Lean and Flashy Songs - Chit Chat Club

Blind rams that scarcely know how to hold a sheep-hook, or have learned anything of the least value belonging to the faithful herdsman’s art.
What does it matter to them? What do they need? They are successful, and when they list their lean and flashy songs,
Grating on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw,
The hungry sheep look up and are not fed,
But swollen with wind and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread.
— John Milton, Lycidas (1637)

My talk tonight will be a discourse on nutritional fads, nutritional quackery, the current fear of residues and additives in foods, and the effects of these matters on the world food supply, and hence on the world food problem.

I must start by defining my position on the question of supplying people with food. There seem to be two opposing views on this. The first cites the example of Bangladesh and other countries where starvation seems inevitable and states that it is useless or even counter-productive to prevent people in such countries from starving. One of the most eloquent spokesmen for this viewpoint is Garrett Hardin, who summarized his position in an article, Living on a Lifeboat, published in BioScience in 1974. He metaphorically places the rich nations in a lifeboat from which the poor must be excluded, or everyone will drown. Another spokesman is Dillon Ripley, who predicts that “morality will increasingly lose its traditional foundation and questions of the sanctity of human lives will have to be judged on a long-term strategic basis.” (1) Lamont Cole has been quoted as saying “that every time we feed a starving child, we accentuate the population problem.”

The contrasting viewpoint, which I hold, is that such attitudes are ethically repugnant, of questionable authenticity, and perhaps most significantly, are a threat to world peace. In addition, my conditioning has been shaped by my professional activities, which for about 45 years have been directed towards solving agricultural problems, remedying nutritional deficiencies, and promoting public health. All these objectives contribute to the population explosion.

Until about 13 years ago, there was very little interference with scientific methods used in agricultural production. It is true that for much further back there have been many people who objected to chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and refined foods, and who were devoted consumers of so-called “health foods.” The publication of the book Silent Spring produced a shockwave that has gathered momentum ever since. Many regard this book as an eloquent and emotional plea to protect wildlife, especially songbirds, against being poisoned by sprays. Actually, the main thrust of the book is the concept that pesticide residues in our food will give us cancer and other degenerative diseases. Silent Spring soon became the bible of the environmentalist and health food movements and has remained in this position ever since. The book is loaded with inaccuracies, exaggerations, and downright untruths, such as the statement that “the American robin is on the verge of extinction,” written at a time when this species was undergoing a population explosion because of its expansion of habitat in suburban areas. But, the greatest failing of the book is its careful omission of any mention of the fact that DDT has saved more human lives and prevented more disease than any chemical in history.

The major effect of DDT has been to accelerate the population explosion. For example, the malaria eradication program in India was directly responsible for increasing life expectancy from 32 years to 47 years within about a decade. In 1959, before Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, Dr. S. W. Simmons of the Center for Disease Control, U.S. Public Health Service, stated: “The total value of DDT to mankind is inestimable and is comprised of health, economic, and social benefits. Health benefits are both direct and indirect and include:

Direct control of vector-borne diseases such as malaria and typhus, and of insect pests.
Use in agriculture for crop pest control, resulting in an increased food supply, often where malnutrition is the principal health problem.
An increase in resistance to non-vector-borne diseases through better health as a result of freedom from malaria and malnutrition. Raising standards resulted in better agricultural and industrial production, rich land has been reclaimed, new factories have been built, and more goods have been made available for sale as well as home consumption.

There has been a significant decrease in absentee workers in countries where malaria has been controlled, and this has enabled higher earnings with an increase in economic status.” In Madagascar, the population doubled between 1911 and 1933, although it had been practically stationary for years previously. A DDT malaria eradication campaign was initiated in Madagascar in 1949 and is largely credited with the population increase. Similar results were reported in many other tropical countries. Furthermore, DDT is a compound of such low toxicity for human beings that these achievements were obtained without a single death from the insecticide or even more than a transitory sickness. All these facts were ignored by Rachel Carson.

An era of vilification of DDT was initiated following the publication of her book and has since progressed to the point where the achievements of DDT have been stuffed down the memory hole, so that blue is declared to be red, and DDT is represented as injurious to the health of human beings. No statement could be more categorically false.

