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Strategies & Market Trends : Roger's 1998 Short Picks -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hank who wrote (5295)	3/20/1998 11:57:00 AM
From: Peter V	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 18691

If I recall correctly, laetrile was a supposed cancer cure made from apricot pits that was in the public eye in the 1980s, because it was available in Mexico but not in the US. I do not know whether it is a relative of B-12.

To: Hank who wrote (5295)	3/21/1998 10:15:00 PM
From: FuzzFace	Respond to of 18691

Laetrile is a quack cure for cancer. In Mexico, where charlatans prey on desperate Americans with terminal cancer, it is a cottage industry. It is chemically related to cyanide (carbon triple bonded to nitrogen.) After numerous double blind studies, it has been proven to have no therapeutic effect. It has a long and infamous history with the John Birch Society taking up the cause in the Sixties because one of their loony adherants was a quack doctor who wanted to make money off it. It has given false hope and painful deaths to thousands, who because of the propaganda put out by the money grubbing quacks, eschew the chemotherapy and radiation that are still unfortunately, the only forms of treatment for many kinds of cancer. One of their victims was the mother of an old girlfriend of mine. She refused conventional mastectomy/chemo/rad therapy (even though the breast cancer was diagnosed in plenty of time to give her a 90% chance of survival) in favor of Laetrile. After a year of Laetrile, the cancer spread to her bones and other tissues. My ex used to drive her to Mexico while listening to her scream in agony as her bones broke from the paroxysms. She died at age 45 in 1975.