"In summoning even the wisest of physicians to our aid, it is probable 
      that he is relying upon a scientific 'truth', the error of which will become 
      obvious in just a few years' time." Marcel Proust
    21st century medicine boasts a number of treatments that are actually very 
      dangerous to human health, none more so than for cancer.
    May this short report reach the many thousands of people currently undergoing 
      conventional cancer treatment.
    May it also reach the many thousands of doctors, physicians, nurses and 
      carers who every day, are innocently inflicting only serious harm in the 
      name of conventional cancer care.
    Let the countdown begin.
    Let there soon be an end to...
    Death by Doctoring - Tod durch Doktorhand
    englisches Original  , 
      deutsche Fassung
, 
      deutsche Fassung 
      
      This movie is dedicated to Clara Corriher, who like untold millions 
      placed blind faith in the cancer industry. After destroying her physically 
      and mentally (ie. "chemo-brain"), Clara's oncologist sent her 
      away to a hospice. Clara's oncologist, Nick, was unwilling to watch her 
      die. So she was kicked out of the hospital, even though more than 50% of 
      the beds were free. The hospice staff put her into a drug-induced coma, 
      so that Clara would not burden them. They finished her off with complete 
      starvation and dehydration. They re-drugged her whenever she awoke 
      enough to ask for help. Family and friends were told to ignore her gasping 
      and gurgling sounds. Such treatment is considered normal, even noble, by 
      those involved. Starving someone to death passes for "humane treatment" 
      in the United States, and it is always preferable to trying alternatives.
    
    Cancer: the good, the bad and the ugly
    Steven Ransom, Credence Publications
    
    Every year in the UK, 200,000 people are diagnosed with cancer and 152,500 
    people die. [
1] In the US, the annual death rate for this disease is 
    approximately 547,000.[
2] These deaths are recorded as cancer deaths, 
    but how many of these deaths are really attributable to the disease itself? 
    How many deaths should in fact be recorded as 'death by doctoring'? When we 
    consider that conventional treatment consists almost entirely of radiation, 
    chemotherapy and the long-term application of toxic pharmaceuticals, treatments 
    which are all well known for their life-threatening side-effects, then the 
    question becomes all the more legitimate. On chemotherapy for instance, note 
    the following:
    
    
"Most cancer patients in this country die of chemotherapy. Chemotherapy 
    does not eliminate breast, colon, or lung cancers. This fact has been documented 
    for over a decade, yet doctors still use chemotherapy for these tumors." 
    Allen Levin, MD UCSF Lynes: 'The Healing of Cancer', 
    Marcus Books, 1990
    
    The extraordinary evidence to substantiate Levin's observations plus many 
    other damning statements on conventional cancer treatments are presented for 
    the reader in the following pages. We examine the much-publicised story of 
    UK media personality, the late John Diamond, who opted for conventional treatment. 
    What does his story tell us? John was known for his critical attitude towards 
    many of the more popular alternative therapies. We look at some aspects of 
    the alternative approach and ask if his criticisms were entirely undeserved. 
    We hear from those within the cancer establishment itself who cite the conventional 
    
cut, burn and dissolve techniques as ugly and inhumane and from those 
    who seriously question the amounts of money being invested in conventional 
    cancer today given the depressingly low recovery rate. In the UK alone, £2.8billion 
    a year is spent in the conventional cancer emporium. That's roughly £6,800,000 
    a day. US spending on cancer is ten times higher.
    
    We also hear from those who defied conventional wisdom and opted for non-toxic, 
    non-conventional cancer treatments, with remarkable results. And no, we are 
    not talking dolphin or pyramid therapy. From the known range of anti-cancer 
    treatments available, this story focuses on the naturally occurring Vitamin 
    B17, Vitamin C and the supporting role of nutrition. Vitamin B17 in particular 
    has been attracting a great deal of attention recently, despite the concerted 
    efforts of the world-wide cancer establishment to suppress or distort all 
    the positive reporting on this vitamin.
    
    Some may baulk at this accusation. We must realise however, that with global 
    spending on conventional cancer running into the hundreds of billions of pounds 
    and dollars annually, any news of a successful anti-cancer treatment extracted 
    from the simple apricot kernel could do some serious damage to the wealth 
    of the mighty Cancer Inc. In the following pages, we read the testimonies 
    and evidence in support of this charge.
    
    But first, by way of introduction to the subject of 'death by doctoring', 
    we travel back a few hundred years, to the bedside of King Charles II, where 
    fourteen of the highest physicians in the land are earnestly 'reviving' the 
    king from a stroke.
    
    
King Charles II, 1685
    Curiously, his strength seemed to wane
    "The king was bled to the extent of a pint from a vein in his right 
    arm. Next, his shoulder was cut into and the incised area was sucked of an 
    additional 8oz of blood. An emetic and a purgative were administered followed 
    by a second purgative followed by an enema containing antimone, sacred bitters, 
    rock salt, mallow leaves, violets, beetroot, camomile flowers, fennel seeds, 
    linseed, cinnamon, cardamom seed, saffron, cochineal and aloes. The king's 
    scalp was shaved and a blister raised. A sneezing powder of hellebore was 
    administered. A plaster of burgundy pitch and pigeon dung was applied to the 
    feet. Medicaments included melon seeds, manna, slippery-elm, black cherry 
    water, lime flowers, lily of the valley, peony, lavender, and dissolved pearls. 
    As he grew worse, forty drops of extract of human skull were administered, 
    followed by a rallying dose of Raleigh's antidote. Finally Bezoar Stone was 
    given. Curiously, his Majesty's strength seemed to wane after all these interventions 
    and as the end of his life seemed imminent, his doctors tried a last ditch 
    attempt by forcing more Raleigh's mixture, pearl julep and ammonia down the 
    dying King's throat. Further treatment was rendered more difficult by the 
    king's death."  [
3]
    
    We can be sure that the physicians gathered around the King's bed were all 
    leaders in their particular field - royalty and presidents do not settle for 
    anything less. But as Proust observed, with hindsight, we can now see the 
    hideous error of their therapeutics. Today, the skull-drops, the ammonia and 
    the pigeon dung have long since disappeared from the conventional arsenal, 
    but what will we say in a few years' time when we look back on the 'highly 
    respected' cancer therapeutics of 2002? Will we dare to venture that there 
    is nothing new under the sun?
    
    
John Diamond, 2001
    Have we really progressed much further?
    "He's been poisoned, blasted, had bits lopped off him, been in remission, 
    felt lumps grow again, been given shreds of hope, had hope removed." 
    Nicci Gerrard, Sunday Observer, 14.5.2001
    
    Many thousands of people were touched by John Diamond's regular Times newspaper 
    column, giving stark and brutal insight into living with throat cancer. In 
    a witty and very down-to-earth manner, John's remarkable column explored numerous 
    life-with-cancer issues, including the ups and considerably more downs in 
    body and mind during radiation treatment, the effects of his illness upon 
    the wider family, the rediscovery of everyday wonders previously taken for 
    granted and his distaste for numerous cancer clichés such as 'brave 
    John' and 'staying positive', replying, 
"I am not brave. I did not 
    choose cancer. I am just me, dealing with it."  and 
"Whenever 
    somebody told me how good a positive attitude would be for me, what they really 
    meant was how much easier a positive attitude would make it for them." 
    He was also well-known for his castigation of almost all non-orthodox 
    treatments and for his willingness to submit to all that the medical orthodoxy 
    had to offer -  a service that even he, a conventional advocate, had 
    variously described as 
'pay-as-you-bleed'  and 
 'surgical 
    muggings'. 
    
    For me, the most memorable images of John were captured in the BBC's Inside 
    Story - a television program that followed John during a year of treatment, 
    showing him clearly suffering. An operation on John's throat caused him to 
    lose his voice, which as a popular broadcaster was a serious blow. Later, 
    through surgery and radiation treatment, he would lose most of his tongue 
    and with it, all sense of taste and the ability to eat properly - a double 
    whammy, given that he was married to TV super-cook Nigella Lawson.
    
    In his extraordinary book '
C: Because Cowards get Cancer Too'  
    (which I could not put down) he wrote:
 "He who didn't realize what 
    a boon an unimpaired voice was, who ate his food without stopping to think 
    about its remarkable flavour, who was criminally profligate with words, who 
    took his wife and children and friends for granted - in short, he who didn't 
    know he was living." [
4]
    
    John died in March 2001, aged 47,  after having suffered dreadfully for 
    four years, In his death, he joined sports presenter Helen Rollason, Bill 
    'Compo' Owen, Ian Dury, Roy Castle, Cardinal Basil Hume, Linda McCartney and, 
    most recently, ex-Beatle George Harrison, plus 152,500 others in the UK who 
    succumb annually to the cancer ordeal. Kate Law of the Cancer Research Campaign 
    said that John's story helped to bring cancer out of the closet in Britain. 
    John's writings certainly brought home the ugliness of conventional treatment. 
    But the more informed in the cancer debate who have read John's columns and 
    book will have recognised that John's writings, brilliant though they were, 
    did not bring out the full story of cancer at all. 
    