In my opinion, another effect of Silent Spring was that it undermined acceptance of the basic toxicological principle that all substances are poisonous yet no substance is poisonous; in other words, there is a safe or no-effect level for any poison. The abandonment of this principle has had devastating effects on the public attitude towards “chemicals.” This effect has been strengthened by the concept that there is no way of knowing how much or how little of a carcinogenic chemical will produce cancer.

Silent Spring was a great shot in the arm for environmentalist organizations. The Audubon Society metamorphosed from a bird-watching club into a crusade to save the world from destruction by pollution. For a member to condone the use of pesticides would be tantamount to the deepest heresy in a religious sect. For an official of the Audubon Society to approve such use would be fiscal lunacy in view of the tremendous amount of free publicity that the society has received as a result of the establishment of a new mythology: the extermination of wild birds by agricultural pesticides. This myth was carefully nurtured during the decade following the publication of Silent Spring, despite the marked increases in bird counts per observer recorded in the annual Audubon counts, and despite the population explosions, not only in robins but also in blackbirds and starlings, no doubt due in part to the reduction of vector-borne avian diseases resulting from insecticide spraying. Once the DDT ban had been imposed, Audubon officials could breathe a sigh of relief and announce that the birds were more numerous than ever, thanks to the ban. An article describing the success of this self-fulfilling prophecy appeared in the New York Times Sunday magazine about two years ago.

DDT became a football for bureaucrats, such as William Ruckelshaus, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, who banned DDT in 1972. Despite the complete lack of evidence of toxicity of DDT to human beings, Ruckelshaus, on June 2, 1972, issued the pronouncement that:

“DDT is concentrated in organisms and transferred through food webs. The accumulation in the food chain and crop residues results in human exposure. Human beings store DDT. The above facts constitute an unknown, unquantifiable risk to man and lower organisms.”

Less than two years earlier, Ruckelshaus, acting as Assistant Attorney General of the U.S.A., had filed a brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals on behalf of the Secretary of Agriculture stating:

“DDT is not endangering the public health and has an amazing and exemplary record of safe use. DDT, when properly used at recommended concentrations, does not cause a toxic response in man or other animals and is not harmful. The carcinogenic claims regarding DDT are unproved speculation.”

Ruckelshaus was transferred back to the Department of the Attorney General in April 1973 to be head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a result of the Watergate scandal. His two opinions contradict each other, and I conclude that Ruckelshaus functions politically rather than scientifically. His decision to ban DDT must be viewed in this light. He is now reflecting on behalf of vinyl chloride.

The EPA issued a news release on DDT, August 11, 1975, stating that DDT was banned by EPA because of:
“Unreasonable adverse effects on man.”

This statement was diametrically opposed to the facts, if such effects exist. The following statement was made by the World Health Organization in April 1971:

“The safety record of DDT for man is truly remarkable. At the height of its production, over 100,000 tons per year were used for agriculture, forestry, public health, and other purposes, all involving some human contact. For typhus control, whole populations have had DDT powder blown into their clothing as they wore it. For malaria control, millions of men, women, and children have had the interior walls of their homes sprayed year after year in such places for more than 20 years. For control of yellow fever, DDT has been added directly to drinking water. For food protection, many plants and animals eaten by man have been sprayed with this insecticide. Yet, in spite of the prolonged exposure of the population of the world and the heavy occupational exposure of a substantial number of people, the only confirmed cases of injury have been the result of massive accidental or suicidal ingestion. Dosages of DDT hundreds of times greater than those encountered by the general population have been tolerated by volunteers for more than a year and by workers for as long as DDT factories have existed, i.e., for about one-fourth of the human lifespan. Over 150 persons with heavy, prolonged occupational exposure to DDT have been exhaustively studied medically, without any related findings except those that could be predicted, namely increased storage and excretion of DDT and its metabolites and a mild stimulation of the microsomal enzymes of the liver. Storage of DDT in heavily exposed workers is about 40 times greater than in the general population, reflecting (because of increased excretion at higher intakes) dosages something over 500 times greater.”

By 1975, the EPA was so far from reality that a news release contained the statement that:
“Human dietary intake of DDT in the U.S. has declined from 13.8 mg per day in 1970 to 1.88 mg per day in 1973.”

This scientific boner was picked up by the Associated Press, UPI, and Wall Street Journal without correction, following which it has been repeated in numerous other publications. Evidently, we are in the hands of publicity machines that cannot tell a milligram from a microgram.

