Page 42Writing in the AMA Journal Jan 7, 1922 he reported: “The Hunza has no known
incidence of cancer.” McCarrison went on to remark about apricots: “They have
an abundant crop of apricots. These they dry in the sun and use largely in their
food”. This led in the 1970s to the laetrile frenzy.
Trying to pick on an extract of apricot as “the” cause of the Hunza longevity
is just as stupid, and shows just as little understanding of Nature, as drug
companies trying to extract “the active ingredient” in a herb! But that’s what the
laetrile lobby got started with and it is nonsense.
I have never seen a successful trial of the value of amygdalin (Laetrile) that
specifically excluded other change modalities, which of course would have to be
done for any meaningful “proof” that laetrile works. While it is combined with
diet (as is usually the case) then the diet may be the real cause of recovery and
not the laetrile at all. See section #27.
The Eskimos are another people that have been observed by medical teams for
many decades and were found to be totally free of cancer. Alaska’s most famous
doctor Dr Preston A Price claims that, “In his 36 years of contact with these
people he had never seen a single case of malignant disease among the truly
primitive Eskimos, although it frequently occurred when they were modernized”.