    
Fraught with risks and side-effects
    Consider the following statement from cancer specialist, Professor Charles 
    Mathe, who declared: 
    "If I contracted cancer, I would never go to a standard cancer treatment 
    centre. Cancer victims who live far from such centres have a chance." 
    [
5]
    
    Walter Last, writing in The Ecologist, reported recently: 
    "After analysing cancer survival statistics for several decades, Dr Hardin 
    Jones, Professor at the University of California, concluded "...patients 
    are as well, or better off untreated. Jones' disturbing assessment has never 
    been refuted." [
6]
    
    Or what about this?
    
"Many medical oncologists recommend chemotherapy for virtually any 
    tumor, with a hopefulness undiscouraged by almost invariable failure."- 
    Albert Braverman MD 1991 Lancet 1991 337 p901 "Medical Oncology 
    in the 90s"
    
    Or this?
    
"Most cancer patients in this country die of chemotherapy. Chemotherapy 
    does not eliminate breast, colon, or lung cancers. This fact has been documented 
    for over a decade, yet doctors still use chemotherapy for these tumors." 
    - 
Allen Levin, MD UCSF Lynes: 'The Healing of Cancer'
    
    or even this? 
    "Despite widespread use of chemotherapies, breast cancer mortality has 
    not changed in the last 70 years"- 
Thomas Dao, MD NEJM 
    Mar 1975 292 p 707
    
    Chemotherapy is an invasive and toxic treatment able supposedly to eliminate 
    cancer cells. Unfortunately though, its ferocious chemistry is not able to 
    differentiate between the cancerous cell or the healthy cell and surrounding 
    healthy tissue. Put simply, chemotherapy is an intravenously administered 
    poison that kills all living matter. Repeated chemotherapy and repeated radiation 
    treatments kill the whole body by degrees. The immune system is hit particularly 
    hard by chemotherapy and often does not recuperate enough to adequately protect 
    from common illnesses, which can then lead to death. Some 67% of people who 
    die during cancer treatment do so through opportunistic infections arising 
    as a direct result of the immune system failing because of the aggressive 
    and toxic nature of the drugs. [
7] What is this if it is not death 
    by doctoring?
    
    
Death on legs
    The side effects from both chemotherapy  and radiation itself are extensive. 
    They can include dizziness, skin discolouration, sensory loss, audio-visual 
    impairment, nausea, diarrhoea, loss of hair, loss of appetite, leading to 
    malnutrition, loss of sex drive, loss of white blood cells, permanent organ 
    damage, organ failure, internal bleeding, tissue loss, cardio-vascular leakage 
    (artery deterioration) to name but a few. 
    
    Vincristin is a commonly applied chemotherapy agent. It's side-effects 
    include rapid heart-beat, wheezing or difficulty breathing, skin rash or swelling 
    fever or chills, infection unusual bleeding or bruising abdominal or stomach 
    cramps loss of movement or coordination muscle spasms fits, seizures or convulsions. 
    The full list can be viewed at 
http://healthanswers.telstra.com/drugdata/appco/00070129.asp.
    
    Another common drug is 
Actinomycin - D.  The side-effects again 
    are horrendous and can be viewed at 
www.tirgan.com/actinomy.htm. 
    They include hair-loss, anemia, low white platelet count, nausea, sickness, 
    diarrhea and liver failure.
    
    Two years ago, Hazel was diagnosed with breast cancer. She described her chemotherapy 
    as the worst experience of her life. 
"This highly toxic fluid was 
    being injected into my veins. The nurse administering it was wearing protective 
    gloves because it  would burn her skin if just a tiny drip came into 
    contact with it.  I couldn't help asking myself "If such precautions 
    are needed to be taken on the outside, what is it doing to me on the inside?" 
    From 7 pm that evening, I vomited solidly for two and a half days. During 
    my treatment, I lost my hair by the handful, I lost my appetite, my skin colour, 
    my zest for life.  I was death on legs."
    
    For a graphic visual account of the dangers posed by chemotherapy when making 
    contact with bare skin, visit 
chemo 
    spill. This page is not for the faint-hearted.
    
    We shall be hearing more from Hazel later, although under very different circumstances! 
    It seems though that with chemotherapy, we have once again been visited by 
    King Charles' ammonia treatment, and again being administered by the highest, 
    most learned physicians in the land. Similarly, on the toxicity of radiation 
    'therapy', John Diamond noted that it was only when he began his radiation 
    treatment that 
he began to feel really ill.
    
    Senior cancer physician Dr. Charles Moertel of the Mayo Clinic in the US stated:
"Our 
    most effective regimens are fraud with risks and side-effects and practical 
    problems; and after this price is paid by all the patients we have treated, 
    only a small fraction are rewarded with a transient period of usually incomplete 
    tumour regressions...."  [
8]
    
    Dr Ralph Moss is the author of 
"The 
    Cancer Industry" - a shocking expose of the world of conventional 
    cancer politics and practice. Interviewed live on the Laurie Lee show in 1994, 
    Moss stated: 
"In the end, there is no proof that chemotherapy actually 
    extends life in the vast majority of cases , and this is the great lie about 
    chemotherapy, that somehow there is a correlation between shrinking a tumour 
    and extending the life of a patient." [
9]
    
    Scientists based at McGillCancer Centre sent a questionnaire to 118 lung cancer 
    doctors to determine what degree of faith these practicing cancer physicians 
    placed in the therapies they administered. They were asked to imagine that 
    they had cancer and were asked which of six current trials they would choose. 
    79 doctors responded of which 64 (81%) would not consent to be in any trial 
    containing Cisplatin - one of the common chemotherapy drugs they were trialling, 
    (currently achieving worldwide sales of about $110,000,000 a year) and 58 
    of the 79 (73%) found that all the trials in question were unacceptable due 
    to the ineffectiveness of chemotherapyand its unacceptably high degree of 
    toxicity. [
10]
    
    
Chemotherapy - A scientific wasteland
    The following extract is taken from Dr Tim O'Shea at The Doctor Within:
    
    
A German epidemiologist from the Heidelberg/Mannheim Tumor Clinic, Dr. 
    Ulrich Abel has done a comprehensive review and analysis of every major study 
    and clinical trial of chemotherapy ever done. His conclusions should be read 
    by anyone who is about to embark on the Chemo Express. To make sure he had 
    reviewed everything ever published on chemotherapy, Abel sent letters to over 
    350 medical centers around the world asking them to send him anything they 
    had published on the subject. Abel researched thousands of articles: it is 
    unlikely that anyone in the world knows more about chemotherapy than he.
    
    The analysis took him several years, but the results are astounding: Abel 
    found that the overall worldwide success rate of chemotherapy was "appalling" 
    because there was simply no scientific evidence available anywhere that chemotherapy 
    can "extend in any appreciable way the lives of patients suffering from 
    the most common organic cancers." Abel emphasizes that chemotherapy rarely 
    can improve the quality of life. He describes chemotherapy as "a scientific 
    wasteland" and states that at least 80 percent of chemotherapy administered 
    throughout the world is worthless, and is akin to the "emperor's new 
    clothes" - neither doctor nor patient is willing to give up on chemotherapy 
    even though there is no scientific evidence that it works! - Lancet 10 
    Aug 91  No mainstream media even mentioned this comprehensive study: it 
    was totally buried.  [
10a]
    
    
"Success of most chemotherapies is appalling... There is no scientific 
    evidence for its ability to extend in any appreciable way the lives of patients 
    suffering from the most common organic cancer... Chemotherapy for malignancies 
    too advanced for surgery, which accounts for 80% of all cancers, is a scientific 
    wasteland" Dr Ulrich Abel, Stuttgart, 1990
    
    Chemotherapy can cause cancer
    An amazing admission is made on a web page supported by the US National Cancer 
    Institute. Giving the reader information on the treatment of Wilm's Tumour 
    ( a children's cancer which affects the kidney) the site goes on to state:
    
    
When very high doses of chemotherapy are used to kill cancer cells, these 
    high doses can destroy the blood-forming tissue in the bones (the bone marrow). 
    If very high doses of chemotherapy are needed to treat the cancer, bone marrow 
    may be taken from the bones before therapy and frozen until it is needed. 
    Following chemotherapy, the bone marrow is given back through a needle in 
    a vein. This is called autologous bone marrow reinfusion.
    
    Radiation therapy uses x-rays or other high-energy rays to kill cancer 
    cells and shrink tumors. Radiation for Wilms' tumor usually comes from a machine 
    outside the body (external radiation therapy). Radiation may be used before 
    or after surgery and/or chemotherapy.
    
    After several years, some patients develop another form of cancer as a 
    result of their treatment with chemotherapy and radiation. Clinical trials 
    are ongoing to determine if lower doses of chemotherapy and radiation can 
    be used." 
    
    The site can be accessed at 
www.cancerlinksusa.com/kidney/wilm/treatment.htm.
    