Nurtured by public disquietude about pesticides and other agricultural chemicals, the organic and health food movement grew like a giant toadstool. The terms “organic food,” “organically produced,” and “organic gardening” sound great. However, these names are essentially meaningless; they are ingenious slogans used as sales aids.

In chemistry, organic compounds are defined as carbon compounds. A hundred and fifty years ago, chemists thought that only living organisms could make compounds of carbon. The synthesis of thousands of such compounds, including even proteins, is now within the scope of chemistry. So the term “organic food,” as used in health food stores, was obsolete long before it was coined.

One definition of “organic foods,” as given during public hearings before the Attorney General of New York State, is as follows:
“Organically-grown food is food grown without pesticides; grown without artificial fertilizers; grown in soil whose humus content is increased by the addition of organic matter; grown in soil whose mineral content is increased with applications of natural mineral fertilizers; has not been treated with preservatives, hormones, antibiotics, etc.”

The statement that pesticides are not used in the production of “organic” food is obviously intended to please the consumer who is prejudiced against their use, but the fact is that “organic” and regular foods both contain pesticide residues, usually at levels well below permitted maximums. The 1972 New York State hearings on organic foods showed that about 30% of organic foods contained pesticides as compared with about 20% of regular foods purchased in supermarkets. The exclusion of “artificial fertilizers” and the inclusion of “natural mineral fertilizers” contribute nothing to the nutritional value of food. The allegation that organically-grown food is “grown in soil whose humus content is increased by the addition of organic matter” is irrelevant and has no relation to the nutritional quality of the food produced. This depends primarily upon the genetic make-up of the crop.

The phrase against preservatives, hormones, and antibiotics seems calculated to arouse prejudice against “bad” words. But preservatives have been used for many centuries; the salting of meat and the pickling of cucumbers with vinegar are familiar examples. Hormones are naturally present in all animals and plants. Antibiotics are not used in the treatment of foods, although they are valuable in controlling diseases of farm animals, some of which diseases are dangerous to human beings. The term “etc.” is not explained but presumably allows the definition to be expanded almost at will.

Plants make carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and vitamins by using sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water, together with ammonia, nitrates, phosphate, potassium, magnesium, sulfate, and a number of “trace” elements, some of which are iron, copper, molybdenum, boron, zinc, and manganese. These chemicals are taken up and used by the plant in the inorganic chemical state, no matter whether they are supplied as animal manure, compost, or chemical fertilizer.

People buy “organic food” because they believe that regular food may be harmful, or “artificial,” and that “organic” food is purer and more natural. There has been a loss of confidence in some of the methods used in producing regular food because certain food additives, such as some sugar substitutes, have been banned as potentially injurious. Some organic food boosters have magnified these fears and added some imaginary concepts. For example, they state that pasteurization of milk reduces its nutritional value, that fertilized eggs are superior to eggs laid by hens without roosters, that “natural” vitamins are better than synthetic vitamins, and that certain products such as dried seaweed, wheat germ, garlic, raw sugar, bone meal, cider vinegar, and lecithin have mysteriously beneficial qualities, and that organic foods “taste better” than the same items produced by regular methods.

The use of pesticides leads inevitably to the presence of minute amounts of residues in many foods. The detection of these residues depends on modern analytical techniques of exquisite sensitivity. The margin of safety between harmfulness and the minute amounts detected by such techniques is very large.

The name “food additives” refers to the use of a large number of products and substances which have no properties in common. Statements about food additives have no meaning unless the additives are named individually. Yet many food manufacturers now label products “contains no additives” to help sales. This is a step backwards. For example, sodium propionate is normally produced and used in the human body. The omission of sodium propionate from bread does the consumer no good whatsoever but means that a lot of bread will go moldy and will be thrown in the garbage. Unfortunately, most attempts to educate the public as to the usefulness and safety of food additives are rejected as being sales promotion by the chemical industry. But the truth is that, without food additives, it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to feed large urban populations adequately.

The “organic” and “health” food stores also promote their products for self-medication, for the prevention and treatment of diseases, and advocate the products as capable of producing a sort of “super-health.” Running through this campaign is the allegation that “organic” products contain some mysterious, indefinable vital spark that is beneficial to consumers.

