Presented before CCS Second Annual Cancer Convention,
Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, California
It is certainly a pleasure to be here at the Second Annual Convention of the Cancer Control Society-an outgrowth, as you know, of the International Association of Cancer Victims and Friends.
As I look back through the years marking the emergence of these two fine societies, I can recall the number of miraculous victories we’ve had in those intervening years; that it is as true today as it was eleven years ago that Laetrile, vitamin B17, is the first and last final hope in the prophylaxes in therapy of cancer in man and animals. The reason for this is that Laetrile is a vitamin. It is the 17th of the B vitamins.
We hear a great deal about its use in terminal cancer, but the time to start with vitamin B17 is now, before the disease becomes clinical. The time to start is the same with any matter of adequate nutrition and that is right now.
You may start now by commencing to eat the seeds of all common fruits that you eat. The apricot and peach seed contain almost 2 percent of vitamin B17 by weight. The apple seed, although very small, is equally rich in vitamin B17. So are the seeds of prunes, plums, cherries, and nectarines. The only common fruit on the hemisphere that lacks nitrilosidic seeds, are the citrus fruits. This lack has come about by artificial cultivation, by breeding, and hybridization since the seeds of citrus fruits on the African continent still contain vitamin B17.
Two more rich sources of vitamin B17 are the simple cereal millet and buckwheat. Macadamia nuts, although expensive and exotic, are very rich in vitamin B17 and so are bamboo shoots, mung beans, lima beans, butter beans and certain strains of garden peas. But for convenience, the simple source for your vitamin B17 are the seeds of the common fruit.
We know something about the prophylactic dose of vitamin B17. For example, we know the Hunzas represent a population that has been cancer-free for over 900 years of its existence. This population has a natural diet, which supplies on the average between 50 to 75 milligrams of vitamin B17 a day.
Hunza Land is a land that has sometimes been described as the “place where apricot is king.” The Hunzakuts eat the fresh apricots for the three months they are in season, and the remainder of the year, they eat dried apricots. They never eat a dried apricot without enclosing the seed between them. This supplies them with better than average of 50 to 75 milligrams of vitamin B17 a day.
There are many of us in the Western World who don’t ingest this amount of vitamin B17 in the course of an entire year. As a result we’re in the midst of a fulminating deficiency of vitamin B17 or nitriloside, the anti-neoplastic vitamin. Its absence from our diets accounts for the fact that cancer in our population has reached such a pandemicity as to account for its occurrence in one in every three American families. The occurrence is probably much greater than that because it is very late in its development when the cancer is detected. Many who develop cancer are killed by accident or intercurrent diseases before the malignant process has become sufficiently advanced to cause them to have it diagnosed.
Cancer is a chronic, metabolic disease. That part is obvious. It isn’t an infectious disease, which is caused by bacteria or viruses. It is a disease that is metabolic in origin. A metabolic disease is a disease that is linked with our utilization of food. Most metabolic diseases have as their basis specific vitamins and minerals. Let me give you a categorical or axiomatic truth to take with you, one that is totally incontrovertible, scientifically, historically and in every other way. This is that no chronic or metabolic disease in the history of medicines has ever been prevented or cured except by factors normal to the diet or normal to the animal economy.
There have been many fatally devastating diseases that have now become virtually unknown. They have been prevented and cured by ingesting the dietary factors, and thereby preventing the deficiencies, which accounted for these diseases.
The one in which you are probably most familiar is scurvy. A fatal disease that killed mankind by the thousands–a disease that would sometimes wipe out an entire polar expedition or accounted for about 50 percent mortality among the crusaders. A disease that is totally prevented and totally cured by vitamin C or ascorbic acid, a factor normal to an adequate diet. As you know so well from your school days that Great Britain acquired the dominion of the seas by empirically discovering that by adding lime or other citrus juices to the provisions of the British mariners, the curse of scurvy from the British sea power was removed. Therefore, Britain competitively gained the ascendancy on the seas. Prior to the incorporation of vitamin C into their diets, it wasn’t uncommon for three-fourths of the crew to become seriously ill by the end of a voyage; and then those who didn’t die would mysteriously recover after hitting shore because they would have access to fresh fruits and vegetables rich in vitamin C.
