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A WORLD WITHOUT CANCER
By G. Edward Griffin
Areas of need for further research with
vitamin B17; how the Laetrile
controversy differs from medical
controversies of the past; an analogy of
biological and political cancer; and a
scenario in which both will be conquered
together.
Considering
the lack of beneficial results obtained by
orthodox medicine, it has been said that
voodoo witchcraft would be just as
effective—and perhaps even more so—for at
least then the patient would be spared the
deadly side effects of radiation and
chemical poisoning. Just as we are amused
today at the primitive medical practices of
history, future generations surely will look
back at our own era and cringe at the
senseless cutting, burning, and poisoning
that now passes for medical science.
The advocates
of vitamin B17 are the first to admit that
there is yet much to learn about the natural
mechanisms involved in the cause and control
of cancer and that there is need for
continued caution and understatement. For
one thing, there is a growing suspicion
among experienced clinicians that B17 in
foods is more effective than in the
currently processed and concentrated forms.
They would prefer their patients to obtain
it in this natural state, except for the
fact that it is next to impossible to ingest
sufficient quantities that way to be
therapeutically effective in the treatment
of advanced cancer. When the patient needs
massive doses quickly, the physician has
only one recourse, and that is to administer
B17 in the highly concentrated, purified,
and injectable form. But in that form it is
possible that other trace substances
associated with B17 as it occurs in the
natural state may have been
eliminated—substances which either act
directly against cancer themselves, or which
may serve as catalysts causing either the
B17 to function more efficiently or
stimulating still other mechanisms of the
body into action. Many nutritionists believe
that organic vitamins obtained from real
foods are superior to man-made or synthetic
vitamins because of the trace substances
found in one but not in the other. So, too,
there is a growing respect for B17 in the
natural state.1 At any rate,
even though the basic truths have been
unlocked, there is still much to learn, and
Laetrile advocates humbly admit the need for
additional research.
1. If recent FDA rulings are
allowed to stand, it will be illegal to
claim or even imply that vitamin supplements
derived from organic sources are superior to
those that are synthesized. They will even
forbid the manufacturer to identify the
source on the label. Thus, truth in
packaging is declared illegal by the FDA!
There have been many other medical
controversies centered around cancer
therapy. Perhaps the best publicized of
these was Dr. Andrew Ivy’s chemical formula
known as Krebiozen and the Hoxsey Treatment
developed in the 1920s by Harry Hoxsey. The
Laetrile controversy is different from
these, however, in that the formula has not
been kept a secret. Its chemical composition
and its action have been openly described
and willingly shared with all who express an
interest. There are no enforceable patents
on its manufacture and, consequently, no
profits to its discoverer. Dr. Krebs had no
proprietary interest in Laetrile, never
received payment for the formula, and never
refused to share his technical knowledge
with anyone who desired to manufacture it.
His standard reply to all such inquiries
was: "Laetrile is the property of all
mankind."
A significant aspect of the Laetrile
controversy, therefore, is that the
proponents have nothing to gain, while the
detractors have much to lose. Admittedly, as
long as Laetrile is forced by the FDA into a
black-market operation, those who
manufacture and distribute it can be
expected to derive substantial profits.
These profits, however, merely will reflect
the necessary and fair price paid by those
who are not willing to run the risk of
imprisonment to those who are. When public
opinion forces the legalization of Laetrile,
the price will plummet. After that, there
will be a transition period of a few years
in which vitamin B17 will be manufactured in
various concentrated forms in order to treat
existing cancer victims. This, too, will be
a source of income, but, in the absence of
government restrictions favoring any single
manufacturer, others will be attracted into
the field and the resulting competition will
bring the cost of injectable B17 even
lower—perhaps to less than one-tenth of
present levels. The cost of low dosage
tablets for routine, daily use probably will
drop to about the same as that of any other
vitamin.