No such properties exist. Food is digested into simple chemical substances in the stomach and intestines; for example, the active enzymes in raw milk and the inactive enzymes in pasteurized milk are both broken down into amino acids in the digestive tract. And there is not the slightest difference between fertilized and unfertilized eggs, except that if the fertile eggs get warm, the chick embryo may start to grow, which can make it illegal to sell the eggs for human consumption.

The organic food publicity has evidently succeeded in making many consumers believe there is a difference between synthetic and “natural” vitamins. No such difference exists. For example, synthetic vitamin C is exactly as potent in preventing or curing vitamin C deficiency as the product obtained from citrus fruit, rose hips, or acerola berries. The same reasoning holds true for all the other vitamins.

In an effort to gain stature, many promoters of organic foods say that legalization of their terminology would protect consumers from “false claims.” Indeed, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Yearbook (1974) speaks of “ethical sellers of organic foods.” But it is not ethical to perpetrate a fraud, and the implication that food produced with “natural” fertilizers differs from food produced with “artificial” fertilizers is inherently fraudulent.

The growth of sales of “health” foods led to the merchandisers thereof flexing their political muscles. During the past two years, Congress has been flooded with mail urging it to weaken government protection in the field of health. As a result, the Senate passed the so-called “Proxmire Vitamin Bill” in 1974 by a vote of 81 to 10. This bill is framed solely to lessen F.D.A. jurisdiction over food supplements and the claims with which they are marketed. This strange situation resulted from an intensive campaign led by an organization called the National Health Federation (NHF). Many leaders of NHF write books and other materials that support unscientific health theories and practices. Many sell questionable “health” products, and some have been convicted of crimes while engaged in this activity. Currently, NHF is vigorously promoting a quack cancer remedy called “laetrile,” of which I shall speak in detail later. The activities of NHF serve to divert the attention of professional nutritionists from urgent programs that are needed for the relief of nutritional deficiencies. As a result, “the hungry sheep look up and are not fed.”

Diethylstilbestrol (DES)

This compound, often known by the abbreviation “DES,” is a synthetic female sex hormone used in large doses in medicine and in small doses for increasing the yield of lean meat produced by beef cattle. Unfortunately, a piece of gross medical malpractice, perpetrated in the 1950s, resulted in a number of deaths from cancer caused by overdosage with DES under conditions where it had no medicinal value. In 1971, Herbst and co-workers reported 8 cases of vaginal adenocarcinoma in young women whose mothers had been treated with DES while they were in utero. The treatment was prescribed for threatened miscarriage. A typical schedule called for daily dosages with DES starting at 5 milligrams in the seventh week of pregnancy and increasing steadily to 125 milligrams in the 35th week. The average daily dosage was 65 milligrams as compared with an endogenous production of steroid estrogens in nubile non-pregnant women that is equivalent in potency to about 0.3 milligrams daily in terms of DES. Later studies by Herbst and co-workers brought to light more cases of cancer of the reproductive tract in young women whose mothers had been treated with DES.

Chalmers states that “for 15 years, physicians continued to prescribe DES for roughly 50,000 pregnant women a year, in spite of the fact that 6 reasonably well-controlled studies in the early 1950s showed it to be totally ineffective.” Indeed, the practice was still in use at the time of the discovery by Herbst, following which the F.D.A. issued a specific warning against it. Later studies by Herbst resulted in the uncovering of more cases of DES-associated cancer in young women. He states, “In view of the fact that only approximately 100 cases have been uncovered by the registry after thorough search, it is likely that the risk of cancer development may be considerably less than 4 in 1,300.” This quantitation by Herbst enables a dose-response calculation to be made as follows: the minimum dosage was 1.5 kg per day to pregnant women. The amount of DES from consumption of beef, I have calculated, to be 2 nanograms per day. This calculation is based on the amount of DES in the livers of implanted cattle as deduced from measurements with radioactive DES. Beef liver consumption per capita per year is 0.7 kilograms, which, if from implanted cattle, would supply 34 nanograms of DES. The amount from muscle is calculated by assuming that its content is 1/10th that of liver, although this level is too low to be detectable. But, to be on the conservative side, we will use this figure from which we arrive at an annual intake of 624 nanograms of DES from muscle. The total per capita annual intake is therefore 708 nanograms, slightly less than 2 nanograms per day. One nanogram is a millionth of a milligram.

