Bone to Pick
By Ray Dellugge
So his name is Elbridge, great. I'm glad he brought it up 'cause I have a bone to pick with him. This Dr. Best cast a very poor opinion in your paper some time ago to the effect that Laetrile was just a nostrum and of no value in cancer treatment. Now that opinion was not based on fact or any research at all. It was just a very bad opinion, and even might have cost some people to lose their lives because of it. Please let me quote a few experts on this matter.
In West Germany, there is Hans Nieper M.D. Director of Medicine at Silbersee Hospital in Hanover, pioneer in the medical use of cobalt. To reporters in 1972, "After more than 20 years of such specialized work, I have found the nontoxic Nitrilosides...that is, Laetrile...far superior to any other known cancer treatment of preventative. In my opinion it is the only existing possibility for the ultimate control of cancer.
In Canada, there is N.R. Bouziane M.D. Director of Research Labs at St. Jeanne d' Arc Hospital in Montreal, member of tumor board in charge of chemotherapy. "In our investigation, some terminal cases were so hopeless that they did not even receive what we consider the basic dose of 30 grams. Most cases, however, became ambulatory and some have in this short time resumed their normal activities on a maintenance dose.
In the Philippines there is Manuel Navarro M.D., professor of Medicine and surgery at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila. "It is my carefully considered clinical judgment, as a practicing oncologist and researcher in this field, that I have obtained most significant and encouraging results with the use of Laetrile amygdalin in the treatment of terminal cancer patients, and that these results are comparable or superior to the results I have obtained with the use of the more toxic standard cytotoxic agents.
In Mexico there is Ernesto Contreras M.D., Good Samaritan Cancer Clinic in Tijuana. "The palliative action (improving the comfort and well-being of the patient) is in about 60 percent of the cases. Frequently, enough to be significant, I see arrest of the disease, or even regression in some 15 percent of the very advanced cases."
In Japan there is Shigeaki Sakai, a prominent physician in Tokyo. "Administered to cancer patients, Laetrile has proven to be quite free from any harmful side-effects, and I would say that no anti-cancer drug could make a cancerous patient improve faster than Laetrile. It goes without saying that Laetrile controls cancer and is quite effective wherever it is located."
In Italy there is professor Etore Guidetti M.D. University of Turin Medical School. "In some cases, one has been able to observe a group of fulminating and cauliflower-like neoplastic masses resolved very rapidly." He reported also that, after administering Laetrile to patients with lung cancer, he had been able to observe, with the aid of radiography, a regression of the neoplasm or the metastases.
In the United States there are such respected names as Dr. Dean Burk of the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Ernst T. Krebs, Jr. who developed laetrile, and Dr. John A. Richardson of San Francisco.
"Laetrile is goddamned quackery," says Helene Brown, president of the American Cancer Society of California. She, like you, Elbridge, doesn't know what she is talking about. One more thing, cancer is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me, and I'm staking my life on Laetrile, and so are a lot of other terminal cancer patients. I think that's enough for now. (Sept. 27, 1978).