Apricots - cyanogenetic glycosides and Cancer

This is a comment on Cecil’s column: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_212.html

Check out a great book on Laetrile called “World Without Cancer.” I believe written by Edward Griffin. There is some great information about the entire conspiracy surrounding Laetrile and cyanogenetic glycosides.

Lots of good information in this book on how naturally occuring cyanogenetic glycosides in food can reduce the risks of getting cancer and how treatment with this substance has been proven to be effective in treating cancer.

Many countries (Germany, Mexico, Other European countries) have alternative medical treatment facilities where you can get straight injections of unnatural amounts of the stuff. As with anything, too much can be a lethal amount. Many of the foods we eat in their raw forms contain this substance, but processing, overcooking, and genetic modificaton have taken the trace amounts of this out of many foods. Many patients are being told to eat more raw, unprocessed foods by their Doctors because it can decrease the risk of getting cancer. Many of these foods contain the naturally occuring cyanogenetic glycosides that can fight cancer cells. An intersting study in the book looks at a study done on the Hunza tribe (India/China area) that have been eating a considerable amount of these in their daily diets for 1000’s of years without harm.

Bitter almonds and apricot kernels have the highest concentrations of cyanogenetic glycosides. Just don’t eat too many of them like anything else.

Read all about it in “World Without Cancer.” There is a lot of good medically backed information in there.

We don’t need propaganda from mass murderers, thank you very much.

Quackwatch article on Laetrile.

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Cancer/laetrile.html

Precis of Griffin’s book.
http://www.theroadlesstravelledby.com/html/wwc-contents.htm

Pretty standard “it’s all a giant conspiracy on the part of the FDA, the AMA, the pharmaceutical cartel, and the Rockefeller and Carnegie Foundations to suppress me!” stuff.

You forgot to include the Trilateral Commission, the Illuminati, and the Spanish Inquistion.

What about the Stratford-on-Avon Tourism Board?

John W. Kennedy is a Murderer?

What?

quote:

Quackwatch article on Laetrile.

http://www.quackwatch.org/01Quacker...r/laetrile.html

Who the hell is this Benjamin Wilson, M.D. who wrote this article? Doesn’t seem like he is very legit.

Doesn’t seem very professional. Bad grammar and bad references.

quote:

Originally posted by Duck Duck Goose
Pretty standard “it’s all a giant conspiracy on the part of the FDA, the AMA, the pharmaceutical cartel, and the Rockefeller and Carnegie Foundations to suppress me!” stuff.

When you say Laetrile is standard consipracy, you are forgetting that conspiracy is the very thing the Laetrile supporters were accused of doing? Very inconsistent. You are telling me you believe everything the AMA, FDA, etc. are telling you? There is no conspiracy on their part, only on the part of the Laetrile advocates? That is illogical, and historically innaccurate.

Just because you’ve never heard of him doesn’t mean anything. What counts are the facts that he’s reporting.

Be so kind as to enumerate for us some examples of bad grammar from the article.

Also, what difference does his grammar make? What counts are his facts.

Be so kind as to enumerate which of his references you consider “bad”. And explain why you consider them “bad”.

Yes.

Right.

How is it illogical?

In what way?

Let’s look at motivations for a moment here. Does any cancer researcher have a motivation for surpressing a genuine cancer cure? Hardly. Demonstrate a cure for cancer, and you’re looking at fame, fortune, the Nobel prize, the attention of members of the appropriate sex, glory, you name it. Not to mention a significant increase in life expectancy for the discoverer and his or her loved ones. There’s no payoff any conspiracy could possibly offer you that’s anywhere near that good.

Now, is there any motivation for an author to claim that he has a cancer cure when he doesn’t? Certainly. It sells plenty of books, and since he doesn’t actually have a cure, he can’t benefit from it in any other way.

So, given the motivations, whom do you think is more likely to be lying, the millions of people working in pharmaceuticals and research who want to cure cancer, or the book author who says they don’t?

The reason that John W. Kennedylabells peddlers of “alternative medicine” as murderers is that many people will die as a result of their actions. The thing is, we can treat cancer, via surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. We still can’t cure it yet, unfortunately, but what we have is a lot better than nothing. But “alternative medicine” is synonymous with “medicine that doesn’t work”. Encouraging people to use alternative medicine instead of conventional medicine (AKA “medicine that works”) is encouraging them to their deaths.

Duck Duck Goose. It’s a known fact that many groups including the AMA, FDA, and CDC have conspired for material gain and fame. Do a little research and you won’t be hoodwinked any longer.

Chronos
Demonstrating a cure for cancer through nature would indeed unline the pockets of the folks trying to treat cancer with therapies that are more harmful that helpful (chemo, surgery, radiation, etc…since when were these safe? these can actually kill you long before the cancer).

World With Out Cancer is not claiming a cure for cancer. It is simply stating that through proper nutrition, one can decrease the severity or possiblity of cancer. In fact, most medical groups and individual doctors now subscribe to just that…proper nutrition/diet to inhibit cancer and many other diseases!!!

Most alternative medicine is for long term treatment, not instant cure treatments that do more harm than good like chemo, radiation, etc.

This is clearly not a “known fact” since currently everyone who has responded to you has claimed otherwise. If you are going to make claims like this you will need to back it up with something other than flowery prose.

And yet people are being cured of cancer and surviving at rates 10 times as previously. Since there are hard results of successful treatments, it seems disingenuous to complain about the fact that it doesn’t work 100%.

And for your conspiracy theory, show some facts that support it. People all over the world have motivations for lots of things that they don’t follow up on. Why do you think that tens of thousands of scientists, doctors, and researchers would go along with this scheme without a single one blowing the whistle?

Cyanogenic meaning cyanide-forming.
[sup]I don’t usually do this but it’s Christmas, I’m at work, and bored.[/sup]