Talk:Laetrile

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This Alternative medicine related article has been awarded BRONZE status for quality. It's getting there, but could be better with improvement. See RationalWiki:Article rating for more information.

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Was thinking similar to EVDebs, are you up for discussing the edits here so we can parse them better? tmtoulouse 05:20, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

As an outsider to this topic (as I know dick about it), I'd like to state that such a theoretical discussion sounds like a good idea to me. The Goonie Punk Can't sleep, clowns will eat me! 05:29, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
The article should identify the inventors of Laetrile. It should also acknowledge that using apricot seeds and apricot oil to treat tumors is a folk remedy that goes back hundreds of years. Davis1985 (talk) 07:58, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Assuming this is the case, just because it's an old folk remedy doesn't mean it does much of anything. EVDebs (talk) 15:44, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
A folk remedy that persists for more than 1,500 years justifies careful examination. In 2006 HK Chang et al. made amygdalin that was more than 99% pure. They tested that pure amygdalin on human prostate cancer cells. They found that their pure amygdalin induced apoptosis in those cancer cells. They wrote, "amygdalin may offer a valuable option for the treatment of prostate cancers". See "Amygdalin induces apoptosis through regulation of Bax and Bcl-2 expressions in human DU145 and LNCaP prostate cancer cells. Biological & Pharmaceutical Bulletin 29 (8): 1597–602. doi:10.1248/bpb.29.1597. PMID 16880611". I provided several other references to laboratory studies that used pure amygdalin, but those references were deleted. Davis1985 (talk) 18:35, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Argument to tradition is, unfortunately, something that tends to get used instead of evidence - David Gerard (talk) 19:37, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

This is something I have never looked into so lets step through this slowly. First edits that are background information only, and make no statements about efficacy are perfectly fine and can be added back in with out controversy I imagine. So lets focus on the issues of efficacy. I will take a look at the studies cited above. tmtoulouse 19:09, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I reviewed the sited paper, it is an in vitro study published in a medium to small impact journal, with no significant citations to the work, nor follow up, extension or replication of the results. The procedure involved basically bathing the cancer cells in a petri dish with significant amounts of amygdalin. None of this is particularly impressive. Poking around there has apparently been some very large studies of Laetrile's use in treatment in people, and that these have produced significant evidence that there is no effect. Balance out large scale human testing of the drug in question showing no effect, to a single in vitro study with no replication of an effect of amygdalin in high dosages...well its pretty obvious where the data is pointing. tmtoulouse 19:42, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Well I'm glad that all got sorted out by the subtle application of intelligence rather the crude application of my bulldozer! ħumanUser talk:Human 02:05, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

BIAS[edit]

As I research the corruption of capitalism and medicine I run across this blatantly biased page. Way to go Wiki, you are shill of Corporate America. 99.162.4.7 (talk) 21:38, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Would you like to offer some refutations?--User:Brxbrx/sig 21:39, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
Or just head over to Wiki4CAM. I hear it needs some love these days. And by love I mean "obsessive wrongness". EVDebs (talk) 19:28, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
"Way to go Wiki, you are shill of Corporate America". Everybody drink! *sips tea with pinky up* The Heidelberg Kid (talk) 01:51, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Does anyone else remember the Doonesbury arc[edit]

Where Duke gets ripped off while trying to open an apricot farm so that he can start making laetrile? Classic. P-Foster Talk "a cheetos-eating, Mountain-Dew drinking vlogger living in someone's basement." 01:57, 12 January 2012 (UTC)