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Laetrile - the answer to Cancer
  by James South MA

The anti-cancer drug Laetrile is one of the most controversial subjects in the history of medicine. Laetrile's most ardent proponents consider it to be a natural cancer cure, literally built in to the normal "vitamin architecture" of mammalian food supplies as the primary natural exogenous cancer control for humans and animals. They have called Laetrile "vitamin B17."(1) Laetrile's opponents consider it, quite simply, as a "toxic drug that is not effective as a cancer treatment."  The term "Laetrile" was coined by the father/son team of Ernest T. Krebs Sr.., M.D., and E.T. Krebs Jr. research biochemist. It is a contraction of the more formal name "LAEvo-mandeloniTRILE-glucoside

O.L. Oke has noted that "Cyanogenetic glycosides [nitrilosides] have been found in the following common vegetables: maize, sorghum, millet, field bean, lima bean, kidney bean..., sweet potato, cassava, lettuce, linseed [flaxseed], almond and seeds of lemons, limes, cherries, apples, apricots, prunes, plums and pears." (4) Thus Krebs has argued that their widespread presence in foods consumed by humans and animals all over the world argues against nitrilosides/laetriles being seriously or inherently toxic. Krebs also believed this gives "laetriles" the status of "accessory food factors," rather than their being a "drug," alien to normal human metabolism. 

Laetrile" to treat cancer was reported in 1845 by T. Inosmetzeff, a professor at the Imperial University of Moscow. (5,6) A young male cancer patient of 20 received approximately 46,000 mg of amygdalin over a period of 3 months, and was still alive 3 years later. A women of 48, with extensive metastasis from a primary right ovarian tumor, received varying amounts of amygdalin over a period of years and had survived II years at the time of the report. No sustained pharmacologic harm was seen with these patients. In the modern era Laetrile was "rediscovered" in the 1940s by the Krebs. By the late 1940s - early 1950s, use of Laetrile to treat cancer had spread quietly around the world. Early dosages were extremely modest - only 50 - 100 mg by intravenous injection, with total patient dosage then seldom exceeding 2 gms. By the 1960s the Krebs were recommending 30 gms total Laetrile dosage, spread over a 10-30 day treatment course. (7) By the 1980-90s, intravenous dosages up to 9 gms, with total patient dose reaching 2-300gms, was not uncommon. (8) Classical Laetrile proponents, such as Krebs, Dean Burk, and P. Binzel, do not consider Laetrile a literal cancer cure, however, anymore than insulin injections are a "cure" for diabetes. Rather, Laetrile is considered a cancer control which will need to be taken indefinitely, in oral form, after the original "cancer crisis" is brought under control. This exactly parallels the situation of vitamin deficiency diseases, where intravenous injections may be used to bring a severe vitamin deficiency disease (e.g. pellagra or beri-beri) under control, with higher-than-normal oral doses needed indefinitely thereafter to prevent relapse, The typical oral Laetrile dose used after intravenous injections is 1 to 2 gms/day. (8) Yet Krebs suggested that 50-100 mg of Laetrile/day might suffice to prevent cancer in normal healthy adults. (1) 

The "proof" of Laetrile's efficacy in preventing/controlling cancer has come from 3 different sets of data: epidemiological, animal tests, and human clinical use by experienced pro-laetrile doctors. The epidemiological evidence for Laetrile is controversial, like all epidemiological evidence, and provides only strong suggestions, not incontrovertible proof. 

As Krebs points out, "Tribes in the Karakonims of West Pakistan, [the Hunzas], the aboriginal Eskimaux, tribes of South Africa and South America living on native foods, the North American Indian in his native state, the Australian aborigines and other native or so-called primitive peoples rely upon a diet containing as much as 250 to 3000 mg of nitriloside in a daily ration. Civilized, Westernized... man, on the other hand relies on a diet that probably provides on average less than 2 mg nitriloside a day". (3) Among these people, cancer tends to be rare compared to the high rates present in America and Europe. For example, Sir Robert McCarrison, famed medical nutritionist in the 1920s - 30s, failed to discover a single case of cancer among the Hunzas during a 20 year period, while John dark, M.D., a later medical missionary among the Hunza, also failed to find cancer among them. (3) The Hunza diet is based in significant part upon the apricot kernel, a rich source of Laetrile, which typically provides them with at least 150 - 250 mg "B17"/day. (3) 

Among the Eskimaux living on their native diet, cancer was also so rare that it prompted famed anthropologist/explorer V. Steffanson to write a book on the subject: Cancer: Disease of Civilization? (9) Krebs notes that the salmon-berry is a rich nitriloside source, and is used by traditional Eskimaux to make pemmican, which is eaten year-round. The contents of caribou stomachs, partially-digested grasses unusually rich in nitrilosides, are a prized delicacy among the Eskimaux. (3) 

Dr. M. Navarro of Santo Tomas Univ. of Manila, was a world-famed oncologist who was also an early Laetrile clinical pioneer. "By 1977 he had linked the low incidence of cancer in the native populations of Mindanao [the Philippines] to the continual ingestion of many sources of vitamin B17. That rate, about I per 100,000 [less than 1% of the U.S. cancer rate], is even smaller than the low rate of cancer in the non-urban Filipino north, where generations of Filipinos have subsisted on [nitriloside-rich] cassava, wild rice, wild beans, berries and fruits of all kinds." (10) 