    
Separating the wheat from the chaff
    Whilst in the main dismissing the alternativist treatments as he called them, 
    and writing in a generally confident manner about his trust in the conventional 
    medical paradigm, John Diamond would sometimes waver:
    
    
"What if those denying alternativists were right? What if the truth 
    was that no life had ever been saved by radiotherapy and that there was every 
    chance that my cancer would be made worse by it being irradiated? What if 
    the truth as pronounced by a couple of books was that the main effect of cancer 
    surgery was to release stray cancer cells into the body, allowing them to 
    set up home elsewhere?... I turned to the medical books for solace and got 
    none." [
11]
    
    Talk with cancer patients and one soon discovers that many of them report 
    that, although they have an uncomfortable gut feeling that there must somehow 
    be a better way forward, they still find themselves returning to their oncologist 
    for more of the same 'uncomfortable' treatment. Why is this, when there are 
    proven, non-conventional and non-harmful treatments readily available?
    
    Surely, one significant factor is our hereditary submissive attitude to the 
    medical orthodoxy and its archetypal symbolism - the white coat, the stethoscope, 
    the years of knowledge represented in those framed diplomas. Every artefact 
    speaks of us being in the hands of experts. And then, there is the added pressure 
    that can be exerted upon the patient at the point of diagnosis by the cancer 
    physician. In his essay entitled 
The $200 Billion Scam, Jeff Kamen 
    reports on how a cancer diagnosis was delivered to Kathy Keeton, the late 
    wife of PentHouse Magazine magnate, Bob Guiccione:
    
    
"I'm sorry,"  she remembers her doctor saying. "It's 
    a very rare form of the disease. It's the nature of this kind of cancer that 
    it takes off at a gallop, and metastasizes quickly so we need to act quickly 
    and get you started on chemotherapy at once. We have some of the best people 
    in the world in this field. I urge you to let me get you into their expert 
    care. There is no time to waste. This form of cancer is often fatal, and quickly 
    so. Untreated, you have six weeks to live. We really must move aggressively 
    with the chemo." [
11a]
    
    Hazel recalls a similar experience:
    
    
"Basically, I was in shock from the diagnosis. I was sitting there, 
    with the doctor saying that this treatment was the best available and that 
    it was actually a matter of life or death that I received it. My husband was 
    sitting next to me, telling me that I needed to go along with it. I kind of 
    went into a trance and although something didn't feel quite right, I found 
    myself nodding to chemotherapy."
    
    Most definitely, the power imbalance that exists in all doctor-patient relationships, 
    (whence the term 'shrink' in psychiatry) is a key agent in determining the 
    direction of treatment. But there is another factor and a contentious one 
    at that...
    
    
Confusing and conflicting information
    Aside from the very powerful influence exerted by the in-built doctor/patient 
    mechanism, a mass exodus away from conventional cancer treatment towards proven, 
    non-conventional treatments is also being severely hampered by the vast sea 
    of the confusing, conflicting and often bizarre information posing as 'helpful', 
    alternative cancer advice. Take the  Internet for instance. A first-time 
    patient, or someone just plain interested in researching alternative  cancer 
    advice can soon become thoroughly disheartened. Some four thousand links come 
    up under "alternative cancer treatment" alone!
    
    An anxious patient, with no time to separate the wheat from the chaff, is 
    then faced with having to make a series of calculations, based solely on his 
    own somewhat overwhelming Internet search and  a sort of blind, desperate 
    faith that somehow, the well-qualified oncologist has got to be right.  
    
".. and didn't he warn us that there were a lot of internet 'kooks' 
    out there?"  The patient then finds himself right back at square 
    one and by default, the chemotherapy suggested earlier seems overall to be 
    the 'safest' bet. In the view of health reporter Phillip Day, author of 'Cancer: 
    Why We're Still Dying to Know The Truth', 
"Many people just gulp, 
    enter the cancer tunnel and hope they come out the other end."
    
    Genuine treatments do exist!
    But despite the fact that an Internet search can very easily generate confusion, 
    there is actually a wealth of well-documented, credible information available 
    on the web on natural, efficacious treatments for a variety of serious illnesses, 
    including cancer - information that in some instances, has been in existence 
    for many years. But information on such treatments is not widely available 
    in the public domain. Perhaps because genuine medicine has had to fight tremendously 
    hard to be clearly heard. And there are particular reasons why this has been 
    so. Often, it is not so much 
where to look for genuine treatment and 
    advice, as 
how to look for it. Before discussing specific natural cancer 
    treatments in more depth, it is important that we briefly examine the reasons 
    for the current levels of confusion surrounding genuine natural medicine as 
    a whole. Wilful distortion, negative propaganda campaigns, unwitting stupidity 
    - you name it. Conventional and alternative, it's taking place on both sides 
    of the fence. We must learn to read between the lines.
    
    
Fork-tongued drug merchants
    In its long, hard battle for proper recognition, genuine natural treatments 
    for  serious illnesses has always had to fight on two fronts. Firstly, 
    they have had to do battle with those calculating opportunists the fork-tongued 
    drug merchants who use every trick in the book to undermine any genuine treatments 
    not under their own jurisdiction. And they will employ all means possible 
    to disseminate their damaging disinformation as far and wide as possible in 
    order to protect their own lucrative market. No department, private or public, 
    is beyond the reach of their all-consuming influence. Thriller writer John 
    Le Carre spent many years working in the British Foreign Office and knows 
    the politics of big business very well. His most recent book The Constant 
    Gardener, focuses on the corrupt nature of the pharmaceutical industry. In 
    an interview on the subject, Le Carre stated recently:
    
    
"Big Pharma is engaged in the deliberate seduction of the medical 
    profession, country by country, worldwide. It is spending a fortune on influencing, 
    hiring and purchasing academic judgment to a point where, in a few years' 
    time, if Big Pharma continues unchecked on its present happy path, unbought 
    medical opinion will be hard to find." [
12]
    
    In opposition to the incessant drive by big business to dominate our health 
    choices, Dr Matthias Rath provides a concise summary of the primary ethics 
    of the merchant's house:
    
    
"Throughout the 20th century, the pharmaceutical industry has been 
    constructed by investors, the goal being  to replace effective but non-patentable 
    natural remedies with mostly ineffective but patentable and highly profitable 
    pharmaceutical drugs.  The very nature of the pharmaceutical industry 
    is to make money from ongoing diseases. Like other industries, the pharmaceutical 
    industry tries to expand their market - that is to maintain ongoing diseases 
    and  to find new diseases for their drugs. Prevention and cure of diseases 
    damages the  pharmaceutical business and the eradication of common diseases 
    threatens its very existence. 
    
    Therefore, the pharmaceutical industry fights the eradication of any disease 
    at all costs. The pharmaceutical industry itself is the main obstacle, why 
    today's most widespread diseases are further expanding including heart attacks, 
    strokes, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, osteoporosis, and many others. 
    Pharmaceutical drugs are not intended to cure diseases. According to health 
    insurers, over 24,000 pharmaceutical drugs are currently marketed and prescribed 
    without any proven therapeutic value (AOK Magazine 4/98). According to medical 
    doctors associations, the known dangerous side-effects of pharmaceutical drugs 
    have become the fourth leading cause of death after heart  attacks, cancer 
    and strokes (Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA April 15, 1998 
    )
    
    Millions of people and patients around the world are defrauded twice: A major 
    portion of their income is used up to finance the exploding profits of the 
    pharmaceutical industry. In return, they are offered a medicine that does 
    not even cure."  
    
    A number of organisations are currently spearheading the fight against the 
    pharmaceutical industries as they seek to legislate against our free use of 
    vitamins and minerals. If this legislation is passed, it will directly affect 
    
YOU in many ways. A  web site address is included at the end of 
    this article which enables you to quickly and easily register your protest.
    
    Writing in the UK Guardian on Thursday, 7th February, 2002, senior health 
    editor Sarah Bosely reports that:
    
    
"Scientists are accepting large sums of money from drug companies 
    to put their names to articles endorsing new medicines that they have not 
    written - a growing practice that some fear is putting scientific integrity 
    in jeopardy." [
12a]
    
    These supposed guardians of our health are being paid what to say. Said one 
    physician in the article, 
"What day is it today? I'm just working 
    out what drug I'm supporting today." From top to bottom, the delivery 
    system of 21st century conventional healthcare is being bought out and taught 
    to think of treatment and prevention of disease in pharmaceutical terms only.
    
    Aside from the politicking and the big business string-pulling taking place 
    behind the scenes, our minds are also being washed with the constant froth 
    of emotive, unfounded, pro-establishment, populist headlines such as 
Another 
    breakthrough at UCLA! ... (yes... but with mice.)  
It's in the 
    genes! (another £5 million NOW will help us to isolate the gene 
    in 2010... ... perhaps.) 
Excitement at latest oncology findings! (Buoyant 
    opening paragraph, descending into the usual mixture of hope extinguished 
    by caution and the obligatory appeal to the pocket.) 
Cancer vaccine close! 
    (Yes, and close since 1975 actually. But please, continue to give generously, 
    because next time, it could be you!)
    