Then we have pernicious anemia, which had a mortality rate of 98 or 99 percent. And no medical modality under the sun could touch it. Arsenic and its salts, strychnine, iron, and hundreds of other remedies were tried, but to no avail, until the researchers Drs. Murphy, Shipple and Minot commenced their classical studies on the relationship of pernicious anemia to dietary deficiency.
While working at the University of California, they discovered a very simple remedy for preventing and curing this disease. They simply said to their patients, “Go down to your butcher shop, and get a quarter pound of fresh liver. Grind it up and take a tablespoon every day, and take the quarter pound and cook it very lightly and just singe the surface and use this as a ration for three days.” And when the patients followed this advice without exception, those with pernicious anemia made complete recoveries. Despite this, these men were censored by the medical establishment at the time and were criticized for engaging in what was alleged to be medical quackery.
The argument was–how can respectable doctors advise people with a disease that has a 99 percent mortality rate to ignore all of the established drugs of medical science and go down to the butcher shop and buy some raw liver and take this and expect this to cure a disease that nothing else had cured? Well, raw liver did cure the disease, and raw liver did prevent it.
As the chemistry of raw liver was studied, it was discovered that the factors responsible were vitamin B12 and folic acid. So, vitamin B12 and folic acid are now a part of our normal dietary experience.
In 1974, the uninformed, the unimaginative and some of the illiterate are concerned with what, to them, is a preposterous idea–that by eating seeds of fruit you can prevent a disease that carries a mortality rate almost as high as that once carried by pernicious anemia. But scientific truth isn’t dependent upon credibility or lack of it. The scientific reality either is or isn’t. And this is the scientific reality that the seeds of all common fruits (except citrus) contain vitamin B17, an anti-cancer vitamin. If we ingest proper quantities for this vitamin, either in the pure form or through ingesting the nitrilosidic foods, we will be able to prevent this disease just as surely as we are able to prevent scurvy by the use of vitamin C or pernicious anemia by the use of vitamin B12.
There was another disease that is of a metabolic or chronic nature and that is pellagra. At one time, it was so endemic in certain parts of the world, particularly the American southwest, that there were entire hospitals given to the treatment of pellagrans.
The great Sir William Osler in his “Principles and Practices of Medicine” written at the turn of this century, said of pellagra, “I was at Lenoir, North Carolina, during one winter; and this winter I visited the Lenoir home for the colored insane, and there 75 percent of the inmates died from the disease. It ran rampant through this institution and convinced me beyond any doubt that pellagra is a virus that is infectious.”
And then came the fine works of the United States Public Health Service surgeon, Dr. Goldberger, who showed conclusively that the occurrence of pellagra was related with a deficiency of fresh green material in the diet. So Dr. Goldberger approached this problem first by the use of Brewer’s yeast, which would completely prevent and cure pellagra. Further studies then showed that the factor in Brewer’s yeast that was most determinate of this effect was niacin, vitamin B3.
So another fatal, chronic metabolic disease found total resolution and cure through factors normal to the normal diet or the animal economy. We know that cancer is no exception to this great generalization and to date has known no exception–that is that every chronic or metabolic disease that will ever be controlled by man, must be controlled by means that are a part of the biological experience of the organism. Chronic and metabolic diseases can never be controlled, prevented, or cured by factors foreign to the biological experience of the organism.
Let’s make it clear by what we mean by biological experience to the organism. We refer to the experience the organism has had over the million years of its evolution. The organism was exposed to water, air, carbohydrates, fats, amino acids and various salts and these factors became integrated with the evolving organism. And the evolving organism became integrated with these factors. And these factors with the evolving organism were incorporated into the beautiful machinery of “life.” And the vital mechanism of life runs just like the parts of a fine Swiss watch only infinitely more complex.
