Ideas or worldviews that challenge the dominant view have always been ignored—or if the spokesman talks too loudly—censored and punished. The history of cancer treatments is full of such stories. One such alternative cancer treatments was laetrile. Laetrile (aka amygdalin) is a natural compound found in apricot pits and other fruit seeds. A 2014 documentary written and directed by Eric Merola, Second Opinion: Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering, follows the story of science writer Ralph W. Moss, PhD, who broke the story about laetrile research conducted at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in the 1970s.
At that time, as many as 70,000 patients a year were traveling to Tijuana, Mexico, where laetrile was legal. Desiring “to curb the public’s ‘false hope,'” Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center asked Dr. Kanematsu Sugiura, a retired research scientist, to study laetrile. Dr. Sugiura, a co-founder of cancer chemotherapy, had an impeccable reputation as a researcher.
Shortly, after joining Sloan-Kettering’s public relations department in 1974, Ralph Moss interviewed Dr. Sugiura for a biographical sketch. During the interview, Dr. Sugiura shared his research notes on laetrile. That data showed that laetrile prevented lung metastasis and improved overall health in a mouse strain that did not respond to chemotherapy. Only 10-20 percent of mice receiving laetrile injections developed lung metastasis compared to 80-90 percent of the control mice that received saline injections. While laetrile did not cure cancer, it did stop tumor growth for some weeks.
Leaders of Sloan-Kettering met with medical authorities from the National Cancer Institute, Food and Drug Administration, and American Cancer Society in July 1974, and asked permission to conduct controlled human clinical trial in collaboration with doctors in Mexico. The US government refused permission. Sloan-Kettering vice-president Chester Stock, MD, told Medical World News that laetrile was “negative in all animal systems tested.”
Ralph Moss was disturbed by the negative public statements made by Sloan-Kettering officials that blatantly contradicted Dr. Sugiura’s research. Convinced of a cover-up, he co-founded Second Opinion, a whistle blower group that produced a newsletter in which Sloan-Kettering employees anonymously criticized various aspects of the institution, including the cover-up of Dr. Suguira’s work. Moss finally went public in November 1977, when he represented Second Opinion at a press conference, and was fired the next day.
Townsend Letter has published articles about many unconventional cancer treatments over the years, including orthomolecular vitamin protocols used by Linus Pauling, Ewan Cameron, and Abram Hoffer; Nicholas Gonzalez’s metabolic diet and enzyme treatment; William Coley’s toxins (the first example of immunotherapy); Gerson therapy; and more. All have been shunned at some point. How do we know that censorship isn’t hiding valuable information about disease treatment?
Jule Klotter
