THE PLOWBOY INTERVIEW

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The controversy actually began back in 1908 when John Beat, a professor of embryology at the University of Edinburgh, suggested that malignant tumors-cancer-might be cured by the effective use of ordinary enzymes (instead of the maiming surgery, poisonous chemotherapy, or burning radiation used by the modern medical establishment).

Both Dr. Beard and his theory were ridiculed by the scientists of the day . . . and it wasn't until 1938 that the Edinburgh professor's work was picked up and continued by Dr. Ernst Krebs and his son, Ernst Krebs, Jr. The Krebs, in fact, devoted their lives to nutrition therapy and out of that labor came "The Trophoblastic Thesis of Cancer", laetrile (a substance-also known as amypdalin or vitamin B-17-extracted from the pit of the common apricot), and some rather sensational headlines both for and against the Krebs' work-that are still appearing in newspapers and magazines to this day.

It is unfortunate that-on the one hand-defenders of the Krebs have sometimes presented laetrile to the world as a "befall, end-all" miracle cure while-on the other-the entrenched medical establishment has viciously and violently attacked vitamin B-17 as a completely worthless "quack" nostrum. Because once you get past the overblown and messy claims and counterclaims, you find that the Krebs father-son team developed a six-point theory of cancer and its treatment that really does seem to make sense:

(1) The cancer cell is a normal body cell (called a trophoblast cell) which plays an important role in reproduction. As cancer, it is merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. [8J Such cells, normally, are controlled by pancreatic enzymes. (9J Even under abnormal conditions, the pancreatic enzymes are capable of destroying cancerous cells. [4J When the enzymes are in poor supply, however, a "wild" cell can proliferate and manifest itself as cancer. [5f Cancer, then, is a deficiency disease and-as such--will respond to medication. (6J Laetrile, actually vitamin B-17, can fill this deficiency when properly administered in combination with other vitamins and enzymes and, in fact, the mere existence of a malignant tumor creates biochemical actions which "trigger" laetrile-if it's available-into attacking the unnatural growth and killing the cancer cells.

"That's a nice theory,"says the American Medical Association . . . and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the American Cancer Society, and most of the rest of the "legitimate" medical establishment, "but it doesn't work. "

"Oh yes, it does work!"answers Dr. Harold W. Manner, Professor of Biology and Chairman of the Biology Department of Chicago's Loyola University, "and 1 have documented case studies of work done with both laboratory animals and human beings which prove that nutrition therapy using laetrile can cure, contain, and prevent cancer."