In a letter to Dean Burk, pro-laetrile head at that time of the Cytochemistry Dept. of the NCI, Krebs wrote concerning North American Indians: "I have analyzed from historical and anthropological records the nitriloside content of the diets of... carious North American tribes.... Some of these tribes would ingest over 8,000 mg of vitamin B17 (nitriloside) a day. My data on the Modoc Indians are particularly complete." (12) As an example of the low cancer incidence among Indians eating their high "B17" native diet, Krebs cited a report on the Navajo-Hopi Indians from JAMA. Feb. 5, 1949: "...the doctors wondered if [the Indians' diet] had anything to do with the fact that only 36 cases of malignant cancer were found out of 30,000 admissions to Ganado, Arizona Mission Hospital... In the same population of white persons, the doctors said that would have been about 1800." (12) 

In his preface to A. Berglas' book Cancer: Cause and Cure. medical missionary Dr. Albert Schweitzer wrote that "On my arrival in Gabon [Africa] in 1913, I was astonished to encounter no cases of cancer. I saw none among the natives two hundred miles from the coast.... I can not, of course, say positively that there was no cancer at all, but, like other frontier doctors, I can only say that, if any cases existed they must have been quite rare. This absence of cancer seemed to be due to the difference in nutrition of the natives compared to the Europeans...." (13). Of course, such high nitriloside foods as cassava, millet, maize and sorghum are staples of the traditional African diet. Cassava may contain from 225 to 1830 mg/kg of the nitriloside linamarin (10) 

In 1962 Dr. John Morrone reported his results from using Laetrile with 10 patients suffering from "inoperable cancer," The treatments ranged from 4 to 43 weeks in length, and a range of 9 to 133 gms Laetrile was given through intravenous injections, Morrone concluded his report: "The use of Laetrile... in 10 cases of inoperable cancer, all with metastases, provided dramatic relief of pain, discontinuance of narcotics, control of fetor [stench from a tumor], improved appetite, and reduction of adenopathy [swollen lymph nodes]. The results suggest regression of the malignant lesion.... No other side effects [other than transient episodes of low blood pressure] were noted except slight itching and a sensation of heat in the affected areas, which was transitory in all cases." (16)

In 1994, P.E. Binzel published his results from treating cancer patients with Laetrile between 1974 and 1991. He used a combination of intravenous and oral Laetrile. Intravenous doses started with 3 gms and worked up to 9 gms. After a period of months, oral Laetrile, I gm at bedtime, was begun in place of the injections. Binzel also used various nutrient supplements and pancreatic enzymes, as well as a low animal-protein, no junk-food diet as part of his regimen. Out of a series of 180 patients with primary cancer (non-metastasized, confined to a single organ or tissue), 138 were still alive in 1991 when he compiled his treatment results. At that time, 58 of the patients had been followed for 2 to 4 years, while 80 had a medical follow-up from 5 to 18 years. Of the 42 patients who had died by 1991, 23 died from their cancers, 12 from unrelated causes, and 7 died of "cause unknown."(8)

Among his metastatic cancer patients, 32 of 108 died from their disease, while 6 died of unrelated causes, and 9 died of "cause unknown." Of his 61 patients still alive in 1991, 30 had a follow-up between 2 and 4 years, while 31 had been followed for 5 to 18 years. (8) Binzel's results are impressive. Some of the individual patients discussed in his book were still alive (and well!) 15-18 years after their initial Laetrile treatment. Binzel also notes that none of the cancer diagnoses were made by him (a small town, "family doctor") - all patients had diagnoses from other physicians. Many had already suffered the ravages of standard "cut-bum-and poison" (surgery/X-ray/chemotherapy) medicine before being given up as hopeless cases by orthodox doctors.

Other physicians who have worked with Laetrile have also reported favorable results using it. Thus Manuel Navarro, M.D., former professor of medicine and surgery at the Univ. of Santo Tomas in Manilla wrote in 1971: "1... have specialized in oncology [the study of tumors] for the past eighteen years. For the same number of years I have been using Laetrile-amygdalin in the treatment of my cancer patients. During this eighteen year period I have treated a total of over five hundred patients with Laetrile-amygdalin by various routes of administration, including the oral and the I.V. The majority of my patients receiving Laetrile-amygdalin have been in a terminal state when treatment with this material commenced.

Dr. Hans Nieper is a world famous oncologist and the developer of the standard anti-cancer cytotoxic drug cyclophosphamide. In 1970 he co-authored a brief paper on Laetrile with Dean Burk, in which they stated that "...in the treatment of cancer, the active principle of nitrilosides is to be used mainly in prophylaxis [prevention] and early protective therapy.... On the other hand, the complete atoxicity [lack of toxicity] of this method of treatment, which is maybe nothing else but a rediscovered natural principle, permits the unlimited use of this substance." (18) In 1972 Nieper told reporters while in the U.S.: "After more than 20 years of such specialized work, I have found the non-toxic Nitrilosides - that is, Laetrile - far superior to any other known cancer treatment or preventive. In my opinion it is the only existing possibility for the ultimate control of cancer." (11)