Ch. 10: An Alternative View of Alternative Medicine ("Good Thinking" - by Guy P. Harrison)

Please use this thread to discuss the above chapter.

On a long ride home from a fishing trip, a friend started recounting stories about Leatrile or Vitamin B17. He had a friend who had been completely cured of end stage cancer by an IV drip of laetrile. He also told a second-hand story of someone in an underground Laetrile clinic (this is illegal in America) who met a woman who was having difficulty walking, but had been completely bedridden before taking Laetrile. Then he spoke of another friend who had a nasty case of cancer but absolutely refused to take Laetrile even if his friends paid for the treatment and died shortly after...

I was pretty convinced by the end of that car ride. Thinking "hell I don't even want to get cancer, maybe I'll try some?" However a few minutes of research convinced me HELL NO I wasn't going anywhere NEAR that stuff, and I understood why his friend stood his ground in not taking Laetrile. I'll leave the research to your Google-Fu skills, but it's pretty nasty stuff.

But the reason I posted this is how easy it is to be convinced of something by vivid anecdotal stories. The Laetrile craze started decades before the inter-tubes, when finding countervailing evidence was so much more difficult. After that conversation I actually felt how one can be drawn to such remedies.

When I used to have frequent stomach problems, I observed a direct correlation between pain and my willingness to try alternative medicines. LOL.

y'all know a good diet is key right?