From The Cancer Chronicles #5
İ July 1990 by Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D.
This report on "Unconventional Cancer Treatments" was supposed to investigate
a coverup. Instead it has become part of that coverup. In its present form,
it will set back the study of non-toxic cancer treatments for years to come.
From 1974-1977, I was science writer and assistant director of public affairs at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. In June 1974, I had one of the great experiences of my life. I went to the Walker laboratory in Rye, New York, and interviewed Dr. Kanematsu Sugiura, one of the centerıs most experienced and distinguished scientists.
I didnıt go there with any intention of finding out about unconventional methods. I just thought that Dr. Sugiuraıs life would make a wonderful feature for our employee newspaper. At the end of the interview, I said to him, "What are doing now?"
And he said, "I am working on amygdalin." It took me a second to realize that amygdalin was laetrile, the dreaded laetrile. I was handing out press releases saying that laetrile was entirely negative in our studies. So I said to him, what is there to work on if it doesnıt work.
And he took down from his shelf one of a series of volumes that showed that small tumors stopped growing for a period of time and then started growing again.
And I said, "Well thatıs amazing!" It was amazing not because these were the greatest results ever achieved in cancer but because I was saying just the opposite; that laetrile was worthless, that the ACS had proven it worthless.
But the most important thing is the stoppage of metastases, he added, the spread of the cancer. He showed me that in the control animals 80% had lung metastases but only 20% had them in the treated animals. And that revealed to me that something very funny was going on.
From that time at Memorial we progressed into a coverup of the results on laetrile until finally in 1975, SKI vice president C. Chester Stock said to Medical World News, "We have found anygdalin netagive in all the animal systems we have tested."
To make a long story short, I blew the whistle on this coverup and I was fired the next day for failing to carry out my "most basic job responsibilites," i.e., to lie on behalf of Memorial Sloan Kettering.
Now: Where are the Sugiura studies in your report? Where are they?
Twice you say that "the information presented about specific treatments is, in most cases all that could be found, rather than a selective culling through a larger body of literature."
Really? There's ten pages on laetrile. You've got space for the John Birch Society connection. But you have no space to talk about the biggest, most extensive and probably the best study ever done in a laboratory on any unconventional method.
Itıs gone! Itıs as covered up today as it was in 1975.
I must say, I am really astounded at this whole procedure. Iıve never been to a Washington hearing before and sometimes I feel like Iım wading through cotton candy. You people donıt seem to have the right spirit to conduct this whole report.
People are dying of cancer in this country. You remind me of that Ron Cobb cartoon of a little child dying of malnutrition. There are 8 or 10 doctors standing around its crib, pointing and questioning and rubbing their chins, like "Whatıs going on? We have to get the medical reports on this."
People are dying.
We cremated Ron Wolin this week. It's a very interesting story. Ron was co-founder of the Patients' Rights Legal Action Fund and a patient of Dr. Burzynski. He was lying on a couch in Dr. Burzynski's office in Houston when the FDA came in and seized 220,000 documents from Burzynski's office. They took 11 filing cabinets, loaded them onto a U-Haul and drove away. And the very same day, Dr. Burton's clinic was shut down in the Bahamas, July 17, 1985.
Now, I know whatıs going on here and I'm not fooled. And I'll tell you something: repression breeds resistance. Ron Wolin watched those records go out the door, then he founded an organization which forced the government to a standstill in the courts. And the same day, by coincidence, Frank Wiewel was in Dr. Burton's clinic. You know, just a guy, with his father-in-law. And he watched Burton's clinic closed and look, here he is. Heıs the head of two cancer organizations. And I was just a guy who happened to be in the right place at the right time.
So, I'm not afraid of you, and I'm not afraid of what you're doing.
You'll continue with this? Fine. We'll continue to fight you. If you're
smart, you'll save the reputation of OTA and radically revise this report.
