Memorial Sloane Kettering (MSK)
[back] Hospitals, Clinics

The Ralph Moss Story by Ralph Moss

“Here’s what happened. They began a series of tests on Laetrile and they turned it over to their top laboratory technician Dr. Kanematsu Sugiura, a Japanese fellow, he was sort of at the end of his career. He was very well known, held at high esteem by all of his associates. He was mr laboratory test. Whatever Sugiura said, went, for everybody, so they gave it to Sugiura. Sugiura ran his tests and this was his report. He came to five conclusions. First of all, he said, it improved the general health of the mice that he was using. Secondly it appeared to relieve their pain. Thirdly it inhibited the growth of tumors. Fourth it stopped the spread of tumors.. and five it acted as a cancer prevention. That was his official finding. And at the end of this report, this is a quote ‘ Dr has never observed complete regression of these tumors in all his cosmic experience with other chemotherapeutic agents’ end quote.”.....“Congressman John Kelsey used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a copy of the minutes of the board of directors of Sloan Kettering dated July 2nd 1974. And from the minutes it said quote ‘Sloan Kettering is not enthusiastic about studying Amygdalin, but would like to study cyanide releasing drugs.’ end quote. Now if you understand that sentence you understand everything that I’m talking to you about today.” [G. Edward Griffin] The Science and Politics of Cancer A discourse by G. Edward Griffin

As an explosive internal issue, the laetrile affair has almost attained the order of magnitude of the Vietnam conflict.  I still do not see how some of the exponents of official American cancer medicine, and certain bureaucracies in Washington, are going to emerge from this affair with clean hands.  The effect of this bitter almond substance is not strong, and can be observed only if the defense mechanisms are in operation.  In any event, it can and was clearly proven both clinically and experimentally, with positive results, at both the famous Sloan-Kettering Institute in New York, and at the Pasteur Institute in Paris.  An enormous suppression story was leaked to the press by a member of the New York institute.  A rather mysterious "testing" in five clinics, including the famous Mayo Clinic, led to the strong suspicion that certain oral (not intravenous) doses of laetrile were tested after having been previously and intentionally "contaminated" at the National Cancer Institute in Washington, with a certain highly poisonous cyano urea combination.  Officially, a "purification" was admitted. Dr. Hans A. Nieper of Germany has this to say about B–17

Basically the attitude was best expressed by Lewis Thomas, the president of the centre, who told my boss, as he would not see me, "I am not going to die on the barricades for Laetrile. It is not a cure, it is only a palliative, (meaning it relieves pain and stops the spread of cancer), if it were a cure it might be a different story, but I am not going to give up my career, to die on the barricades". That's how they justified it in their own minds. I could not do that, nor could Dr. Sugiura, who never renounced the results of his own studies, despite the fact they put enormous pressure on him to do so.
    If you look at the board of directors of MSK you will find that the drug industry has a dominant position on that board. One company in particular, Bristol Myers, which produces between 40 -50% of all the chemotherapy in the world, and they have top positions at MSK hospital.  They are selling their own drugs to that particular hospital but they have written into the by-laws of the centre that it does not constitute a conflict of interest to sell their company drugs to the centre. They get around it by not taking a salary. They are not paid, they are volunteers. Look what happens. You have a man like Benno Schmidt, who was first head of the president's cancer panel under Nixon, then becomes head of MSK. He then goes on using the knowledge he gained at MSK to set up his own drug company to make tens of millions of dollars......The chairman of the board of Bristol Myers, the main company producing anti-cancer drugs, who also happens to be on the board of MSK, is also on the board of the New York Times. Everybody's brother in law is an oncologist, or on the board of somebody else's something or other, so it is a money making thing for the establishment. A hundred and seven billion, with a B, dollars a year business, and we are not going to get rid of it easily.  Interview of Dr Ralph Moss, Ph.D.