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Announcer: Welcome to the Gerson Tapes. These are a unique collection of lectures and testimonials based on the work and research of Dr. Max Gerson, his family and colleagues. So please, sit back and relax and enjoy the great health information you’re about to hear. Please remember, the information contained in this program is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified healthcare professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of the Gerson Institute and its affiliates. We encourage you to make your own healthcare decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified healthcare professional.
Norman: Is our next speaker here? Our next speaker I’ve mentioned, Dr. Krebs, as being responsible, in many ways, for our being here because of his interaction with Cecille Hoffman and Laetrile. But you can’t get much closer to the beginning than to get the man who developed Laetrile, along with his father, back many years ago. He also, of course, has played an extremely important part in getting a lot of this movement going that led to all of our activities and all of us being here. It’s hard to place a value on what any one person has contributed but he certainly contributed a tremendous amount.
Another thing, since we are in a way fighting a crusade, I remember the first little meeting back in 1964 when Ernst Krebs said, “Well, you don’t need to worry. When this crusade is finished there will be another one.” Ernst Krebs.
[Applause]
Ernst: Thank you, Norman. It’s good to be here tonight and Miss Charlotte Gerson Strauss speak on the perpetuation of the work of her father along with the assistance of Mr. Norman Fritz. You’ve heard a great deal during these meetings about diet and the Gerson method. Of course, it’s a dietary method. It is interesting as we survey these various so-called alternative therapies that there is a very spectacular confluence in them all. One, they share in common a dietary base. Two, they utilize the totality of pancreatic enzymes. The Gerson Method does, all of the other methods, including the Hoxsey Formula. The Laetrile Diet of course utilizes the pancreatic enzymes. All of them directly or indirectly utilize vitamin B17 or laetrile.
In the formal Gerson regimen I understand that the use of nuts is discouraged and for this reason, of course, the apricot seeds or kernels are not actively used under the strict Gerson regimen. But there are fine alternative sources for vitamin B17, mung beans for example, particularly the sprouted form, are very rich in vitamin B17. So is millet. And again, the sprouting of millet increases the richness of
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vitamin B17 or the laetrile factor. Lima beans and things as exotic as macadamia nuts, cashews and of course buckwheat is a very important source of vitamin B17. The laetrile orientation, or course, is a specialized nutritional or dietary one. We have underlying it the broad dietary base and this embraces most of the principles honored by Dr. Max Gerson. Indeed, all forms of cancer therapy, even the conventional or so-called orthodox school, are converging more and more to the dietary center. Dr. Devita at the National Cancer Institute just last week pointed out that the utilization of dietary measures in the management of cancer with conventional therapy is increasing substantially. In addition to the treatment or therapy, the Gerson technique is a method of treatment or therapy, we have the great world of prophylaxis or prevention. In this we’ve seen the role of Dr. Linus Pauling, twice winner of the Nobel Prize and his surgical associate Dr. Ewan Cameron of Scotland. We need not belabor the important of adequacy of vitamin C or ascorbic acid. This adequacy fortunately comes in part by the utilization of fresh fruits and vegetables. So those are the substances that contain ascorbic acid or vitamin C. Those substances, in their whole or entire state, also contain the laetrile principle vitamin B17.
Now vitamin B17 is the nutritional term for the medical form of the molecule which is laetrile. You can obtain vitamin B17 is found in the seeds of all fruits on this continent with the possible exception of citrus fruits. When you go home if you choose to taste vitamin B17, just take the first piece of fruit that you can reach. The apple is probably the most convenient. Bite into the apple seed. You will taste a very pleasant, bitter, almond flavor. The same flavor, incidentally, that you find in Dr. Pepper. But the flavor in Dr. Pepper is produced by the addition of benzaldehyde alone. It is because the human species, or in fact most animal species, have evolved with vitamin B17 in the dietary that the flavor bitter almond is so universally appealing. I don’t think any of us find it repugnant. Bite into the apple seed, taste the bitter almond flavor. If you have the time break open an apricot stone or pit, the identical flavor is there. The seed or kernel of a nectarine or a cherry or a plum, they’re all rich in this factor.
It is the contention of the laetrile therapist, those who recognize the role of laetrile or vitamin B17, that cancer at it’s base is like all other chronic or metabolic diseases, the cause or etiology which has been elucidated, is like all these other diseases, basically a dietary deficiency disease, a vitamin deficiency disease. In the entire history of medicine or science there’s been no chronic or metabolic disease that has ever been prevented or cured except by nontoxic factors normal to the diet. On July 13th I published a statement in the American Medical Association’s “American Medical News.” This goes to 450, 000 Mds. I received a number of comments on that statement, but no comment questioned it at all, that in the entire history of medicine or science there’s not chronic or metabolic
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disease that has found resolution by way of prevention or prophylaxis or cure except through nontoxic factors, water or oil soluble, normal to the diet.