    And so it goes on. And all the while, the mortality statistics worsen. Yet 
    still, the money -  our money -  just keeps on rolling in. On that 
    note, The Campaign Against Fraudulent Medical Research states:
 "The 
    next time you are asked to donate to a cancer organisation, bear in mind that 
    your money will be used to sustain an industry which has been deemed by many 
    eminent scientists as a qualified failure and by others, as a complete fraud." 
    [
13]
    
    
Mammograms!
    Thank you to Dr Tim O'Shea for highlighting the following very important 
      information on the practice of mammography:
      
      "This is one topic where the line between advertising and scientific 
      proof has become very blurred. As far back as 1976, the American Cancer 
      Society itself and its government colleague the National Cancer Institute 
      terminated the routine use of mammography for women under the age of 50 
      because of its "detrimental" (carcinogenic) effects. More recently, 
      a large study done in Canada on found that women who had routine mammograms 
      before the age of 50 also had increased death rates from breast cancer 
      by 36%. (Miller) Lorraine Day notes the same findings in her video presentation 
      "Cancer Doesn't Scare Me Any More." The reader is directed to 
      these sources and should perhaps consider the opinion of other sources than 
      those selling the procedure, before making a decision.
      
      John McDougall MD has made a thorough review of pertinent literature 
      on mammograms. He points out that the $5-13 billion per year generated 
      by mammograms controls the information that women get. Fear and incomplete 
      data are the tools commonly used to persuade women to get routine mammograms. 
      What is clear is that mammography cannot prevent breast cancer or even the 
      spread of breast cancer. By the time a tumor is large enough to be detected 
      by mammography, it has been there as long as 12 years! It is therefore ridiculous 
      to advertise mammography as "early detection." (McDougall p 114)
      
      The other unsupportable illusion is that mammograms prevent breast cancer, 
      which they don't. On the contrary, the painful compression of breast tissue 
      during the procedure itself can increase the possibility of metastasis by 
      as much as 80%! Dr. McDougall notes that a between 10 and 17% of the time, 
      breast cancer is a self-limiting non-life-threatening type called ductal 
      carcinoma in situ. This harmless cancer can be made active by the compressive 
      force of routine mammography. (McDougall, p105)
      
      Most extensive studies show no increased survival rate from routine screening 
      mammograms. After reviewing all available literature in the world on the 
      subject, noted researchers Drs. Wright and Mueller of the University of 
      British Columbia recommended the withdrawal of public funding for mammography 
      screening, because the "benefit achieved is marginal, and the harm 
      caused is substantial." (Lancet, 1 Jul 1995) The harm they're referring 
      to includes the constant worrying and emotional distress, as well as the 
      tendency for unnecessary procedures and testing to be done based on results 
      which have a false positive rate as high as 50%." (New York Times, 
      14 Dec 1997)[13a]
      
                   ************
      
      Whilst the remit of this article does not extend to a full exploration of 
      the physical harm being exacted by some diagnostic methods and drug treatments, 
      or the corrupting influence that money is exerting over medicine and medical 
      practice, let the reader be assured that conventional medicine has more 
      than its fair share of attendant commercial pressures, and especially so 
      in the world of cancer, as we shall later discover.
      
    
Non-conventional health care
    Aside from the wiles of the merchant, genuine medicine also has always had 
    to do battle with the well-intentioned para-healer, [
14] who unwittingly 
    has the capacity to prove equally as threatening to the cause, but for very 
    different reasons.  The non-conventional medical market place seems to 
    be dominated by those who are able to deliver an admirably coherent deconstruction 
    of the conventional paradigm, but who choose not to apply the same level of 
    intelligent critique to their own often wacky nostrums. As such, we are subject 
    to an equally misguided barrage of pronouncements such as, 
"Submit 
    not to the ravages of chemo. Let White Eagle purge you of those negative energies." Visit 
    a pyramid, a shaman, 
"My sickness is a shamanic gift and calling." 
    [
14a] a cancer 'guide', 
"OK group. Eyes closed. Your cancer 
    is receding. The lump is disintegrating. Envisage the all-consuming fire!" 
    A coat of mud, of seaweed or both, some psycho-surgery, some radionics, this 
    therapy, that therapy and of course, a thousand and one folk remedies, Grandma's 
    trusted 'brain tumour elixir' perhaps, a walnut kernel, perfectly preserved 
    in rainwater, seven drops three times a day.  
    
    Celebrities with the more serious illnesses receive these well-intentioned 
    'tips and tricks' by the sack load. John Diamond was no exception.
    
    
"I've had anecdotal evidence from those who believe in voodoo, the 
    power of the fairy people - yes, really - drinking my own p**s and any number 
    of other remedies... I should put my faith in the Bessarabian radish, the 
    desiccated root of which has been used for centuries by Tartar nomads to cure 
    athlete's foot, tennis elbow and cancer, as detailed in their book Why Your 
    Doctor Hates You And Wants You To Die, review copy enclosed... "[
15]
    
    Notwithstanding the genuine treatments available in the natural cabinet, which 
    we shall discuss very shortly, ahuge number of remedies being sold as 
    'medicine' today contain no sensible methodology, yet amazingly, they are 
    selling very well. No better is this phenomenon illustrated than in the lucrative 
    minor ailments market, where on a daily basis across the world, untold £millions 
    is being spent on pharmacologically inert mixtures and 'essences', producing 
    truly marvellous results with illnesses from which we were going to get better 
    anyway.[
16]
    
    
The dangers of uncritical thinking
    In truth, were the general public to be given clear information on the nature 
    of self-limiting illness and on the wondrous ability of a properly nourished 
    immune system to overcome and repel almost all ills unaided, [a phenomenon 
    rarely discussed in many of the alternative medical texts ] the bottom would 
    fall out of the minor ailments market tomorrow, conventional medicine included. 
    To illustrate that point, the Feb 7th 1991 issue of The New England Journal 
    of Medicine tells us
  "90% of patients who visit doctors 
    have conditions that will either improve on their own or are out 
    of reach of modern medicine's ability to solve." Some non-conventional/alternative 
    therapies claim that their particular remedy helps kick-start the immune system 
    into action. These claims hold no more ground than those fraudulent claims 
    made by the vaccine industry. As if the wondrously intricate immune system 
    needed the finer tinkerings of man to improve upon it! (unless that therapy 
    happens to be sound nutrition, of course.)
    
    Unfortunately though, most of the more awkward questions arising from such 
    a discussion are usually defended, not by answering the actual question itself, 
    but by the therapist appealing to the worthiness of his wider philanthropic 
    goals and to 
'the much greater threat to the global populace' posed 
    by the merchant's house with all its toxic wares, etc., etc. And such is the 
    wholesome, wishful appeal of the literature supporting the therapist's wares, 
    and so honourable are his aims, that all intellectual and therapeutic weaknesses 
    are overlooked in the ensuing fog of bonhomie and he is allowed to continue 
    his practice, unhindered by such tiresome obstacles as intellectual consistency 
    or demands that his practice be made 
'open to fair scrutiny
'. 
    So often, all objectivity is sacrificed in this manner. Donald Gould, author 
    of The Black and White Medicine Show, warns of the dangers we invite by adopting 
    such laissez-faire reasoning:
    
    
"Why not make the most of what the non-conformists have to offer and 
    to hell with uncharitable logic?  There is, I suggest, a powerful reason 
    for rejecting this superficially attractive option.  Truth is a fundamental 
    value. If we accept uncritical thinking in one area of our lives for the sake 
    of convenience or because of the popular appeal of a seductive myth and the 
    short-term comfort to be gained by believing in the unbelievable, or because 
    the false answer lets us pretend we are competently coping with a painful 
    problem we haven't truly tackled, then we are all the more likely to adopt 
    the same strategy in other situations, from dealing with the family, to managing 
    the national economy, and from chairing the parish council to handling arsenals 
    of nuclear weapons.  The result is likely to be unhappy and stands a 
    decent chance of proving a disaster. Irrational beliefs are always dangerously 
    corrupting, even when they only relate to the cause and cure of piles." 
    [
17]
    
    
Reputation is everything
    But what relevance does all this have to the debate on treatments for cancer, 
    you might ask? Where is all of this headed? This has been a necessary diversion 
    firstly, that we might begin to understand some of the frustrations many reasoned 
    thinkers have with the issues raised: and secondly, that we might begin to 
    consider the impact  that such weakened thinking has on genuine natural 
    treatments for disease.  For instance, what damage is secondarily being 
    wrought upon the reputation of the genuine treatments in the cabinet, the 
    ones that can actually heal? Sadly, there is no clear division between the 
    reputation of much of the unregulated alternative health industry and that 
    of the many sensible non-conventional treatments available today. It has all 
    become a horrible blur and is a point of major concern even to the non-orthodox 
    regulatory bodies overseeing the alternative/complementary health movement. 
    The whole arena is fraught with as much vested interests and misunderstandings 
    as conventional health, but commentaries drawing such conclusions even from 
    those concerned bodies sympathetic to the natural approach are viewed as almost 
    heretical and somehow betraying the brotherhood of the alternative heirachy.
    
