As Jason Vale awaits sentencing on 5 March 2004 for selling Apricot seeds to people with cancer, the powers-that-be felt it necessary to defend the industry. Phillip Day of Campaign for Truth in Medicine reports:
The programme went out at peak viewing time on ITV London Tuesday night at 7:30pm, the premise all too depressingly familiar. From the TV channel that gave us the moronic 'I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here,' viewers in the south were told gullible people were being conned by alternative cancer treatments with convincing stories attached to them, being relieved of their money and given false hope. And those apricot kernels? Proof that anything within them can heal cancer? What rubbish.
The experts for the prosecution were all there. Predictably, the defence specialists had missed their taxi and never got on the programme. The conclusion of the programme was implicit. People should trust conventional science and stick with tried and tested treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation. We understand people's emotional need to look for alternatives, but please don't be silly. Cancer is a serious business.
Serious business indeed, and extremely profitable at that. Campaign for Truth in Medicine has several articles this month - all around the cancer diatribe. Are all alternatives quackery? Are the toxic cures offered by medicine effective? Do mammograms offer protection or are they themselves a cause of cancer? What is the role of vitamin B 17?
Campaign for Truth in Medicine's E-Club has put a selection of articles together on this argument. The newest edition gives an excellent overview:
From Campaign for Truth E-club bulletin:
CANCER: WHO CAN WE TRUST? Is the medical establishment 'winning the war on cancer?' How safe are alternative treatments compared to chemo and radiation? Can we trust the information about cancer we are given in the media?
THE CANCER CHARITIES: Steven Ransom presents an in-depth look inside the cancer charities and big drug companies and unravels a litany of vested interests and manipulation of information.
CHEMO(TOXICO)THERAPY: A candid view of this commonly prescribed treatment and the harsh fact of expert and subtle manipulation behind the oft-quoted 'success' statistics.
CANCER: An excerpt from Phillip Day's ABC's of Disease.
MAMMOGRAPHY - MORE PROBLEMS: The false positive rate of mammograms, those patients without cancer but with a positive finding on testing, turns out to be another problem. Only one biopsy in six was found to be positive for cancer when done on the basis of a positive mammogram or breast examination.
THE NITRILOSIDES IN PLANTS AND ANIMALS: Ernst T Krebs Jr. discusses the active, anti-cancer role of the Vitamin B17 nitrilosides in the plant and animal kingdoms.