Dr. Thomas of the Sloan Kettering Institute in a recent article in Science said, “I’m thankful that my liver works without my knowledge. I do not have the brains to commence to do one millionth of what my liver does. These things are automatic . So I swallow the food and this infinitely complex machinery takes care of itself. “
We could spend years telling you about this magnificent machinery, and we still wouldn’t touch the surface of this infinite ocean. We do know that there is nothing that we can do to improve upon it. We do know that in the history of medicine there never had been found anything foreign to the indwelling requirements of this machinery that will do the living organism any good. And we can go further to say there has never in the history of medicine been found anything foreign to the indwelling machinery of this infinitely complex system that will not harm the organism. There isn’t such a thing as a factor foreign to the biological experience that is not harmful to the organism.
There is nothing we can add to our air, water, and food to improve it. The most we can do is to look at some of our devitalized food and hopefully attempt to replace that which was capriciously removed from it in the process of food refining, manipulation or cooking. There is absolutely nothing that we can add to that food to improve it. These things are basic.
There isn’t any chemical or drug that medical science could suggest that would make us healthier or better adjusted or wiser or give us hope for a longer life. There isn’t a single drug or molecule in nature that can, unless that molecule exists in normal food. And this probably explains one of the reasons why there is so much resistance to Laetrile, B17
The application of this science brings us face to face with a lot of things we do not like to face. We have become over-civilized. We are inclined in our delusory thinking to feel that, here and there, there must be a magic out. That there must be a simple way, a short cut, that somehow or other medical science or some other man-made forces beyond our comprehension will do for us those things we must do for ourselves. And it is slowly dawning on us, perhaps too slowly, that this thinking is fraudulent–that it is unsound.
It isn’t in the field of cancer alone where we see this form of charlatanism or quackery. We see it in the area of the human mind, the futile attempts to spare man from the realities that surround him. Above all, to spare him from the fact that he is accountable to himself and to his God and that there is no short cut in this accountability.
It’s real at the physical level. And when we are eating less than adequate food, we know better. And when we continue, we are engaged in sin. This is the basis for practically all of our physical and mental and spiritual difficulties. We had better be realistic about it. We have them because we don’t do the right things. And when we fail in view of our knowledge now to take vitamin B17, this is a sin against our physical nature. And when we develop cancer, we will receive the results of this transgression in the old-fashioned biblical sense that the “wages of sin are death.”
If you are not getting vitamin B17 in your food, the best way to get it is in the pure form. If you have cancer, the most important single consideration is to get the maximum amount of vitamin B17 into your body in the shortest period of time. This is secondary to the medical skill involved in administering it, which is relatively minimal. Then very often there are many supportive measures that are taken in the management of the cancer patient such as the use of materials to build up the blood, to raise or lower the blood pressure or to relieve the pain.
Pancreatic enzymes and vegetable enzymes are part of the supportive theory. You have the papaya melons as the source of the enzyme papain and pineapple as a source of the enzyme bromelain.
The demasking effect of these enzymes against the pericellular layer of the malignant cell is something very concrete in the immunology of cancer. Now I prefer, rather than advising the use of bromelain or papaya tablets, that the individual seeking these enzymes get them directly from the fresh ripe pineapple and papaya fruit. As much as half a pineapple a day should be ingested. This is the way to go. You have nothing to lose by eating fresh pineapple and papaya melons. Nothing to lose by eating millet, the seeds of all the common fruits, and whole fresh foods.