    Critical debate should commence as soon as possible with regard to those 'helping' 
    therapies that only temporarily distract the seriously ill. In need only of 
    sensible advice and sensible treatment, these people can very quickly end 
    up worse off in body, mind and spirit; and last but not least, in pocket, 
    leading very quickly to derision and a carte blanche dismissal of all the 
    good that genuine natural treatments have to offer. John Diamond stated that 
    there was as much chance of him going down the alternative treatment route 
    as there was of the Pope getting drunk on the communion wine and getting off 
    with a couple of nuns. [
18]
    
    Whilst we can perhaps understand some of John Diamond's frustrations, his 
    comparisons don't exactly aid the cause. Because the truth is that the alternativist's 
    cabinet is not all 'mumbo-jumbo' by any means.  Genuine medicine can 
    be found in there. Perhaps a name change is in order. Are we alternative? 
    Are we complementary? But complementary to what? To chemotherapy perhaps? 
    But then what medicine could possibly 
complement chemotherapy? Shouldn't 
    there just be medicine and non-medicine, full stop? Be that as it may, many 
    people are wrongly assuming that the non-orthodox medical cabinet is barren 
    and not worthy of closer inspection. The hazy and often crazy information 
    being disseminated on numerous non-conventional treatments coupled with our 
    innate and naïve trust in the orthodoxy is the reason why thousands of 
    people like John Diamond are staying with, and relying upon conventional treatments 
    for serious illnesses, including cancer. As a result, thousands of people 
    like John Diamond are dying, and often in a horrible fashion.
    
    
Vitamin B17   "..cancer cells were dying like flies."
    In his UK Observer article entitled 
Quacks on the Rack, John Diamond 
    summarily dismissed what is arguably the most famous of the natural and proven 
    anti-cancer treatments known to man, the natural extract of the apricot kernel, 
    otherwise known as Vitamin B17. 
    
    
"Supporters of Laetrile (vitamin B17) and Essiac, in particular, made 
    so much noise about their miracle cures that both have been through the research 
    mill on numerous occasions and found to be useless." [
19]
    
    
"When we add laetrile to a cancer culture under the microscope," 
    said Burk, "providing the enzyme glucosidase  also is present, 
    we can see the cancer cells dying off like flies." [
20] (glucosidase 
    being the enzyme heavily present in cancerous cells which triggers the unique 
    cancer-destroying mechanism found in Vitamin B17. An excellent clinical analysis 
    of this mechanism is found in 'B17 Metabolic Therapy - In The Prevention And 
    Control Of Cancer - a concise history of the research into this vitamin, 
    including many clinical assessments. More details on this book can be found 
    at the end of this article.) [
21]  Dr Burk also stated that evidence 
    for Laetrile's efficacy had been noted in at least five independent institutions 
    in three widely separated countries of the world. [
22]
    
    So who do we trust in this matter? Diamond or Burk? Now we can ask ourselves 
    whether it was perhaps the fault of some kindly but misguided soul who posted 
    John Diamond an essay on the benefits of Vitamin B17 mixed with walnut water 
    that caused him to dismiss B17 so emphatically. Or it could be that John actually 
    trusted the conventional research reports he had accrued on this vitamin. 
    By examining the sources from where John Diamond might have got his B17 research 
    'information', the ugly features of conventional cancer research move more 
    sharply into focus.
    
    
Because of the money
    Cancer is big business and knowledge claims on any treatments that earn money 
    and, conversely, on any treatments that 
do not earn money for the drug 
    companies, 
are never neutral.  Dr Ralph Moss served as the Assistant 
    Director of Public Affairs at America's most famous cancer research institution, 
    Memorial Sloan Kettering, in Manhattan. He knows the cancer industry inside 
    out. Hear what he has to say and judge for yourself the quality of the evidence 
    against the effectiveness of Vitamin B17:
    
    
Moss: 
 "Shortly after I went to work [at the Sloan Kettering 
    Cancer Institute], I visited the elderly Japanese scientist, Kanematsu Sugiura, 
    who astonished me when he told me he was working on Laetrile (B17). At the 
    time it was the most controversial thing in cancer, reputed to be a cure for 
    cancer. We in Public Affairs were giving out statements that laetrile was 
    worthless, it was quackery, and that people should not abandon proven therapies. 
    I was astonished that our most distinguished scientist would be bothering 
    with something like this, and I said, "Why are you doing this if it doesn't 
    work?" He took down his lab books and showed me that in fact Laetrile 
    was dramatically effective in stopping the spread of cancer."
    
    Lee:
  "So this is verified, that laetrile can have this 
    positive effect?"
    
    Moss:  
"We were finding this and yet we in Public Affairs 
    were told to issue statements to the exact opposite of what we were finding 
    scientifically." [
23]
    
    Unable to sit on this information, Moss later called a press conference of 
    his own and, before a battery of reporters and cameramen, charged that Sloan-Kettering 
    officials had engineered a massive cover-up. He provided all the supporting 
    documents and named all the names necessary to validate his case. The following 
    day he was fired for 'failing to carry out his most basic job responsibilities'. 
    [
24]
    
    Similarly, in his book 
"World 
    Without Cancer", cancer industry researcher Edward Griffin noted
    
    
"Every Laetrile study had been tarnished with the same kind of scientific 
    ineptitude, bias and outright deception... Some of these studies openly admitted 
    evidence of anti-cancer effect but hastened to attribute this effect to other 
    causes. Some were toxicity studies only, which means that they weren't trying 
    to see if Laetrile was effective, but merely to determine how much of it was 
    required to kill the patient." [
24a]
    
    The 'evidence' supporting John Diamond's claim that Vitamin B17 is useless 
    and even dangerous is available in abundance in all of the major cancer institutions 
    today. Well of course it is! We're in the merchant's house, don't forget. 
    As Pat Rattigan, author of 'The Cancer Business' reports:
    
    
"The threat to the cancer business from effective therapies was taken 
    very seriously from the beginning. By the 1940's the Syndicate had 300,000 
    names on its 'quack' files. Vitamin B17, being a unique threat due to its 
    simplicity, attracted more concentrated attacks than all the other treatments 
    put together: fraudulent test reports; hired, banner-carrying pickets outside 
    clinics; rigged juries; newspaper character assassinations; dismissal of heretic 
    employees, etc. The FDA, orchestrating the onslaught, sent out 10,000 posters 
    and hundreds of thousands of leaflets warning about the dangers of the toxicity 
    of the non-toxic substance. Earlier, a Congressional Accounting Office had 
    found that 350 FDA employees had shares in, or had refused to declare an interest 
    in, the pharmaceutical industry."
    
    The American Food and Drug Administration issued  one such story about 
    the death of an eleven month old girl, supposedly from cyanide poisoning due 
    to her apparently swallowing her father's Vitamin B17 tablets. Cancer 
    specialist and B17 advocate Dr Harold Manner takes up the story:
    
    
'... I was lecturing in Buffalo, New York and... after I had made some 
    strong statements - a man stood up and said "Dr. Manner, how in the world 
    can you make statements like that when the FDA is making these other statements?" 
    I reiterated that the FDA statements were lies. 'He said, "Look at this 
    little girl in upstate New York, she took her father's Laetrile tablets and 
    died of cyanide poisoning." Just then a little lady stood up: "Dr. 
    Manner let me answer that question. I think I am entitled to because I am 
    that little baby's mother. That baby never touched her father's Laetrile tablets. 
    The doctor, knowing the father was on Laetrile, marked down "possible 
    cyanide poisoning". At the hospital they used a cyanide antidote and 
    it was the antidote that killed the child. And yet that statement will continue 
    to appear even though they know it is a lie." [
24b]
    
    The scare stories always focus on the minute amounts of naturally occurring 
    cyanide found in VitaminB17. But no mention is made in any of these stories 
    of the wondrous mechanism governing the release of this cyanide. No harm is 
    done to the person eating this vitamin ( if that were the case, we have consumed 
    enough apricots, apples, peaches and cherries etc containing B17 to have finished 
    us off long ago.) The cyanide is released only when cancerous cells are recognised 
    by their high glucosidase content. B17 cyanide attacks cancer cells specifically. 
    No large amounts of glucosidase detected means no cyanide release. Rest assured, 
    there is no evidence that vitamin B17 can kill, unless of course, one is accidentally 
    crushed under a pallet of the stuff!
    
    A further embarrasment for the cancer orthodoxy must surely be the research 
    being carried out at the Imperial College in London, where researchers are 
    looking at ways of using naturally-occurring plant cyanide to specifically 
    attack human bowel tumours. The idea came about after studying the pattern 
    of specific cyanide release in the almond and cassava fruit which protects 
    them from insect attack. Another one of those natural wonders
 just crying 
    out to be heard is at last being listened to by the orthodoxy perhaps? 
    [
24c]
    
    Very sadly, in assessing the deservedness of the 'shady' reputation bestowed 
    upon Vitamin B17 metabolic therapy,  we realise it is entirely unwarranted 
    and that instead, there has been a sustained attack by the conventional cancer 
    industry on this treatment, an attack that has carried on in one form or another 
    for the last forty years. As mentioned earlier, with global spending on conventional 
    cancer running into the hundreds of billions annually, a naturally-occurring 
    cancer cure of any description is an unwanted intruder. Dr Moss again, on 
    the money involved in conventional cancer:
    
    
Moss:  
"About 630,000 people die every year of cancer 
    in the US, and it really is an epidemic disease. We have got a tremendous 
    industry. Every one of those people who is getting cancer and dying of it 
    is going to be treated, and these treatments are extremely expensive.  
    Chemo is tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars. A 
    bone marrow transplant, which is basically another way of giving chemotherapy, 
    or radiation, can run to about $150,000 per person, and is almost never effective.  
    It kills about 25% of the patients."
    
