioholographic acupuncture and administration of
different remedies that stimulate cell differentiation. Research in
China has proved that several such substances, like Vitamin A and
hormones from insects, that stimulate cell differentiation have made
cancer cells in culture develop into normal cells. (Vilhelm Schjelderup:
“ECIWO-biologi”, Høyskoleforlaget, Norway 1998)
In an editorial “No patent? No thanks –
there is an anti-cancer drug with huge potential, but no backers” the
New Scientist (20/1-07) presented a promising development in cancer
research. Cancer cells have an anaerobe metabolism in contrast to normal
cells. In 1930 Otto Warburg presented a hypothesis that this change from
aerobe to anaerobe metabolism was essential for cancer development, but
did not get support for this. Recent research indicates that the
function of the mitochondria is essential for this. And now Evangelos
Michelakis at the University of Alberta in Canada has discovered that a
small molecule, dichloroacetat (DCA) which for a long time has been used
to treat mitochondrial disease, has promising properties in cancer
research. He has proved that DCA makes cancer cells in cell culture die
off naturally. – Normally abnormal cells that are not able to fulfil
their role in the body, will die off by themselves: They have an inbuilt
mechanism that makes them commit suicide (apoptosis). An important
question in cancer research is why this natural ‘suicide-mechanism’ for
some reason does not function for cancer cells. The research of
Michelakis opens a highly interesting and promising new angle in cancer
research.
The editorial in New Scientist ends with
a strong appeal: “It is a safe bet that drug companies will be falling
over themselves to find patentable compounds with a similar action to
DCA. Any of these reaching the market will be hugely expensive. It would
be a scandal if a cheap alternative with such astonishing potential were
not given a chance simply because it won’t turn a big enough profit.”
As we might expect New Scientist must
have had its storm of criticism for such an open hearted comment. In a
later editorial they had to bring a warning that people should not
experiment on their own with an untested medicine like DCA.
The last battle in the fight about cancer
therapy has hardly been fought. And we may, indeed, expect that the way
to ‘a world without cancer’ will be long and uncertain’. But there are
some twinkling lights on the way that may give us hope.
Vilhelm Schjelderup, Bjørn Solberg
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