The most encouraging part of all, however,
is that, even if government were to succeed
in totally stopping the supply of Laetrile,
we still could obtain all the vitamin B17 we
need to maintain normal health, and we could
do so quite legally by selecting the
appropriate food. It is abundant in the
seeds of apricots, peaches, plums,
nectarines, cherries, berries, and apples.
It is found in lima beans, bean sprouts,
millet, and many other foods. It may take a
little effort to obtain it, but no
government action—short of imprisonment
itself—can stop us from doing so.
Once the story of vitamin B17 is widely
known, once nitriloside-bearing seeds are
ground up and sprinkled over our foods as a
routine seasoning, the battle against cancer
finally will be won. In the wake of that
battle, unfortunately, there will be many
casualties: men and women who learned the
truth too late. Some, mercifully, may be
brought back from the edge of the grave for
an uncertain time, but they will bear the
disfiguring scars of their wounds from
surgery and radiation. They may be relieved
from pain, but no amount of B17 can repair
their bodies or return them to total health.
Others more fortunate, who are treated
sooner and who escape the damage of orthodox
therapy, will return to a normal and
productive life, fulfilling their expected
years. In all such cases, however,
maintenance doses will be required to
prevent the body’s metabolic barrier from
breaking once again at the weak spot of its
old rupture.
In time, the generation so affected will die
off, and, with it, the last vestiges of the
twentieth century’s greatest medical
catastrophe will disappear into the history
books.
But what of
the other cancer—the malignancy that
is now spreading through the body-politic
and destroying its substance —what of that?
Are we to save our health only so that we
and our children can become more productive
serfs?
There are many
parallels that can be drawn between cancer
and totalitarianism. Government, for
example, is much the same as trophoblast.
Like its counterpart in our bodies,
government is both normal and necessary. No
civilization could come to birth without it.
It is a vital part of the life cycle.
Government,
however, just like the trophoblast, must be
held in check to prevent it from growing,
feeding upon, and ultimately destroying its
host—the civilization itself. Every dead
civilization of the past either has been
killed quickly by physical trauma—the
military force of invading conquerors—or has
died the slow death of cancer as the
internal trophoblast of government grew to
monstrous proportions and gradually consumed
all there was. In the end, the civilization
and the cancerous government were buried
together in a common grave.
In biological
terms, the trophoblast cell is held in check
by the intrinsic action of the
pancreatic enzymes and by the extrinsic
action of vitamin B17. If either is
deficient, the body is in danger. If both
are weak, the trophoblast will grow and
tragedy is certain. In terms of society,
government is held in check by the intrinsic
action of constitutional safeguards such as
the division of political powers and other
built-in checks and balances. It is
restrained also by the extrinsic action of
public awareness and vigilance over elected
officials. If either is deficient, the
civilization is in danger. If both are weak,
government will grow and the civilization
will die.
The analogy is
devastating. It is obvious that both our
intrinsic and extrinsic defenses are in bad
repair, if functioning at all. Supreme Court
decisions have toppled the constitutional
restraints against federal centralism, and
the public now appears to be mesmerized by
the dazzling crystal pendant of collectivism
swinging from the fingers of Big Brother.
And the totalitarian trophoblast is running
wild.
Can our
civilization be saved? Or has the cancer
progressed too far? That is the urgent
question asked by every cancer
victim. And the answer is the same: "We
won’t know until we try"
In all
honesty, the prospects do not look good. The
disease is far advanced and, as of right
now, there is little chance of an immediate
halt to the process. Our only course of
attack is to begin to build up the natural
defenses as rapidly as possible,
particularly the extrinsic factor of public
awareness and vigilance over elected
officials. The intrinsic task of rebuilding
constitutional safeguards will take a little
longer but will follow as consequence of our
efforts in the primary field.
What we must
do, therefore, is to manufacture the vitamin
of an aroused public opinion and inject it
as rapidly and in as large doses as possible
into the body-politic. The heaviest doses
should be injected directly into the tumor
itself. Let the federal
government—particularly the FDA—feel the
powerful surge of this substance. It will be
like selective poison to the malignant cell.