    Lee:  
"Why carry on doing it?"
    
    Moss: 
" Because of the money, which is tremendous." [
25]
    
    When we understand the amounts of money involved, we can begin to understand 
    the in-house desire to sustain a 'fact-creating' process in support of conventional 
    treatment. Conventional cancer treatment and research is a licence to print 
    money.  Most definitely, conventional interested parties and institutions 
    have colluded in a shameful anti-Vitamin B17 'fact-creating' process, 
    which in turn has surely led to the early and even unnecessary deaths of thousands 
    upon thousands of people.  As for John Diamond's dismissal of Vitamin 
    B17, he didn't write his comments on B17 as an intentional slur. He wasn't 
    the forked tongue in this chain of events. He desperately wanted to live. 
    His single paragraph read by thousands was just another example of the damaging 
    knock-on effect of merchant-speak. Merchant-speak on Vitamin B17 metabolic 
    therapy has exacted a grave injustice upon this treatment and subsequently, 
    upon all who have been persuaded to think likewise. Let's now hear some testimonies 
    from those who have not been persuaded by the negative propaganda.
    
    
Phillip
    Phillip is 64. In April 2001, he was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. 
    The oncologist showed him the x-rays that confirmed the dreaded 'shadows'. 
    He was told to go home, enjoy his life as best he could and put his affairs 
    in order. A week later, in a chance conversation at work, Phillip was told 
    about Vitamin B17. Phillip immediately began taking a combination of Vitamin 
    B17 and Vitamin C. Four months later, Phillip returned to hospital for a check-up, 
    where a new set of x-rays were taken. The shadows had completely disappeared. 
    Says Phillip, 
"I know what I saw and the doctor couldn't explain it. 
    I'm continuing with my Vitamin B17 regime and eating about 10 kernels a day." 
    Phillip now pays great attention to his diet and believes that what we put 
    into our bodies can have a dramatic effect medicinally.
    
    
The importance of nutrition
    John Diamond again, this time on some 
nutter with a magical diet:
    "I was waiting my turn for zapping [radiation] one day and mentioned the ludicrousness 
    of one diet I'd been reading about. The radiographer agreed and said that 
    when she had started at the hospital there used to be a nutter who, having 
    refused radiography, would come down and rail against those sitting in the 
    radiotherapy waiting room, telling them they should abandon evil radiation 
    and take up his magical diet. "Criminal," I said. "You kicked him out of course?" 
    "Well yes," she said, "we kicked him out regularly. The only thing was, he 
    did survive for years and the cancer did disappear." Which only goes to prove 
    - well, nothing very much at all really, but I thought I'd pass it on in the 
    name of fair dealing." [
26]
    
    Now if this cancer 'nutter' was just an isolated case of recovery through 
    diet, his recovery would not of course constitute proof. But with Vitamin 
    B17 metabolic therapy, we are seeing tremendous results time after time. Continuing 
    on in the name of fair dealing.
    
    
William
    William was diagnosed with a tumour in the oesophagus. He could not swallow 
    food without it being liquidised. He had read about Vitamin B17 twelve months 
    previously and had kept the article. William began taking Vitamin B17 soon 
    after diagnosis. After three weeks, he was swallowing food a lot easier and 
    after about seven weeks was told by his doctor that the only reason for this 
    was because the tumour was shrinking. Says William, "The operation to remove 
    the tumour was cancelled and I am still awaiting the results of the latest 
    scan. I feel fit as a fiddle. I pay attention to my diet and I thank God quite 
    literally for vitamin B17. It is time the NHS recognised this vitamin as an 
    alternative to the conventional treatments. I consider that any money spent 
    on B17 is money well spent."
    
    
What are we eating?
    It is interesting to note that there are cultures today who 
remain almost 
    entirely cancer-free. The Abkhasians, the Azerbaijanis, the Hunzas, the 
    Eskimaux and the Karakorum all live on foodstuffs rich in nitriloside or vitamin 
    B17. Their food consists variously of buckwheat, peas, broad beans, lucerne, 
    turnips, lettuce, sprouting pulse or gram, apricots with their seeds and berries 
    of various kinds. Their diet can provide them with as much as 250-3,000mg 
    of nitriloside a day. The founding father of Vitamin B17 research, Ernst T 
    Krebs Jr., studied the dietary habits of these tribes. Krebs stated:
    
    
"Upon investigating the diet of these people, we found that the seed 
    of the apricot was prized as a delicacy and that every part of the apricot 
    was utilized." [
27]
    
    The average western diet with its refined, fibreless foods offers less than 
    2mg of nitriloside a day.  It has also been noted that natives from these 
    tribes, who move into 'civilised' areas and change their diets accordingly, 
    are prone to cancers at the regular western incidence. [
28] An important 
    point to note with B17 content in the apricot fruit is that the more bitter 
    the taste of the apricot kernal, the richer is the content of B17. If the 
    kernel does not taste bitter, the B17 content will be quite low. The necessary 
    advice on this subject is included in detail in the books available on the 
    following page.
    
    
The right materials
    Dr Andrew Saul recognises the importance of sound nutrition in maintaining 
    good health.
    
    
"I have seen the foolishness of conventional disease care wisdom.  
    I have seen hospitals feed white bread to patients with bowel cancer and hospitals 
    feed "Jello" to leukemia patients.  I have seen schools feed 
    bright red "Slush Puppies" to 7 year olds for lunch and I have seen 
    children vomit up a desk-top full of red crud afterwards.  And, I have 
    seen those same children later line up at the school nurse for hyperactivity 
    drugs. 
    
    I have seen hospital patients allowed to go two weeks without a bowel movement.  
    I have seen patients told that they have six months to live when they might 
    live sixty months.  I have seen people recover from serious illness, 
    only to have their physician berate them for having used natural healing methods 
    to do so.  I have seen infants spit up formula while their mothers were 
    advised not to breast feed. I've seen better ingredients in dog food than 
    in the average school or hospital lunch.
    
    And I have seen enough." [
28a]
    
    In his book, 
'Preface to Cancer: Nature, Cause and Cure', Dr Alexander 
    Berglas has this to say about cancer incidence: 
"Civilization 
    is, in terms of cancer, a juggernaut that cannot be stopped... It is the nature 
    and essence of industrial civilization to be toxic in every sense... We are 
    faced with the grim prospect that the advance of cancer and of civilization 
    parallel each other."  [
29]
    
    The human body has an amazing capacity to recover, if we look after it properly 
    and if we supply it with the proper materials for repair. Working with non-toxic, 
    physio-friendly treatments can only work in our favour. Just look at the side-effects 
    of Vitamin B17 as described by Edward G Griffin in 
"World 
    Without Cancer":
    
    
"B17 side-effects include increased appetite, weight gain, lowered 
    blood pressure, increased hemoglobin and red-blood cell count, elimination 
    or sharp reduction of pain without narcotics, builds up body's resistance 
    to other diseases, is a natural substance found in foods and is compatible 
    with human biological experience, destroys cancer cells while nourishing non-cancer 
    cells." [
30]
    
    Compare the above with the side effects from chemotherapy and radiation, the 
    dizziness, skin discolouration, nausea, diarrhoea, loss of hair, loss of appetite, 
    organ failure, internal bleeding etc., etc. How long will it be before we 
    find ourselves looking back on these treatments in the same way as we now 
    look back on the blood letting and the ammonia infusions exacted upon Charles 
    II? Notwithstanding the often life-saving surgical removal of cancerous tissue, 
    could there possibly be a more inhumane treatment in the 21st century than 
    conventional cancer therapy?
    
    
Flora
    Flora was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in 1999.
    
    
 "Before the operation, they gave me chemotherapy which was devastating. 
    By the end of the course, I could hardly stand. They then removed the tumour 
    from my bowel. I was told the cancer had spread to the liver. I was offered 
    further chemotherapy but declined. I attended Middlesex hospital and had five 
    sessions of laser treatment to try and contain the liver cancer followed by 
    more chemotherapy. After the fifth time of trying to contain the cancer, they 
    said that it  was beginning to grow yet again. So I began an organic 
    diet and attended the Dove Clinic for intensive Vitamin C treatment, with 
    other supplements. It was there that I was told about Vitamin B17. I added 
    that to my regime. Over a period of time, the cancer completely disappeared 
    from my liver. It is now February 2002 and I have been one year clear of cancer.  
    I am maintaining my organic diet and  eating about 50 apricot kernels 
    a day. I'm 64, I've returned to work and I feel fine. Treatments such as these 
    should at least be made known to patients by the NHS."
    
    There are literally thousands of people who can attest to the pharmacological, 
    life-saving power of Vitamin B17 and its supporting nutritional regime. And 
    the same can also be said of Vitamin C.
    