I applied a linear dose-response relationship because such a slope has been shown to exist in female mice that developed breast cancer following feeding DES by Gass and co-workers. On this basis, the risk from cancer is less than 1 case per 133 years for the entire United States population. I note that Herbst and co-workers pointed out that there has been no documented correlation of maternal DES therapy with the development of cancer in males.

The findings by Herbst led Senator Edward Kennedy to state in the Senate in September that a ban on DES in beef production was needed for reasons of health and that there was no counter-balancing health benefit from its use, “only an economic one.” I prefer to make the comparison in terms of food, for although purchasable with money, food has a value that transcends economic considerations. There is only so much food in the world, and there is not enough to go around, regardless of dollars. Food is, quite literally, life, and in today’s world, a lack of food spells death for many. The feed-saving value of DES in United States beef production is estimated as 7.7 billion pounds annually by Senators Tower, Hanson, and Dole. Another estimate states that saving from the use of DES is equivalent to 3,000,000 to 5,000,000 acres (350 million bushels) of corn annually. This would weigh 7 million tons. This can be placed against the possibility of less than 1 case of cancer per 133 years in the United States population, and this is probably an erroneous overestimate, because almost certainly there is a threshold much greater than 2 nanograms per day for any carcinogenic activity of DES. Gass and co-workers’ studies with DES fed to a strain of highly susceptible mice indicate that the threshold level was about 25 to 50 parts per billion of diet. If we assume that human beings are equally susceptible, this threshold corresponds to between 25,000 and 50,000 nanograms of DES per day, assuming a daily food intake of about 1 kilogram per person on a dry basis. What does Senator Kennedy say to his friends in Bangladesh when they ask for 1 million tons of grain?

Laetrile

Another chapter is being written in the melancholy history of cancer quackery. This chapter, entitled “Laetrile,” follows the outline of its predecessors. First, a remedy is introduced, resulting from a novel “strange idea.” Next, its promoters become so dedicated to advocating the remedy that they cannot retreat from a position that becomes untenable as a result of exposure of the worthlessness of the remedy. Third, the promoters are reinforced in their fraudulence by champions of the “underdog” against the “establishment,” and by the surviving relatives of the deceased victims of cancer. These relatives, because of feelings of guilt, cling to their belief that treatment with the remedy was the best possible therapy. Finally, vast sums of money and amounts of time are wasted in elaborate tests of the remedy by qualified scientists who should be doing something useful. These tests are usually undertaken because of coercion by legislators and other governmental officials who respond to letters from voters; letters that are often generated by the “health food” press.

The substance, laetrile, or as properly named, amygdalin, is a cyanogenetic glycoside found in seeds of members of the rose family, such as apricots, peaches, and plums. Such glycosides are toxicants occurring naturally in foods. Similar compounds are in vetches, clovers, sorghums, cassava, lima beans, and acacias. They are characteristically hydrolyzed by enzymes (β-glycosidases) to yield a sugar, usually D-glucose, and their second component, mandelonitrile, which consists of a molecule of hydrogen cyanide combined with a molecule of benzaldehyde. This component decomposes into benzaldehyde and cyanide, either spontaneously or by the action of a second enzyme. The cyanogenetic glycosides have no food value or vitamin activity, although the misnomer “vitamin B17” is used in the promotion of laetrile. Indeed, in cultures where the consumption of “laetriles” is high, chronic cyanide poisoning occurs in human beings as a direct result. This has been described in Nigeria in patients who subsist on cassava diets. Cassava farmers and processors appear to have the highest risks of developing the disease, according to Osuntokun. He described the disease as tropical ataxic neuropathy, attributable to chronic cyanide intoxication. The symptoms included lesions of the skin, mucous membranes, optic and auditory nerves, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves.

The use of laetrile to treat cancer was originally based on a fantasy by Edward Krebs, M.D., that the substance would be broken down by an enzyme in cancerous tissue to liberate cyanide, which would “kill the cancer.” This wishful concept was destroyed by the following facts:

There are only traces of β-glucosidase in animal tissues and even less in experimental tumors.
Cyanide diffuses rapidly and would poison the surrounding normal tissues, or be transported to cause systemic poisoning.