Dietary deficiencies arrive primarily from eating less than whole food. This is why the Federal and State governments have made mandatory the artificial enrichment of white flour. Look at any loaf of white bread or white flour that has been enriched by the addition of crystalline vitamin B1, vitamin B2, niacin, iron and all the rest. What a commentary on the stupidity of our civilization that we put good food through a process that defects it of its essential nutrients, and then, enforced by the government, mandate requirements that say that we must restore to this food some of the things that have been processed out. One of the most critical factors is removed, and that is wheat germ, which contains the vitamin E and the polyunsaturated fatty acids. It would not be necessary to take it in supplementation if our foods were not manipulated in a way to remove this.
Now something about supplementations in addition to the vitamin B17. We can’t think in terms of just one vitamin. We get an adequate diet by eating as wide a variety of whole natural foods as possible and as close to their growing period as we can possibly obtain them.
There are laetrile therapists who recommend two or three grams of ascorbic acid or vitamin C in conjunction with the Laetrile program. This is a very moderate recommendation, and we can all take up to seven or eight grams of vitamin C without any problems. This is about the same amount as the higher primates such as the gorilla on a pound to pound basis ingest–between five to six grams of vitamin C a day in their normal habitat. Incidentally, the gorilla in its natural habitat eats about 100 to 125 milligrams of vitamin B17 a day, too. Like the population of Hunza Land, these gorillas are free of cancer. So are bears in their normal habitat. Out in the wilds they don’t develop cancer.
In the San Diego Zoo there was a cage of about ten bears, and out of the ten, seven of them developed cancer. To some this was a sign that some mysterious bear cancer-virus was loose; but it wasn’t that at all. In the wild state the bears are omnivores, and they eat a lot of wild nitrilosidic berries. Almost all wild fruits are nitrilosides.
Keep in mind how far we have drifted from the dietary requirements of the machinery that we now possess. When we evolved and came to our maturity as organisms about 8,000 or 9,000 years ago, the world witnessed the advent of agriculture, and horticulture came a little later.
The millions of years prior to that time, we ate the cherries, apricots, apples, prunes and the rest of the fruits. They had vitamin B17 not only within the seeds, but in the flesh, too. Today only wild fruit contain the vitamin B17; but in the process of hybridization, it has been removed.
The fruit that we eat today is the product of years of manipulation and cultivation for lushness and abundance and so forth, so the meat to that fruit is free of vitamin B17. To meet our indwelling needs of vitamin B17, we must either eat the fruit seed in reasonable quantity or begin supplementing our diet with vitamin B17 tablets.
We can’t of course do that at present, but we hope to see, before very long, vitamin B17 available so that we can prevent cancer in the same way we prevent scurvy.
Several new books are coming out on Laetrile. Both are written by non-medical men – World Without Cancer by Edward Griffin and Vitamin B17: Forbidden Weapon Against Cancerby Mike Culbert. We are all laymen in the field of cancer. There are more laymen in the Laetrile movement who know more about cancer than some of our most prestigious experts in our most prestigious institutions. These laymen know enough about it to keep alive and not die from it. So you’re a pretty rotten expert if you know so little about it as to succumb to it or have your family succumb to it.
We have many case histories of people that have been helped by Laetrile. Both Alicia Buttons and Mary Henderson were terminal with oral pharyngeal cancer that has a mortality rate of 98-99 percent even in early diagnosis. Both made remarkable recoveries with Laetrile under the guidance of Dr. Hans Nieper in Germany.
You know we have been meeting ten or eleven years, and you’ve been hearing this story. Each time after the meeting you had 360 days to go home and read newspapers, American Cancer Society Boiler Plate, and so forth. In those ten years they haven’t told you anything against Laetrile that makes any sense. You can be pretty sure they don’t have anything against Laetrile because these people are very uninhibited and the area in which they are most uninhibited is in the area of simple lying. If you have any questions about Laetrile, the more critical the better because we are dealing with solid science. We are dealing with a science that admits that there is no rational alternative in the ten years that have passed since these meetings. Nothing has come about to do anything except to make more obvious the fact that Laetrile, vitamin B17 is the answer to cancer.