    
Vitamin C
    The all-round benefits of Vitamin C to the human physiology have been known 
    and utilised for centuries. In terms of its benefits in cancer treatment and 
    prevention, we read the following from Phillip Day:
    
    
"Dr Linus Pauling, often known as the 'Father of Vitamin C' and twice 
    awarded the Nobel Prize, declared that daily intakes of up to 10g of the vitamin 
    aids anti-cancer activity within the body. Pauling was largely derided for 
    making these declarations, but today, large doses of Vitamin C are used by 
    many practitioners for cancer patients in nutritional therapy, who believe 
    Pauling was right and that the popular nutrient is indispensable to the body 
    in its fight to regain health from cancer." [
31]
    
    
Vitamin C can also protect against breast cancer.
    
    After reviewing 90 studies on the relationship between Vitamin C and cancer, 
    Gladys Block, Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley concluded,
    
    
"There is overwhelming evidence of the protective effect of vitamin 
    C and other antioxidants against cancer of the breast." [
32]
    
    And Geoffrey R. Howe of the National Cancer Institute of Canada reviewed 12 
    case-controlled studies of diet and breast cancer and noted that Vitamin C 
    had the most consistent statistically significant relationship to the reduction 
    of breast cancer risk. [
32a] And on the subject of the importance of 
    mineral and vitamin supplements, a recent New York Times front-page article 
    quoted Dr. Geoffrey P. Oakley, Jr., at the Center for Disease Control and 
    Prevention in Atlanta as saying:
    
    
"We, the physicians, were mistaken not to recommend vitamin supplements 
    to our patients for so long.  We need just to admit that on this one, 
    we were wrong." [
33]
    
    
Hazel
    Hazel had been given a virtual death sentence by her cancer doctor, telling 
    her that although there was an 86% recovery from her type of breast cancer, 
    she was unfortunately in the smaller category. As previously noted, Hazel's 
    chemotherapy was only making her feel terrible, and she decided that if she 
    was going to die, then she would do so without further conventional treatment. 
    Hazel began a regime of intravenously administered Vitamin C and supplements 
    including Vitamin B17 and paid great attention to her diet. She soon began 
    to feel a great deal better. She regained her weight and her hair and her 
    appetite. About nine months following the diagnosis, she was troubled with 
    lower back pain and visited her doctor. He suggested a further scan based 
    on Hazel's lower back pain, which the doctor believed was possibly the result 
    of her cancer having spread to the base of her spine.  Hazel said there 
    was no way she was going for more chemotherapy or scans which she believes 
    in themselves can trigger carcinogenic activity. Instead, Hazel supplemented 
    her Vitamin C regime with a course of Vitamin B17 kernels, as well as maintaining 
    a sensible diet and staying away from her conventional cancer physician. The 
    blood count taken by her GP before Christmas read as normal. She feels very 
    healthy and is in the process of writing a book on her experiences. She feels 
    passionately that people need to know that there are alternative cancer treatments 
    available and speaks to groups on this subject.
    
    Let the reader be assured that the recent scare tactics surrounding Vitamin 
    C and its supposed links to cancer are just another one of those smear campaigns 
    orchestrated by the merchants. Quite simply, any good news on Vitamin C represents 
    yet another threat to the pharmaceutical industries' considerable income from 
    conventional cancer treatments. The full story on the vested interests supporting 
    the author of the much-publicised vitamin C/cancer story can be found at 
www.hiddenmysteries.org/health/cures/vitc.html.
    
    And finally, we hear from Dr Nicola Hembry of the Dove Clinic, specialising 
    in the non-conventional approach to cancer care and treatment:
    
    
"Nutritional treatments such as high dose vitamin C and B17 (laetrile) 
    have been known about for years, and there are many success stories from patients 
    lucky enough to have received and benefited from them. Research shows that 
    levels of 400mg/dl Vitamin C in the blood can kill cancer cells by a pro-oxidative 
    mechanism, and there is a great deal of data showing that B17 is preferentially 
    toxic to cancer cells. The trouble is that there is little in the way of well-designed 
    random control trial data for the use of these substances, and therefore mainstream 
    medicine rejects them out of hand without even considering the evidence available 
    or even asking why these trials haven't been carried out. It has to be said 
    that one of the reasons is a lack of financial incentive because these substances 
    cannot be patented. Sadly it is the cancer sufferers who lose out. To not 
    even have the choice of these safer, more natural treatments even when a cancer 
    is deemed incurable and only palliative chemotherapy or radiotherapy is offered 
    is in my view totally unacceptable. I have seen many patients experience an 
    improved duration and quality of life with an integrated approach, and some 
    go on to achieve complete remission of their disease even when dismissed as 
    incurable by their oncologists."
    
    Treating cancer is not just about getting hold of Vitamin B17 as quickly as 
    possible. We need to be educated in a whole range of issues.  
'Cancer: 
    Why We're Still Dying To Know The Truth' has been written in an easily 
    readable and easily understood manner, specifically to inform the general 
    public on all of the key issues pertaining to natural treatment for cancer. 
    It makes for necessary and fascinating reading!
    
    For those interested in finding out more on the issues raised in this article, 
    just see the following titles.
    
    
Cancer: Why We're Still Dying To Know The Truth A concise account of 
    the cancer industry and of the good news on  vitamin B17 metabolic therapy.
    
    
Vitamin B17 Metabolic Therapy - A Clinical Guide A clinical account 
    of vitamin B17, detailing the landmark research on this most vital of vitamins 
    in the fight against cancer.
    
    
Food For Thought Delicious recipes designed to promote health. A vital 
    contribution to cancer prevention and recovery. All these titles and more 
    available at 
www.credence.org
    
    And finally...
    Throughout the writing of this article, I have been acutely aware of three 
    things.
    
    Firstly, of my own slender mortality and that it is only by the grace of God 
    that I have not had to face a cancer diagnosis of my own. The motivating factor 
    behind the writing of 'Death by Doctoring' was to inject realism as well as 
    a sense of hope. And  as far as one is able to write about a subject 
    without having personally walked that particular walk, I hope also that this 
    article has been written with the deserved sensitivity.
    
    Secondly, Vitamin B17 metabolic therapy and Vitamin C form only part of a 
    much wider regime of treatments that have proven successful in the treatment 
    of cancer. These and other treatments are explained in more detail in the 
    above Credence titles.
    
    Thirdly, 
this site does not accuse all doctors of working towards some 
    vast medical conspiracy to kill everyone! A  doctor wrote to this 
    site recently, under the impression that Death by Doctoring is propagating 
    this belief.
    
    
"I have yet to see single shred of evidence the supports the conspiracy 
    theories that abound on the web. It doesn't matter whether it's cancer treatment, 
    aspartame, or even soybeans. Consider this: would any company seek to sell 
    products that kill the customer? It doesn't make any sense. The scientist 
    who discovered cisplatin [the drug that 81% of cancer doctors would not 
    administer to themselves] 
was a professor of mine in university. I knew 
    his mind and his heart. He wanted to find a cure because it had devastated 
    someone in his family. While all chemotherapies are poisons, by extension 
    of your logic, he was creating a product that he knew would kill his family 
    members. Does that even make sense to you?"
    
    Of course I am not saying that medical professors are intentionally designing 
    something that would kill. With chemotherapy, what started off as a supposed 
    saviour, quickly turned into a huge money-spinner, but with devastating consequences. 
    A lucrative ball had gained too much momentum.  And once the profitability 
    of a drug is recognised, the business decisions at corporate level are often 
    at complete odds with those lower down at manufacturing and distribution level. 
     As for those within  the industry's 'circle of knowledge' regarding 
    the dangers of today's pharmaceuticals, very definitely there are key personnel 
    within drug companies who know exactly the dangers that relate to their products, 
    but who choose to say nothing in order to preserve income and to protect from 
    litigation.  To deny this takes place would be naive in the extreme. 
    Nicholas Murray Butler was chief spokesman for US giant JP Morgan and Co. 
     On the subject of 'circles of knowledge', Butler once stated:
    
    Applying this principle to the pharmaceutical industry, further on down the 
    chain of command, a number of dangerous products are being manufactured  and 
    prescribed today, by a great multitude who are innocently proud to be associated 
    with these supposedly 'life-saving' medicines. Conventional doctors especially 
    can so easily fall into the category of 'Butler's 'great multitude'. Working 
    under extreme pressures, doctors and nurses just do not have room in their 
    day to step off the conventional treadmill to conduct contrary research. It 
    is far simpler and far more expedient to dismiss all non-pharmaceutical information 
    as fringe lunacy.
    
    Having said all this, there are many, many dedicated people involved in conventional 
    health care who are practicing elements of conventional medicine and who are 
    saving and enhancing lives every day, not least in some methods of diagnosis, 
    pre-emptive surgery and in acute and emergency medicine. Accident and Emergency 
    units especially, perform a tremendous job. As with all medicine, may the 
    good continue and may the bad be open to complete reappraisal.
    
    Finally, I do so wish I'd been given the opportunity to meet John Diamond. 
    Because I reckon we'd have got on like a house on fire. And who knows what 
    might have happened as a result?
    
    Thank you for reading.
    Steven Ransom,
    Research Director,
    Credence Publications
    
    Please sign the petition against the restriction of vitamin and mineral sales.
    