The proponents of laetrile then changed their tune. Their next claim was that amygdalin was hydrolyzed to mandelonitrile, which was carried to the liver, where it was converted to the β-glucuronide. This alleged compound was asserted to be carried to the cancer tissue, where it was said to be hydrolyzed by an enzyme, β-glucuronidase, with the subsequent liberation of cyanide. There was no basis for such a claim.

The sponsors of laetrile made an application to the Food & Drug Administration through an “Investigational New Drug Application.” Their application was reviewed and rejected because of insufficient scientific evidence that the product was safe and effective in the treatment of cancer. In the review, FDA convened an outside committee of cancer experts to review all submissions. They also rejected the evidence as totally inadequate.

But, the sponsors of laetrile, faced with a roadblock, proceeded to make an end-run. Since their compound had been ruled out as a drug, they decided to transform it into a vitamin, thus making it a food rather than a drug. They hoped that this transformation would release laetrile for shipment in interstate commerce as “vitamin B17.” Of course, laetrile and its relative, prunasin, have not the slightest resemblance to a vitamin. The crucial property of a vitamin is that its absence from the diet produces a specific deficiency disease in vertebrate animals. The cyanogenetic glycosides do not have this property.

Despite this shift of emphasis from “drug” to “food,” the Director of the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Frank Rauscher, succumbed to the lure of the nonsensical “cyanide theory,” as follows:
“I have committed the Institute to continue evaluation of not only this particular drug, amygdalin, but other cyanide-producing compounds as well. I think the biological principle is fascinating—and I really wish it would work.”

It is startling and discouraging to learn that, in mental agility, the promoters of laetrile are one step ahead of the Director of the National Cancer Institute.

Laetrile, under the generic (and correct) name of amygdalin, is sold as a laboratory chemical in the U.S.A. Large quantities are shipped from Mexico for distribution through “health food” channels. Its use for cancer treatment is illegal under federal regulations and is also prohibited by law in many states, under such names as “Bee-17” and “Aprikern.” A trial was held in California, April 22, 1975, in the case of the U.S.A. (plaintiffs) versus General Research Laboratories, Inc. (defendants). The decision of the court was based on forty-two findings of fact. Among these were:

Due to its hydrogen cyanide content, aprikern is unfit for food.
Vitamin B17 is also commonly known as amygdalin and laetrile.
There is no vitamin B17 that is a recognized vitamin in human nutrition.
There is no regulation in effect permitting the use of amygdalin in foods as a food additive or exempting amygdalin from the food additive requirements of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
The danger in the use of remedies such as vitamin B17, also known as amygdalin and laetrile, in the treatment, prevention, cure, and mitigation of cancer is in delaying or omitting diagnosis and treatment which is generally recognized by the medical profession as beneficial and effective.

The judge found that Bee-17 and Aprikern are foods and also drugs under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. He found that both products are adulterated foods, misbranded as both foods and drugs. His decision placed “General Research Laboratories, Inc.” under permanent injunction on April 24, 1975.

Despite this decision, the proponents of laetrile are infinitely ingenious, no doubt because of the large sums of money derived from their “business.” They have enlisted the support of a scientist, Dr. Dean Burk, formerly of the National Cancer Institute, who is a man with excellent scientific training and background. Dr. Burk makes the astonishing mistake of asserting that laetrile is a vitamin.

“Vitamin B17,” he also asserts, “is almost impossible…ever to declare scientifically that a given compound is not a vitamin,” and that “meats, milk, cheese, eggs, and other proteins (sic) may similarly produce cyanide when decomposed by suitable enzymes or catalysts.” Needless to say, cyanide cannot be produced by enzymatic splitting of proteins. Dr. Burk has compounded his error by asserting the existence of “Vitamin B21” and “Vitamin B22.” These vitamins do not exist; “Vitamin B21” is an inert compound (orotic acid), and “Vitamin B22” is another product of the fertile imagination of Mr. Edward Krebs, Jr., the leading proponent of laetrile.