Consider pernicious anemia for example. This disease at one time carried a higher mortality rate than cancer, about 99.8 percent of all those who were thoroughly diagnosed as having pernicious anemia went on to die from it. Everything in material medical was thrown at this, every chemical, every pharmaceutical, over the span of time, over decades, without any appreciable effect whatsoever. The arsenicals, stricnea, iron, heavy metals - all these things were used to no avail. And yet the final solution to pernicious anemia proved of course to be raw liver and the chemists determined that the active factors in raw liver, the anti- pernicious factors were vitamin B12 and folic acid. Now there’s no such thing as pernicious anemia. It is preventable and it’s not necessary for us to give it much thought. The hematologist finding something verging on that just prescribes an increased concentration of vitamin 12 and folic acid or liver substance.
So it is going to be in cancer. By the time cancer is diagnosed we’re in the 11th hour, the 59th minute, the 59th second before the midnight death. The time to start is now. The time to start is with the next meal. Find people here eating their apples, great. Just go ahead and eat those seeds. You’re getting a little ration of vitamin B17 there. You decide to make bread at home, instead of turning uniformly to ordinary wheat, which is good enough, utilize millet, buckwheat, raw bean. All are very rich in vitamin B17. Indeed the old testament describes the bread that was used during the siege of Jerusalem and there were five components in this bread and four of them contained vitamin B17. This is 3,000 or 4,000 years ago.
We have developed the problem of cancer because there’s been a profound deformation in our diet brought about by factors previous speakers have described. Excessive refining is one of them. The discarding of the bran, discarding of the polish from rice, wheat and all the rest denudes the cereals of all of their vitamins and most of their minerals. When you’re using rice, for example, use the brown or whole rice. The brown rice does contain some vitamin B17 or the laetrile factor in the bran.
I’ve heard Dr. Shenk allude to the role of laetrile in hypertension. This is fine. Every vitamin has an extremely broad spectrum of physiologic action. This is why it is unsound for us to speak of any vitamin as the specific measure for a specific disease. We must look at vitamins for what they are - water or oil-soluble accessory food factors that if taken in adequacy prevent those that arise from the deficiency of such vitamins.
I wish I could be as sanguine as some about the potential of nutrition, about the potential of all of these health measures beyond a certain point, but we are bound
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by a very definite determinism, a fatalism the reality of which is recognized, of course, by the Muslim, by the religions of Islam. All of the cell rebuilding agents in the world and all of the rejuvenating techniques in the world and all of these things do not, unfortunately, appreciably alter the inexorable course of time. It would be great if those of us in the alternative health movement, in natural healing, could point to our people and say, “Well look at Mr. George Smith there, he’s going into his 101st year and boy he’s eating his apricot seeds and kernels and he’s had his laetrile and he’s had his vitamin B15. He’s had his chelation and all the rest. He’s made it to 101.” The probability is that such a specimen will not be around. Maybe a Bernard MacFaden who jumps out of an airplane at the age of 88 and then dies, of course, at the age of 89 from a liver condition, which incidentally could have been ameliorated somewhat by the use of the choline group of vitamins. In fact, the vitamin B15 group. On the other hand, if you look around at some callous sinner who’s pushing 100, 101 and, “Mr., what do you ascribe your fine health, your vitality, your longevity to?” Winston Churchill was asked that. “Our Dr. Dean Perkinson, that class, smoked eight or ten cigars a day and drank when they felt like and so forth.”
Dr. Shank pointed out the very important determiner in all of this is genetic composition. If you’ve been fortunate enough to choose the right grandparents. This is an area that is neglected in the rapid rush of life. We don’t give sufficient thought to the oncoming generation. Their genetic patterns are characterized by very early death and by early debility and disease rates. You notice families where member after member succumbs of coronary disease before the age of 50 or sometimes before the age of 40. In an overpopulated world we could well afford to discourage reproduction among those with a sufficiently sour genetic background. We certainly do in all other areas of biology. We are very, very careful about the genetic quality of the corn we raise, about the genetic quality of the turkeys, the winged turkeys, chickens and so forth. We raise them for broad breasts and we raise them for certain definite purposes. With the human population, up to this point, it’s hit and miss. It is a source of a great, great deal of tragedy. You see a family where Down Syndrome or mongolism will occur in mothers, not as you would expect up in their 40s, but in the early years. There are these genetic factors.
