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Laetrile/Vitamin B-17

Laetrile (a.k.a. Vitamin B-17) is one of the most controversial topics in alternative and complimentary cancer treatments. The FDA considers laetrile, which contains cyanide, to be "a highly toxic product that has not shown any effect on treating cancer." However, proponents of laetrile tell a different story, saying laetrile has shown success in treating cancer, but is being covered up because it is a natural substance and would result in the loss of billions of dollars of profit for the cancer industry.

 

Below are some of the resources available (both for and against laetrile) if you are interested in learning more.

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As with any dietary supplement, it is important to research both sides of the story regarding Laetrile and form your own opinion on whether it is right for you in partnership with a qualified healthcare professional.

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS (8/28/14): "Though a documentary, it's dramatic enough to be reminiscent of 'The Insider', the whistleblowing thriller about Big Tobacco." --------- The War On Cancer, launched in the early 1970s, set the stage for a massive influx of new ideas in fighting the disease of cancer. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, America's leading cancer research center at the time, was assigned the task of testing an unconventional therapy called “Laetrile” in an effort to curb the public’s “false hope” in the alleged “quack” therapy. Ralph W. Moss PhD, a young and eager science writer, was hired by Sloan-Kettering’s public relations department in 1974 to help brief the American public on the center’s contribution to the War On Cancer. One of his first assignments was to write a biography about Dr. Kanematsu Sugiura, one of the Center’s oldest and leading research scientists as well as the original co-inventor of chemotherapy. While meeting with this iconic scientist to pen a biography on his 60-year career at
 Sloan-Kettering, Moss discovered that Sugiura had been studying this “quack remedy” 
in laboratory mice, and with unexpectedly positive results. Shocked and bewildered, Moss reported back to his superiors what he had discovered, only to be met with backlash and denial from Sloan-Kettering’s leaders on what their own leading scientist had found.  Fueled by respect and admiration for Sugiura—Ralph W. Moss attempted to publicize 
the truth about Sugiura’s findings. And after all diplomatic approaches failed, Moss lived 
a double life, working as a loyal employee at Sloan-Kettering while also recruiting fellow employees to help anonymously leak this information to the American public—
through a newly formed underground organization they called—“Second Opinion”.

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