When Dr. Burk was confronted in a hearing with the fact that his former professor and mentor, Dr. David Greenberg, had exploded these erroneous claims, Dr. Burk responded that he could not understand how Dr. Greenberg had made such a mistake. But the shoe is on the other foot. The Committee on Nomenclature of the American Institute of Nutrition has reached the following conclusions:

“The Committee has discussed the nutrient status of ‘Vitamin B17’ and finds no scientific evidence for the existence of a nutrient so identified. This terminology is neither recognized nor used by qualified nutritionists.”
“The Committee on Nomenclature also finds no scientific evidence that laetrile has nutrient properties or is in any way of nutritional value for either animals or humans.”

The peddlers of laetrile are currently arguing that it has been found active against cancer in mice by Dr. Sugiura at the Sloan-Kettering Institute. The background of Sugiura’s test is as follows: During 1972 and 1973, petitions said to be signed by 43,000 people were sent to President Nixon. The petitions demanded that the anti-cancer properties of laetrile be tested experimentally. Four studies with animals were set up: two by the National Cancer Institute, one at Sloan-Kettering Institute, and one at the Catholic Medical Center in Queens, New York. The studies sponsored by the National Cancer Institute under contract were carried out with mice. No anti-tumor activity was found in any of the systems tested. The studies at Sloan-Kettering Institute were carried out by Sugiura. In a preliminary unpublished report, Sugiura stated that 78% of the mice in control groups had lung metastases, while only 17% of those treated with laetrile developed metastases. This report was “leaked” to laetrile proponents, who gave it wide publicity. However, negative results were obtained in a collaborative experiment carried out by Sugiura and Daniel Martin of the Catholic Medical Center. There was no difference between mice treated with laetrile and the controls when the lungs from the mice were bioassayed by transplanting into fresh animals to see whether tumors grew. Two other studies at the Sloan-Kettering Institute were negative. Dr. Martin is quoted in Medical World News for October 6, 1975, as saying: “I flat-footedly and categorically tell you that laetrile is without activity against spontaneous tumors in mice—period.” Amygdalin may be refined from raw materials so that it is free from β-glucosidase. However, if foods containing the enzyme are simultaneously eaten, cyanide would be formed, and a case of cyanide poisoning was reported in a three-year-old girl who ate 15 apricot kernels. Subtoxic amounts of cyanide are converted in vivo to thiocyanate, which is goitrogenic. Osuntokun reported that patients with atoxic neuropathy associated with eating cassava had a higher prevalence of goiter (2%–5%) than the general population. All goitrogens are potentially carcinogenic; this was the reason for the “cranberry incident” in 1959, in which cranberries were condemned by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare for containing traces of a goitrogenic weed-killer. Laetrile is therefore a possible carcinogen.

Support for the continued use of laetrile has come from such unlikely bedfellows as The New York Times and the John Birch Society. So-called “conservative journalists,” including James J. Kilpatrick and Mike Culbert, have joined with the John Birch Society in making sensational and emotional claims for the efficacy of laetrile against cancer. A director of the National Health Federation, Emory Thurston, was fined and placed on probation in California for selling laetrile to a Food and Drug inspector who told him that she had cancer of the uterus.

Other leading proponents of laetrile are:

International Association of Cancer Victims (IACVF), founded in 1963 by a woman who later died of cancer. IACVF makes arrangements for patients to travel to Mexico for treatment with laetrile, in spots such as the Contreras Clinic in Tijuana. Publishes Cancer News Journal.
Cancer Control Society, founded by a former member of IACVF. Publishes Cancer Control Journal.
Silbersee Clinic, Hanover, West Germany, operated by Hans Nieper, M.D.
Ernest Krebs, Jr., a biochemist, son of Dr. Ernest Krebs. He and the John Beard Memorial Foundation were convicted and fined in 1961 for illegally promoting “Vitamin B17” for improving the performance of racehorses, and were placed on probation, with a prohibition against shipping any new drug, including laetrile, without FDA approval.
McNaughton Foundation of Canada and California, founded by Andrew McNaughton, who was convicted, fined, and sentenced to jail for mining stock fraud. The conviction is being appealed.

One would think that with the disappearance of the various fantasies surrounding laetrile, the justification for promoting it would vanish. But mythology is more persistent than veracity. Although the song has ended, the melody lingers on, becoming even more strident: laetrile, no longer claimed to be a “magic bullet” that destroys cancer cells with cyanide, has become transmuted into the fake “Vitamin B17.”