    
       
        | Mr Ransom, I share your thoughts and I applaud you for your courage 
          for bringing us 'Death by Doctoring'. The most dangerous place on planet 
          earth is the hospital - next is the doctor's office - followed closely 
          by the dentist's office."  Frank D Wiewel, Former Chairman, 
          Pharmacological and Biological Treatments Committee, Office of Alternative 
          Medicine (OAM) US National Institutes of Health (NIH) | 
    
    
    
       
        | "Dear Steve, I'm writing from Georgia. I'm an 12 yr. old. 
          I was hoping to find some information for a school project. But when 
          I came to this site I found more than what I needed. Thanks to your 
          site I made a 100 on the project. Since I hope to be a journalist your 
          site helped me grab a better understanding of how people can have 
          the same opinions and how they have different opinions. Thanks for creating 
          this site Steve." Alex. | 
    
    
    
       
        | "Dear Steve, I must blame you for a sleepless night as I had 
          just been sent your site and found your articles to be just brilliant! 
          I have been immersing myself in all of this information for a while 
          now but never have I found it written so well online...so thank you! 
          You certainly gave myself and my family members something to think about. 
          Keep up the brilliant work. Take care, and bless ya heaps!!" 
           Ledonna James | 
    
    
    
       
        | Dear Steve, Thank God you wrote this article! The senseless deaths 
          of our past for the sake of a buck is so sinful I cannot express the 
          grief I feel knowing all of this. No one in my family has this dreadful 
          conflicksion and I hope they never do. Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou. 
            Eddie Matthews | 
    
    
    
       
        | "Dear Steve, I'm amazed you slipped by me! I've just discovered 
          your excellent web site, and I'm very impressed! Congratulations on 
          a truly awesome site packed with information. I'll be adding you to 
          my links section of my site later today. Once again great job, I'll 
          be checking back regularly for updates."  Gareth Davies 
          Webmaster Mindsetcentral.com | 
    
    
    
       
        | "This site provides a practical and useful archive of information 
          for what is really going on behind the scenes in Government and Big 
          Business today.  Easily navigable, and particularly accurate and 
          unlike many political or watchdog sites of today, this website seeks 
          to provide the truth to key issues in today's politics, without playing 
          the sensationalist card. It is the best political site I've ever seen, 
          and certainly on a par with www.disinformation.org, if not much better!" 
            Grahame Warby, LL.m International Law, Freelance Journalist. | 
    
    
    
       
        | "This informative and empowering essay shows that the main 
          beneficiaries of cancer treatment are the medical and pharmaceutical 
          interests, while most cancer patients continue to suffer and die of 
          this spreading disease - and not only despite conventional treatment, 
          but often because of it! Death by Doctoring should be required reading 
          for anyone who values his or her health." John J. Moelaert 
          - author of  The Cancer Conspiracy  at http://members.shaw.ca/jmoelaert | 
    
    
    
       
        | "An excellent, well-researched site, congratulations! You 
          have presented the position exceptionally clearly as it is regarding 
          mainstream and 'alternative. It is of growing concern that the rising 
          popularity of unregulated alternative medicine is beginning in some areas 
          to go down the same greedy and dishonest path as big pharma. There is 
          too much good to have this happen. The consequences will be government 
          closedown of non-mainstream medicine orchestrated by the dangerous Codex . 
          I practise almost exclusively natural medicine and much of my time is 
          spent in assisting patients through the complex, bewildering maze of 
          which option, which nutrient and which of the thousands of 'cancer cures'. 
          I will be certainly directing all my cancer patients to your site. Our 
          clinic already uses, amongst other immune supportive therapies, IV Vit 
          C and B17 intravenously as well as orally. Keep up the research Steve, 
          we appreciate it." Bill Reeder, Registered Medical Practitioner 
          MB.ChB Member of ACNEM, AIMA, NZIMA, NZNMA. (Nutritional and Natural 
          Medicines Associations of Australia and NZ) | 
    
    
    
       
        | "As someone who was diagnosed with enormous cancer 4 years 
          ago -- and who was lucky enough to have had some truth put in front 
          of me BEFORE the axe fell -- I am SO happy to be doing as much as I 
          can to help spread the truth. It is so sad that I know supposedly "educated" 
          people who just close their eyes and will not look at what CAN in fact 
          save their lives - seemingly, they prefer to die. YET -- they DO NOT 
          WANT TO DIE. How brainwashed are we? Keep it up." Jane May, 
          Wagga Wagga, Australia | 
    
    
    
       
        | "Hi Steve! I am a Naturopath in Liverpool, Sydney. I want 
          to encourage you to keep up your great work & mission to get 
          the truth out. I am so glad that my heavenly Father led me out of the 
          nursing profession, where I worked as a trained nurse & midwife 
          for 10 years. I have been practising as a Nature Cure Naturopath for 
          20 years, specialising in parents' & children's health, & guiding 
          parents to prepare their bodies to have healthy children & then 
          to raise them naturally in vibrant health, not vaccinated or medicated 
          with any drugs. May God bless you abundantly in all that you do. Yours 
          in vibrant health & joy."   Marilyn | 
    
    
    
       
        | "Hi Steven,  I just wanted to THANK YOU 
          for your brilliant "Death By Doctoring" article! It makes 
          for a most insightful and fascinating read. I have passed it on to a 
          lot of people and will keep spreading the word. You guys are awsome. 
          Keep up the great work! Bestest."   Ora James | 
    
    References
    1 www.crc.org.uk/cancer/cs_mortality1.html
    2 Cancer - The Social Impact http://yakko.bme.virginia.edu/biom304/notes/cancer.htm
    3 Dr Rob Buckman, Magic Or Medicine, Pan Books, 1994
    4 John Diamond, 'C': Because Cowards Get Cancer Too, Vermilion Press, 1999
    5 Prof. George Mathe, "Scientific Medicine Stymied", Medicines 
      Nouvelles (Paris) 1989
    6 The Ecologist, Vol 28, No. 2, March/April 1998
    7 The Home of Orthomolecular Oncology www.canceraction.org.gg/index2.htm
    8 Griffin: 
      "World Without Cancer: The Story of Vitamin B17" 1996
    9 Phillip 
      Day: "Cancer - Why we're still dying to know the truth" 2000
    10 Phillip 
      Day: "Cancer - Why we're still dying to know the truth" 2000
    10a Chemotherapy - an unproven procedure www.thedoctorwithin.com/index20.html
    11 'C': Because Cowards...; ibid
    11a www.kathykeeton-cancer.com
    12 Interview with John Le Carré, The Nation, New York, 9.4.2001
    12a Full story, described as professional prostitution at www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,11381,646078,00.html
    13 Robert Ryan, Bsc., Cancer Research - A Super-fraud? www.worldnewsstand.net/health/cancer2.htm
    13a Dr Tim O'Shea, www.thedoctorwithin.com
    14 Para-healer from the word para: close to, alongside, near, irregular 
      healer
    14a Holger Kalweit, Dream time and Inner Space, Shambala Publications, 
      1998
    15 John Diamond, Quacks on the Rack, Observer Newspapers, 3.12.2000 and 
      C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too, Vermilion Press, 1999
    16 £95,000,000 is spent on cough mixtures alone in the UK. The BMJ 
      however has reported a recent trial involving 2000 participants which found 
      that in most cases, the mixtures were no more effective than placebo. More 
      details at http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1807000/1807252.stm 
    
    17 Gould, Donald, The Black and White Medicine Show, Hamilton 1985
    18 'C': Because Cowards...; ibid
    19 John Diamond, Quacks on the Rack, UK Observer, December 3rd, 2000
    20 Griffin: 
      "World Without Cancer: The Story of Vitamin B17" 1996
    21 'B17 Metabolic Therapy - In The Prevention And Control Of Cancer' - 
      compiled by Phillip Day, Credence Publications, 2001
    22 Phillip 
      Day: "Cancer - Why we're still dying to know the truth" 2000
    23 Phillip 
      Day: "Cancer - Why we're still dying to know the truth" 2000
    24 Ralph Moss, The Cancer Syndrome, Grove Press, 1980
    24a Griffin: 
      "World Without Cancer: The Story of Vitamin B17" 1996
    24b Pat Rattigan, The Cancer Business, www.vegan.swinternet.co.uk/articles/health/cancerbusiness.html
    24c Cyanide Targets Cancer BBC News Report at http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/in_depth/sci_tech/2000/festival_of_science/newsid_913000/913463.stm
    25 Phillip 
      Day: "Cancer - Why we're still dying to know the truth"
    26 'C': Because Cowards...; ibid
    27 Krebs, Ernst T Nutritional and Therapeutic Implications, John Beard 
      Memorial Foundation (privately published), 1964
    28 Stefansson, Vilhjalmur CANCER: Disease of Civilisation? An Anthropological 
      and Historical Study, Hill & Wang, New York, 1960.
    29 Berglas, Dr Alexander, ibid
    30 Griffin: 
      "World Without Cancer: The Story of Vitamin B17" 1996
    31 Phillip 
      Day: "Cancer - Why we're still dying to know the truth"
    32 www.access2wealth.com/health/report-Save%20a%20Woman's%20Life.htm
    32a ibid
    33 ibid