Word: cancer
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...example, in the past "the public has been encouraged to believe that much more is known about the effectiveness of therapy" for diseases such as cancer of the breast, for which the eventual recovery rate is "not high," he said...
They had reason for optimism. Although the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) refuses to sanction Laetrile as a cancer drug in the absence of anything but "anecdotal" evidence about its value, Indiana, Florida and Texas lawmakers have just joined Alaska in voting to allow use of the drug. Similar bills are pending in some ten other states...
Laetrile has also been winning victories in the courts. A Kansas man who had rectal cancer testified that the compound, which releases cyanide in the body, is keeping him alive. A federal judge not only let him import the drug - available in Mexico, West Germany and other countries - but forced the reluctant FDA to hold its first public hearings on Laetrile. The two-day session in Kansas City, Mo., attracted 300 supporters, who continually booed and jeered the drug's critics...
These legal and legislative triumphs are only partly attributable to intensive propaganda by such Laetrile advocates as the Committee for Freedom of Choice in Cancer Therapy and other right-wing organizations that employ films, pamphlets and evangelizing visits to cancer victims to promote Laetrile. More important is the fact that although doctors can often cure the disease - if it is caught early enough - the battle against cancer has been agonizingly slow. All too often, treatments are extremely expensive (the median cost of a cancer case was calculated in a 1973 study at $19,000), physically painful and, when surgery...
Unfortunately, the issue is not so simple. As doctors pointed out at the Kansas City hearings, many cancer victims opt for Laetrile even when there is still a good chance that conventional therapy will help them, thus seriously jeopardizing their hopes for recovery. Philadelphia Surgeon Jonathan Rhoads Sr. was not alone when he testified that such cases "have happened in my own practice." The FDA has another fear. If Laetrile is legalized - without a scintilla of proof that it works - the door could be opened to a host of phony cures and bring a return to what one American Cancer...