Steve McQueen
In 1980, movie actor Steve McQueen also made news when he went
to Mexico for Laetrile and other unorthodox therapies.
When he died following surgery four months later, the press had a heyday
telling the American people that Laetrile didn't work. What they failed
to report is that McQueen's cancer was, indeed, apparently cured by Laetrile,
and that only a non-cancerous tumour remained in his abdomen.
(Most tumours are composed of a mixture of cancer and non-cancerous tissue.)
McQueen was feeling great and decided to have the bulge removed for cosmetic reasons.
It was a complication of that surgery, not cancer, which caused his death.
Not a word of his prior recovery was to be found in the major press.
Consequently, millions of Americans who followed the story came away
with the conviction that Laetrile is just another hoax. That, too,
is merely an extension of the kind of biased media reporting that has
become a permanent part of the coverage of Laetrile. It continues today.
Chad Green
It has been suggested that the mass media have decided to ignore
Laetrile because, when it did receive national publicity, it became popular.
People decided to give it a try in spite of the negative press.
If they had been told they were going to die anyway, why not?
And the clinics in Mexico thrived. Another reason may be that,
although the controversy continues, there is nothing of substance
that is really new. Each unfolding event is merely an extension of
forces and arguments that have preceded.
For example, in 1977, the parents of Chad Green kidnapped their
own son and took him to Mexico to avoid being forced by officials in
Massachusetts into giving him chemotherapy for his leukaemia.
They preferred nutritional therapy instead. This is part of the
heavy price we pay for allowing government the power to decide
what is best for us and our families.
Thomas Navarro
When special-interest groups
become politically strong enough to write the laws, then it is
those groups that tell us what to do - all in the name of protecting us,
of course.
The Chad Green story made big headlines but, unfortunately,
the same thing involving other children has happened numerous times
since then with only minor news coverage.
For example, in 1999,
James and Donna Navarro were told that their four-year-old son,
Thomas, had a malignant brain tumour. Surgery left the child speechless,
blind, and unable to walk. When the doctors told the Navarros that
Thomas would also have to undergo radiation and chemotherapy, they
researched the medical literature and learned that these treatments
probably would further impair the boy's brain function and that long-term
survival was unlikely anyway. So they decided to try an alternative therapy
called antineoplastons offered at the Stanislaw R. Burzynsky Research Institute
in Houston. At this point, the FDA stepped in and prohibited Dr. Burzynsky
from accepting the boy as a patient unless he first had undergone chemotherapy
and radiation.
Mr. Navarro explains: "What they don't understand is that there won't be
anything left of him to salvage if we make him take that awful treatment first.
" When he did not fall in line with the doctors' demands, he began to receive
harassing phone calls from hospital personnel. One oncologist threatened to
file charges with the state. When Mr. Navarro still refused, the doctor went
to the protective-services agency and filed child-abuse charges against the parents.
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