A quick History of B17

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A quick History of B17

 

In 1535 the French explorer Jacques Cartier and his expedition were frozen in

the ice off the St. Lawrence river. 25 of the 110 crew were dead from scurvy and

the rest were due to follow. At this point a friendly Native American came

forward with a potion made from the needles and bark of the white pine, rich in

ascorbic acid, or vitamin C. This produced a dramatic recovery.

 

When Cartier returned to Europe and reported to the medical mandarins they were

amused by the 'witch-doctor cures of ignorant savages' and went on with their

search for mystery toxins and bugs lurking in the dark hold of the ships. 260

years later, after the British Navy alone had lost over a million men to scurvy,

the practice of carrying oranges, lemons and limes on board ship led to the

'limeys' ruling the waves.

 

Scurvy - vitamin C; pellagra - vitamin B3; night-blindness - vitamin A; rickets

- vitamin D; beri beri - vitamin B1; pernicious anemia - vitamin B12. It should

have needed no great intellectual leap to suspect that another chronic,

metabolic disease - cancer - might also be a vitamin-specific deficiency

disease.

 

The use of certain fruit kernels in the treatment of cancer goes back to the

Emperor herbalist Shen Nung in the 28th century BC. 'Bitter almond water'

features in the writings of the physicians of ancient Egypt, Arabia, Rome and

Greece. Celsus, Galen, Scribonious Largus, Pliny the Elder, Avicenna and

Marcellus Empiricus all used preparations based on the seeds of the bitter

almond, apricot, peach etc.1

 

Purified amygdalin was first prepared in 1830 by the French scientists Roubiquet

and Bontron-Chariand. In 1837, the German scientists von Liebig and Woehier

found that amygdalin can be split by a specific enzyme into hydrogen cyanide,

benzaldehyde, and glucose. The first recorded use of " Laetrile " to treat cancer

was reported in 1845 by T. Inosmetzeff, a professor at the Imperial University

of Moscow. (6,7) A young male cancer patient of 20 received approximately 46,000

mg of amygdalin over a period of 3 months, and was still alive 3 years later. A

women of 48, with extensive metastasis from a primary right ovarian tumor,

received varying amounts of amygdalin over a period of years and had survived II

years at the time of the report. No sustained pharmacologic harm was seen with

these patients. In the modern era Laetrile was " rediscovered " in the 1940s by

the Krebs. By the late 1940s - early 1950s, use of Laetrile to treat cancer had

spread quietly around the world. Early dosages

were extremely modest - only 50 - 100 mg by intravenous injection, with total

patient dosage then seldom exceeding 2 gms. By the 1960s the Krebs were

recommending 30 gms total Laetrile dosage, spread over a 10-30 day treatment

course. (7) By the 1980-90s, intravenous dosages up to 9 gms, with total patient

dose reaching 2-300gms, was not uncommon. (8) Classical Laetrile proponents,

such as Krebs, Dean Burk, and P. Binzel, do not consider Laetrile a literal

cancer cure, however, anymore than insulin injections are a " cure " for diabetes.

Rather, Laetrile is considered a cancer control which will need to be taken

indefinitely, in oral form, after the original " cancer crisis " is brought under

control. This exactly parallels the situation of vitamin deficiency diseases,

where intravenous injections may be used to bring a severe vitamin deficiency

disease (e.g. pellagra or beri-beri) under control, with higher-than-normal oral

doses needed indefinitely thereafter to prevent relapse, The

typical oral Laetrile dose used after intravenous injections is 1 to 2 gms/day.

(8) Yet Krebs suggested that 50-100 mg of Laetrile/day might suffice to prevent

cancer in normal healthy adults. (9)

 

The " proof " of Laetrile's efficacy in preventing/controlling cancer has come

from 3 different sets of data: epidemiological, animal tests, and human clinical

use by experienced pro-laetrile doctors. The epidemiological evidence for

Laetrile is controversial, like all epidemiological evidence, and provides only

strong suggestions, not incontrovertible proof.