Specifically,
the FDA must be cut back to size. There is
no logic in granting our servant government
the power to tell us what medicines or foods
we may use. The only legitimate
function of government in this field is to
police labeling and packaging to insure that
the public is correctly informed on what it
buys. If the substance is dangerous, then it
should be labeled as such but not withheld.
In other words, give the people the facts
and let them decide for themselves. Ninety
percent of the present function of the FDA
should be abolished!
After the
tumor has begun to wither at the primary
site of the FDA, our vitamin of public
opinion then must be injected into the
bloodstream of Congress and allowed to
circulate freely into every other agency and
bureau of government as well. All of them
are just as riddled with the growing
malignancy of despotism as is the FDA, and
each of them needs to be brought back under
control.
With
sufficient effort and sacrifice, the patient
can be saved. Whether or not our
freedoms can be fully restored is
another matter. They probably cannot. The
cancer of collectivism already is too far
advanced, and the damage is too great to
permit it. Our people have lost the spirit
of independence and self-discipline that are
prerequisites for full recovery. They have
grown soft and dependent upon government
subsidies, welfare payments, health care,
retirement benefits, unemployment
compensation, food stamps, tax-supported
loans, price-supports, minimum-wage laws,
government schools, public transportation,
and federal housing. Realistically, it is
too much to expect that they will
voluntarily give up any of these even if
they know that, in the long run, it would be
better for the system and for them.
They still will not do it.
Conditions in
America today were clearly seen almost two
hundred years ago by the French philosopher,
de Tocqueville. Viewing the seeds of
centralism sown into our infant government
even then, de Tocqueville predicted that the
proud and defiant American would, in time,
come to view government intervention in his
daily life, not as acts of "despotism" which
would drive him to another rebellion, but as
"benefits" bestowed by a kind and
paternalistic state. Describing the effect
of such a system upon any people who embrace
it, he wrote:
The will of man is not shattered,
but softened, bent and guided. Men
are seldom forced by it to act, but
they are constantly restrained from
acting. Such a power does not
destroy but it prevents existence;
it does not tyrannize, but it
compresses, enervates, extinguishes
and stupefies a people, till each
nation is reduced to nothing better
than a flock of timid and
industrious animals, of which the
government is the shepherd.1
1. Alexis de Tocqueville,
Democracy in America,
Vol. II (New York: Alfred Knopf,
1945),
p. 291.
With the
reading of these lines from out of the past,
one is forcibly reminded of the words of
Fred Gates, the original genius behind
Rockefeller’s tax-exempt foundations: "In
our dreams we have limitless resources, and
the people yield themselves with perfect
docility to our molding hands."
The cancer of
collectivism can be halted, but the damage
it has already done cannot be repaired. Our
civilization can be restored to a high
degree of political health and vigor.
Nevertheless, we will have to live with our
wounds and our scars.
But that is
not so bad as it may seem at first. Like any
cancer patient, we come eventually to the
realization that it could be a lot worse.
Instead of bemoaning the fact that we may
never regain the vigor of our past, we can
rejoice over the opportunity just to retain
life. Considering the alternative of a
lifeless existence in the dull, collective
monotone of Orwell’s 1984, we should
thank God for this opportunity to salvage as
much of our freedoms as we still have.
Instead of giving up in despair and
surrendering our bodies and our minds to the
ravages of a progressive and painful end, we
should leap at the chance—any chance—to
isolate the tumor of totalitarianism and
rebuild what we can of our natural defenses
against its spread. Any other course is
unconscionable and stupid.
Let us,
therefore, get down to specifics. All the
rhetoric in the world is useless unless it
is coupled with a tangible and realistic
plan of action. Let us close this study by
outlining at least the main features of that
plan.
As mentioned
previously, the FDA should be knocked down
to size. Perhaps it should be abolished
altogether. If its function were merely to
guarantee honest labeling and packaging,
there is no reason why some other agency
such as that in charge of standards,
weights, and measures couldn’t handle the
job.