And now I come to some concluding remarks. I believe that an effective challenge to the lifeboat model of Garrett Hardin has been mounted by B. Bruce Briggs. He points out that “the prosperous—be they individuals, companies, or nations—are like members of a country club. Up to some point, they have benefited from the growth of the club as a whole. A certain minimum membership is needed to raise capital to purchase the golf course and later on, expanded membership permits more diverse and luxurious facilities. But eventually, a limit will be reached. The courses, courts, swimming pools, and clubhouse become more crowded. Because it is a desirable club, each additional member increases its total social utility but slightly reduces its utility to each individual member.”

This situation is strikingly reminiscent of Garrett Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons.” Now Bruce-Briggs points out that the Board of Governors sees the wisdom in restricting future expansion. They are thoughtful and serious people, so they find some high-minded and socially beneficial justification for this policy. A local example of this is the restriction in western Marin County against building houses on tracts of land less than 50 acres. Such a move is necessary to preserve the “quality of life” for residents of Marin County. For “mass prosperity has eroded the quality of life of the upper-middle classes.”

“When Yellowstone Park was established a century ago, only a few could spare the time and money to visit it. Now that many factory workers have campers, one must wait in line to view Old Faithful. Once upon a time, firearms were too expensive to be bought casually. Now the discriminating duck hunter must share his blinds with Archie Bunker. The hikers and horsemen are blown off the trails by unfeeling motorcyclists.”

Impending prosperity throughout the whole world is an even more frightening prospect. Europeans, Japanese, and Arabs are buying up our possessions and investments. The recent high prices for beef result from prosperity and higher wages in such countries. The plush tourist spots of the world are being invaded by Germans and Japanese. Worse, the industrializing economies bid against us for raw materials and fuel. For such reasons, the industrial nations warned the less-developed countries about the evils of growth at the Stockholm Conference on the Environment in 1972. Unfortunately, for the same reasons, the Third World countries view this warning as another neo-colonialist plot to keep them in their place.

The middle-class environmentalists tell us that we should change our evil ways, that we should reduce our consumption of energy, animal protein, and other resources. Does anyone really believe we will? Even if we did, will the other developed nations do so?

By the year 2000, there will be over 5 billion people on the Earth. These people must be fed, housed, and provided with a decent life. As Indira Gandhi has said: “How can we speak to those who live in villages and in slums about keeping the oceans, the rivers, and the air clean when their own lives are contaminated at the source? The environment cannot be improved in conditions of poverty, nor can poverty be eradicated without the use of science and technology.”

References:

Ripley, J.D., Conservation Comes of Age, American Scientist, 59:529-531 (1971).
Simmons, S.W., in DDT, The Insecticide Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane and its Significance, p. 251 (Human and Veterinary Medicine, Vol. II, P. Muller, ed.) Basel: Birkhauser 1959.
Ruckelshaus, W., Consolidated DDT Hearings, Opinion of the Administrator; Order dated June 2, 1972.
Ruckelshaus, W., Brief for the Respondents, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, No. 23813, on Petition for Review of an Order of the Secretary of Agriculture, August 31, 1970.
The Role of DDT in Operations Against Malaria and Other Vector-Borne Diseases, Off. Rec., World Health Organization, No. 190, Geneva, April 1971, p. 176.
Public Hearing in the Matter of Organic Foods, before Louis J. Lefkowitz, Attorney General of the State of New York, held at 83 Centre Street, New York, N.Y., on December 1, 1972.
Barrett, S., “Physician Details NHF’s Fight Against Fluoridation, FDA Authority,” American Dental Association News, September 22, 1975.
Herbst, A.L., Ulfelder, H., Roskanzer, D.C., “Adenocarcinoma of the Vagina: Association of Maternal Stilbestrol Therapy with Tumor Appearance in Young Women,” New England Journal of Medicine, 289:878-881 (1971).
Herbst, A.L., Robboy, S.J., Scully, R.E., and Poskanzer, D.C., American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 119:713 (July 1, 1979).
Chalmers, T.C., “The Impact of Controlled Trials in the Practice of Medicine,” American College of Physicians, 1979.
Gass, G.H., Coats, D., and Graham, N., “Carcinogenic Dose-Response Curve to Oral Diethylstilbestrol,” Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 33:971-978 (1969).
Monfort, K., “DES and Beef Prices,” Animal Nutrition and Health, 29:19 (1979).