 

Ernst Krebs PhD proposed that cancer was a deficiency disease: the deficiency

being the factor linked for so long with cancer therapy. He identified the

substance as part of the nitriloside group specifically, amygdaline, a

cyanogenic glycoside first isolated, from the bitter almond, prunus amygdalus

amara, in 1830 by the French chemists Robiquet and Boutron-Charland. Its

chemical structure is D(1)-mandelonitrile-B-D-glucosido-6-6-B-glucoside, as

recorded in the Merck Index, 1976.

 

Toxicologically, amygdaline falls between Class 1 and Class 2, 2 which means it

is virtually non-toxic. This compares with saccharin, between Class 3 and Class

4 and most 'chemotherapy': Class 6 - super toxic.

The Hunzas, a cancer-free society in the Himalayas , consume up to forty apricot

kernels as an after-dinner snack. Coupled with the rest of their amygdaline-rich

diet this constitutes an ingestion of 50 to 70 milligrams of the substance per

day.

 

According to Krebs: 'There are many of us in the western world who do not ingest

this amount in the course of an entire year.'

 

Traditional Eskimos, the Hopi and Navajo tribes, the Abkhasians of the Caucasus

Mountains and other notably cancer-free groups have amygdaline-rich diets.

 

After taking into account the required factors, Krebs allocated his substance

the next available number on the vitamin B index: 17. He named his concentrated

amygdaline preparation, Laetrile.

 

As many of the world's cancer-free societies are outside of the polluted

environment and distinctly advantaged in the quest to remain healthy, a group of

Americans began, in the 1950s, to test Krebs' theory:

 

'For over two decades there has been a steadily-growing group of people who have

accepted the vitamin theory of cancer and who have altered their diets

accordingly. They represent all walks of life, all ages, both sexes, and reside

in almost every advanced nation of the world. It is estimated that there are

many thousands in the United States alone. It is significant, therefore, that

after starting and maintaining a diet rich in vitamin B17, none of these people

have ever been known to contract cancer.'3

 

Dr. Dean Burk, then head of the NCI, said he had been contacted, during the

space of 12 months, by at least 750 people, including many MD physicians most of

whom were 'using it (B17) merely with prevention of development of cancer in

view.'4

 

One of the first doctors to use Laetrile in the control of cancer was Dr.

Maurice Kowan. This landed him in court in Los Angeles . The prosecutor told the

jury: 'This is not a kindly old man. This is the most thoroughly evil person the

imagination can concoct...This man has to be stopped. He is very dangerous. The

way to stop him is a guilty verdict.'5 Dr Kowan was heavily fined and, at the

age of 70, sentenced to two months in prison.

 

The basis used by the cancer mafia for the attack on Dr. Kowan was a falsified

report produced by two doctors, Garland and MacDonald in 1953. The two, who had

ideal credentials by way of their being involved in surgery and radiation and in

the promotion of cigarettes as a health measure, produced a report which stated

that no evidence of anti-cancer changes were observed by the consultants using

Laetrile: a report found, later, to be demonstrably fraudulent but which has

been quoted religiously by vested cancer interests.

 

Nemesis took her revenge in appropriate fashion on the two, one with lung cancer

and one in a fire suspected as being caused by a cigarette.

 

Dr. John A. Richardson began to use B17 in the summer of 1971. His first patient

was the sister of one of his nurses: a case of advanced malignant melanoma of

the arm. She had been given around six weeks to live with a little longer if she

had the arm amputated.

 

Amygdaline was administered and almost immediately the lesions began to heal.

Within two months her arm had returned to normal…'5

 

The woman was also a diabetic who, after the treatment, controlled her disease

without insulin. When she returned to her original doctor he still wanted to

amputate: she declined the offer.

 

References:

 

1. The Cancer Syndrome. Moss Grove Press 1982

 

2. US Reg. of Toxic Effects Chem. Subs. 1976

 

3. World Without Cancer Griffin Amer. Media '80

 

4. Letter to Congressman Lou Frey 30 5 1972

 

5. Laetrile Case Histories Bantam Books 77

 

6) Inoserntzeff, T. (1845) Gazette Medicale de Paris, 13: 577-82.

 

7) Inoserntzeff, T. (1846) Jour Chirurgie und Augenheilkunde, 35: 7-28.

 

8) Binzel, P.E. Alive and Well. Westlake Village, CA: American Media, 1994

 

9) Steffanson, V. Cancer: Disease of Civilization? NYC: Hill and Wang, 1960.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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