Would this
result in a new wave of drug tragedies,
another crop of thalidomide babies? Of
course not. Let us suppose that the FDA had
only the power to require the label and
literature of thalidomide to state that
"this drug is dangerous for use by women
during periods of potential pregnancy and
may result in deformed infants." Thalidomide
is available only through the prescription
of a licensed physician. No physician would
prescribe such a drug without first
considering this warning, and it is likely
that he would not prescribe it to any woman
of child-bearing age. But the decision would
be his based upon full knowledge of the
facts, which is the way it should be.
Thalidomide received a great deal of
publicity, but it is no different than
hundreds of other drugs that may now be
obtained through prescription. If one is
banned, they all should be banned. The FDA,
however, does not need the power to ban
these drugs in order to protect our health.
Honest labeling is adequate.
Nicholas von
Hoffman, commentator for the Washington
Post, confirmed this point when he
wrote:
It would be very hard to show that
the FDA’s power to ban or regulate
the sale of a compound has worked to
protect the public. Even in a
celebrated case like thalidomide,
what was important was warning
pregnant women they’d jeopardize
their babies if they took it. The
power to insist on proper labeling
so doctor and patients are
adequately warned about the
properties of drugs is what’s
decisive. But the power to forbid
something’s use, to stop research,
why should the government have such
power? To protect us? But we’re not
wards of the state, we’re citizens.1
1. "And if
it
Works The Washington
Post, June 4,
1971.
Nor is
Mr. von Hoffman alone. Writing in
Newsweek, Milton Friedman says:
The 1962 amendments to the Food,
Drug, and Cosmetic Act should be
repealed. They are doing vastly more
harm than good. To comply with them,
FDA officials must condemn innocent
people to death. In the present
climate of opinion, this conclusion
will seem shocking to most of
you—better to attack motherhood or
even apple pie. Shocking it is—but
that does not keep it from also
being correct. Indeed, further
studies may well justify the even
more shocking conclusion that the
FDA itself should be abolished.2
2. "Frustrating
Drug Advancement," Newsweek,
Jan. 8; 1973,
p. 49.
Abolish the
FDA? But who would enforce standards of
sanitation in preparation of food and drugs?
Since when do
free men need government to tell them how to
be clean? To start off, the FDA’s
performance in that field has been far from
a paragon of excellence. But more important,
any manufacturer in his right mind would
naturally seek the highest possible
sanitation standards if for no other reason
than to avoid lawsuits from customers. One
can be sure also that inspectors from
companies that underwrite the manufacturer’s
product liability insurance have more than a
casual interest in their client’s sanitation
record. Since violation of the underwriter’s
standards can result in higher premiums or
in cancellation of the insurance, the
manufacturer would be a fool to ignore them.
At any rate, local health agencies are more
than adequate for the job of maintaining
sanitation standards. Federal inspectors are
no more proficient than state, county, or
city inspectors, and there is no need for
such wasteful duplication.
Contamination
and adulteration of food-and-drug products
undoubtedly would occur from time to time.
But they also occur under the present system
of FDA guardianship. The truth is that the
FDA serves no reasonable or necessary
function in this field and should be
withdrawn from it completely.
It is time to
stop this nonsense about humbly petitioning
the FDA to grant us permission to test
Laetrile, to sell apricot kernels, to take
high-potency vitamins, or to do any of a
hundred other specific things which
it prohibits. Asking the FDA to approve
these is like asking the wolf to okay the
lunch in Little Red Riding Hood’s basket. It
is time we realize that the FDA has no
business in this field at all. We must stop
asking meekly for permission and close the
outfit down!
