Is Laetrile Really “Toxic & Dangerous”?

Still not convinced that there’ll never be a cure for cancer even after the reading the contradictions surrounding Vitamin B15?

Well then here’s more!

Thousands of people have taken Vitamin B17 (or better known as laetrile) with absolutely no side effects despite the active component in laetrile, which is cyanide.

Sounds scary right? It is because of this cyanide property that the FDA decided to ban the substance.

However, keep in mind that Vitamin B12 (see Cyanocobalamin vs. Methylcobalamin) also contains cyanide and at least so far, Vitamin B12 is clearly a safe and required vitamin for human health.

So then, is laetrile really toxic and dangerous? Moreover, is laetrile truly effective against cancer? And based on the current accepted scientific assumption regarding laetrile as dangerous, how then are chemotherapy drugs approved as legal by the FDA despite the universally known toxicity and side effects associated with this treatment option?

Or should I say only treatment option.

Let’s not even talk about about the decades of “Search for the Cure” groups and the billions upon billions of dollars that goes into this effort. Yet there still is no cure in sight!

I’m itching to dig into this a bit, aren’t you? Where should we begin?

Drug Treatments for Cancer

How about with one of the more popular cancer drugs commonly used today; Gleevic.

Gleevic (also known as Glivic or Gleevec), is touted as a miracle cancer drug much like how the holistic community has tout laetrile as their miracle cure. However there is small difference: Gleevic can cause heart failure.

Yet despite ten patients who died of heart failure (not the cancer), naturally the FDA doesn’t consider these deaths worthy of investigation or of stopping the use of the drug. They contend that this side effect is “extremely rare”.

Really? Let’s check out the side effects of this modern medicine miracle cancer drug.

The company that manufactures Gleevic reports the following side effects:

“The safety profile of Glivec was similar in all indications. The most common side effects included nausea, superficial edema, muscle cramps, skin rash, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, myalgia, arthralgia, hemorrhage, fatigue, headache, joint pain, cough, dizziness, dyspepsia and dyspnea, dermatitis, eczema and fluid retention, as well as neutropenia, thrombocytopenia and anemia.

Rare/serious adverse reactions include: sepsis, pneumonia, depression, convulsions, cardiac failure, thrombosis/embolism, ileus, pancreatitis, hepatic failure, exfoliative dermatitis, angioedema, Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, renal failure, fluid retention, edema (including brain, eye, pericardium, abdomen and lung), hemorrhage (including brain, eye, kidney and gastrointestinal tract), diverticulitis, gastrointestinal perforation, tumor hemorrhage/ necrosis and hip  osteonecrosis/avascular necrosis…”

Well is hemorrhaging a common or a rare side effect?

In either case, I certainly would consider it serious. Wouldn’t you? Nonetheless, cardiac failure certainly is worthy of concern.

I’d like to point out another side effect of Gleevic – Stevens-Johnson Syndrome.  It is an extremely serious life-threatening condition, which affects the skin by causing cell death, resulting in the epidermis (outer layer of the skin) separating from the dermis (inner layer that contains blood vessels, lymph vessels, hair follicles, etc).

And if you survive this, a likely side effect of  Stevens-Johnson Syndrome is cancer! 

(Featured in image: Vitamin B-17 Forbidden Weapon Against Cancer: The Fight for Laetrile)