As far as laetrile or vitamin B17 is concerned, that is my primary interest. I am not sanguine about the dying cancer patient. Incidentally, the studies that were done at Mayo Clinic were done on dying, terminal cancer patients. These studies proved that even in these some 178 subjects that laetrile, different from any other modality, was completely free from any toxicity whatever. But it is just beyond the scope of reality to expect a reversal. I’m sure the fine scientists at Mayo Clinic were not dull enough to expect a reversal in these 178 patients. But in testing, this is the preliminary clinical testing laetrile, you all can understand that if at Mayo
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they chose anyone who had a scintilla of a shadow of hope of responding to any other agent or modality on this planet. If that subject received laetrile and died, the clinic would be wiped out with malpractice suits, with malfeasance and everything else. It was necessary to be absolutely certain that these are people that are past the point of no return and are dying and terminal and have reached that state in one of the finest cancer facilities in America. There’s the reality behind that. We don’t suggest that the laetrile there was good or bad. We really don’t know because whether it was good or whether it was completely inadequate, as some laetrile supporters urge, it would not have made any appreciable difference. The time to start in that direction is now and the place to start is on the foods that contain vitamin B17. These happen to be the most wholesome foods in our diet. Take these foods fresh and raw and take their juices. Invariably ingest the seeds of all common fruits. This is what is meant by wholesome. Utilizing the entire or whole fruit is wholesome, w-h-o-l-e-s-o-m-e. Holistic, incidentally, is spelt two ways, but it’s good to think of holistic as w-h-o-l-e, taking food in its entirety. Taking food as fresh as possible, raw and in its entirety and utilizing anything and everything in the plant or vegetable kingdom that is edible. In doing this we automatically get these important factors.
The anti-hypertensive agent, the effect that Dr. Shank is imputed to laetrile. Many others have noticed this. This doesn’t mean that vitamin B17 or laetrile acts against every case of hypertension. But at any rate, those who have responded to the laetrile would not have had the condition in the first place if they had received adequate vitamin B17 or laetrile in their diet.
I appreciate that the hour is growing late so I shall just reserve the rest of my time to questions from the audience. Yes, ma’am.
[inaudible audience member]
The lady asks is if papers have been written on the laetrile or vitamin B17 content of food plants, laetrile and B17 being synonymous. Some have and I’ve written a few brief ones, but I have not yet completed any definitive paper on it. We can be guided, and this is highly repetitive, by just turning to the seeds of all the common fruits. Eat those fruits and then eat the seeds. Forget the citrus fruits as far as the seeds are concerned. But every other fruit, be it prunes or plums or cherries, it doesn’t make any difference if the fruit is canned or if it is fresh as far as the vitamin B17 content is concerned, if you take the stone or pit.
On this matter of the B17 content in beans, legumes. The content is increased by nine fold, 900 percent, by sprouting. We think that when we turn to unrefined cereals we’re going back to a really basic, natural state. This is the way in which we evolved. This may pass through our mind. But that’s not the way we have.
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Man has been on this planet over three million years. In this time he has engaged in agriculture, depending on the part of the planet we look at, we’re about 9- 12,000 years. Prior to that he derived his vegetable foods by foraging the countryside. When he did this he didn’t get wheat or millet as cereals or grains. He got these things as succulent sprouts pulled out of the soil. On this basis our evolutionary requirement for all these vitamins is established.
So with vitamin C. Some people are initially appalled at the idea of swallowing 5,000 milligrams of vitamin C or five grams. Well, the aboriginal tribes in south Africa on their diet they routinely ingest 5,000 milligrams of vitamin C or 6,000 of vitamin C. That isn’t mega-dosage at all. That’s just getting back to normal biological experience.
Yes, sir.
[inaudible audience member]
What’s the easiest way to crack them? There is a British nutcracker called a crackerjack which is a superb instrument. Lorraine Rosenthal used to stock them. I don’t know if she still does. But they are available from a cutlery shop in San Francisco. If you get in touch with her I’m sure she can get one of these instruments for you. They’re beautiful. In fact, I have one of them hanging on the wall of my office.
Yes, sir.
[inaudible audience member]
Certainly you would have to break the pit or stone and eat the seed or kernel. [inaudible audience member]
No, that’s quite wholesome. We don’t know any specific substances that it contains but if you’d like to blanch them it’s all right, soak them in water and slide the skins off if they have a food allergy or something.
Male 1: We have a portable microphone if anyone has a question. Female 1: How many apricot seeds can a person eat without being toxic?
Ernst: There is no problem there. Let me quantify this for you. The California apricot seed or kernel average is 400 milligrams. That means two and a half times would be 1,000 milligrams or one gram. The seed contains two percent of vitamin B17. So two and a half seeds would give you 20 milligrams. If you ate 25 seeds that
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would be 200 milligrams of vitamin B17 in its natural context. That’s a formidable ration. One of the ways to handle this is if you want to ingest 20 seeds grind them in the morning, dry. Never add water to them. Grind them in a nut grinder or a small homogenizer. Then separate the ration obtained from the 20 seeds into two portions. Your first portion incorporate in your morning oatmeal or whatever you’re eating for breakfast. Save the second half for the evening. Follow this regimen five days a week. You don’t have to follow it with religious intensity because the metabolic products of B17 aren’t washed out of the system easily. Male 2: I’d like to know how do you remove the cyanide out of the apricots?
Ernst: How do you remove the cyanide out of the apricot seeds or kernels? This cyanide