How is this to
be accomplished? Returning again to the
trophoblast analogy, our first task is to
manufacture and inject the extrinsic factor
which is the vitamin of public opinion. The
intrinsic factor will be the re-building of
legislative, judicial, and constitutional
safeguards. Within this category, our most
immediate work is in the courts. We must
provide legal defense for those physicians
and distributors who have the courage to
risk their reputations and their livelihoods
(to say nothing of a jail sentence) by
standing against the bureaucracy. Of
necessity, however, the legal battles fought
on their behalf initially must be on narrow
grounds and defensive in nature. The primary
thrust of most of these cases will be merely
to prove that the use of vitamin B17 does
not in fact violate the law.
The objective
here is not to change the law, (for laws are
not changed in court) but merely to keep the
defendant out of jail. Even if these cases
are successful, however, they do not really
solve the problem, for the FDA is still
fully operable and free to rewrite its
rulings, to tighten them up so as to
override the court’s decision. Sooner or
later, the doctor or the distributor will be
under arrest again.
Ultimately,
the law must be changed. At the very least,
that means legislation specifically aimed at
removing the FDA from jurisdiction over
vitamins. Another approach might be a
lawsuit on behalf of cancer victims
challenging the constitutionality of the
infringement upon their rights. Both lines
of attack should be launched.
The final
contest, however, will be fought on the
larger battleground of whether the
government should have any power over
our food, medicine, or health. It will be
only around this question that the many
issues will lose their fuzzy edges and a
chance for a real victory will become
possible.
In order to
abolish the FDA, or at least to restrict its
operation, we will need either legislation
or a constitutional amendment. We should
pursue both.
The
possibility of a constitutional revision is
not as extreme as it may sound. In fact, Dr.
Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia—one of the
signers of the Declaration of Independence,
a member of the Continental Congress,
Surgeon-General of Washington’s armies, and
probably the foremost American physician of
his day—had urged his colleagues to include
"medical liberty" in the First Amendment at
the time it was drafted. He wrote:
Unless we put medical freedom into
the Constitution, the time will come
when medicine will organize into an
undercover dictatorship.... To
restrict the art of healing to one
class of men and deny equal
privileges to others will constitute
the Bastille of medical science. All
such laws are un-American and
despotic… and have no place in a
republic.... The Constitution of
this Republic should make special
provision for medical freedom as
well as religious freedom.1
1. As
quoted by Bealle,
The New Drug
Story, op. cit., p.
188, and by Dr.
Dean Burk in
The Cancer News
Journal.
May/June, 1973.
p. 4.
There are
more human beings alive right now than
the sum total of all those born from the
beginning of time to the beginning of
this century. If we fail to heed Dr.
Rush’s advice; if we fail to realize
that medical freedom is just as
important as the other freedoms
guaranteed by the Bill of Rights; then,
before this century is over, more human
beings will have died of cancer than the
total of all men who have ever lived on
this earth prior to that time. And this
will happen in a century during which
the solution was known and
written in the scientific record.
In the days
ahead, the controversy over medical freedom
will intensify. Let it come. The reputations
of honest men will be tarnished by the
medical establishment and the media, and
respectable business ventures will be
ruined. So be it. Innocent men will be tried
before corrupt or intimidated judges and
thrown into prison. It is maddening but it
cannot be helped, for the battle is not of
our choosing. Our only alternatives are to
resist or not to resist—to fight back with
all we have or to surrender and perish. Yes,
the battle is grim, but the stakes are high.
We must not be intimidated by the strength
of the opposition and, above all, we must
not fail. Someone has to stand up
against the bureaucracy. And we are the ones
who must do it!
You and your
family now may become secure from the threat
of cancer. But that is only because someone
else has taken the time to bring these facts
to your attention. Can you do less for
others?
Join with us
in this gigantic undertaking. Make this your
personal crusade. Dedicate yourself to
freedom of choice, not just in cancer
therapy, but in all spheres of human
activity. Once the government is off our
backs, then all things become possible. The
biological and political trophoblasts will
be conquered together and man, at last, will
inherit the bountiful world of health and
freedom that is his birthright—a
world without cancer.
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