World Without Cancer (The Story Of Vitamin B17).pdf

G. EDWARD GRIFFIN- World Without Cancer



The purpose of this book is to marshal the evidence that cancer is a nutritional-deficiency disease. It is not caused by a bacterium, virus or mysterious toxin but by the absence of a substance that modern man has removed from his diet. If that analysis is correct, then the cure and prevention of cancer is simple. All that needs to be done is to restore that easily obtained and inexpensive food factor to our daily meals.
This is an exciting theory. It holds the promise for a world without cancer now, not at some distant point in the future, and it would mean that the billions of dollars spent each year on research and medical treatment could be redirected to more happy pursuits. Of course, it also would mean that the million-orso professionals now gainfully employed in the cancer-research, cancer-therapy, and fund-raising industries would rapidly be out of work. This is where the plot becomes interesting, because these are the same people to whom we have turned for expert opinion regarding the validity of Laetrile, nutritional therapy.
It should not be surprising that these experts have rejected the vitamin-deficiency concept of cancer. There is nothing in it for them. Not only would a world without cancer lead to pay-check shock, it also would represent a blow to professional prestige. Imagine: a cure for cancer found in the seeds of fruits, not in research laboratories, and discovered by people without government grants or prestigious diplomas hanging on their walls!
Organized medicine has spoken. Laetrile is quackery, it says, and is derided as an "unproven" cancer treatment. However, let us take a closer look at that word. For most people, unproven means simply that there is no proof. But what is proof? It is not an absolute concept. In the strict sense, there is no such thing as proof; there is only evidence. If evidence is convincing to the observer, then it is said to be proof, and the thesis which it supports is viewed as "proven." If a second observer finds the same evidence to be unconvincing, then it is not proof, and the thesis is "unproven" to that observer.
As we shall see in the pages that follow, there is a great deal of evidence supporting the nutritional-deficiency concept of cancer —more than enough to convince most people that the thesis is proven. But the word proven, when used by the FDA, has an entirely different meaning. It is a technical definition. When the FDA says a therapy is proven, it means only that its promoters have complied with the testing protocols set by the agency to demonstrate safety and effectiveness. It is important to know, however, that the successful completion of those tests does not mean, as the terminology implies, that the therapy is safe and effective. It merely means that tests have been conducted, the results have been evaluated, and the FDA has given its approval for marketing, often in spite of the dismal results.
If cancer patients undergoing these FDA-proven therapies were to read the actual laboratory reports, they would recoil in horror. They show neither safety nor effectiveness and, in fact, they are not intended to do so. Their purpose is to establish the lethal dose—the point at which the therapy will kill 50% of the patients—and also to establish the ratio between those who are benefited and those who are not. That ratio often is in the range of only eight or nine people out of a hundred. Furthermore, "benefited" can mean any slight improvement such as a temporary reduction in tumor size. It almost never means a complete cure. If anything is "proven" by these studies, it is that most FDAapproved cancer therapies are both unsafe and ineffective.
Then there is the question of money. The testing protocols established by the FDA are costly. The promoters of a new therapy must assign a large staff of technicians and compile many thousands of statistical pages. The complete reports often weigh hundreds of pounds and stack over six feet in height. The process can take years and consume over two-hundred-million dollars per study.
Only the large pharmaceutical companies can play that game. (Although they publicly complain about this expense, they privately approve, because it prevents competition from smaller companies.) The potential reward of getting a new product into the world market is well worth the investment. But who would be willing to spend that kind of money on developing a product that cannot be patented? Substances found in nature cannot be patented; only those which are invented by man. If a company were to spend two-hundred-million dollars to obtain FDA approval for a natural substance, its competitors then would be able to market the product, and the developer could never recover the investment.
Therefore—and mark this well—as long as the present laws remain, the only substances that ever will be "approved" for cancer therapy will be proprietary. No substance from nature will ever be legally available for cancer or any other disease unless its source can be monopolized or its processing can be patented. No matter how safe and effective it may be, and no matter how many people are benefited, it will forever be relegated to the category of "unproven" therapies. As such, freely available cures from nature will always be illegal to prescribe, to promote, and in many cases even to use.
It is partly for these reasons that the following warning and disclaimer is offered. But even without that background, it is only common sense that cancer victims should be encouraged to exercise great caution when selecting their therapy. Be advised, therefore, that Laetrile is, officially, an unproven cancer treatment. The author of this book is a researcher and writer, not a physician. The facts presented in the following pages are offered as information only, not medical advice. Their purpose is to create the basis for informed consent. Although there is much that each of us can do in the area of prevention, self-treatment for clinical cancer is not advised. The administration of any cancer therapy, including nutritional therapy, should be under the supervision of health-care professionals who are specialists in their fields.