The state
Laetrile: Legal but THE General Assembly passed a bill last fall which permits terminal cancer patients one last alternative "cure": laetrile. The governor vetoed the bill, saying laetrile "has never been shown to be effective against cancer in any I reputable clinical study." But the I legislature overrode the veto by large margins in both the House and Senate (P.A. 80-1096). Unfortunately, the language of the act uses the words "laetrile" and "amygdalin" interchangeably. Actually, amygdalin is a drug with a precise scientific definition and is but one ingredient used in laetrile. Laetrile may have other ingredients in it besides amygdalin. The imprecision of the law's language was noted by Dr. Paul Q. Peterson, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH), in a letter to the attorney general. Peterson asked for an opinion as to whether only amygdalin, not laetrile, is legal to administer in Illinois. Examples of linguistic confusion cited by Peterson in his request were: "amygdalin, commonly known as laetrile," "amygdalin (laetrile)" and "amydalin." The attorney general answered (S-1331) in January that amygdalin is legal to administer in Illinois, since it is exempt from the Illinois Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1975, ch. 56 1/2, sec. 517). He added that laetrile is legal so long as it does not contain any impurities or other ingredients in it to impair the action of the amygdalin, constitute a new drug or to make the drug dangerous. But the Department of Public Health is still unhappy about the new law. A legal spokesman for IDPH says, "Everything would have been better off if the attorney general had said the legislature didn't know what it was talking about." The IDPH spokesman said the public health department isn't "convinced of any scientific benefit that laetrile can give a patient, but feels the patient should have a choice." Laetrile is primarily made of the scientifically defined drug amygdalin, which is extracted from apricot seeds. The IDPH spokesman said the drug amygdalin is a pure extract, whereas laetrile may contain some foreign particles such as apricot skins or other parts of the seed. Also, laetrile is not a scientifically defined drug with a specific manufacturing formula. There aren't any drug manufacturing companies in Illinois that are presently making laetrile. "They don't want to put their professional reputations on the line," the legal expert explained. A check with some of the drug manufacturing companies in Illinois supports this opinion. Public relations personnel for Abbott Laboratories, located in Chicago, say they have no intention of manufacturing either laetrile or amygdalin. They say they don't feel there is any good, scientific evidence that laetrile or amygdalin is an effective, or even a useful, drug. "We're not willing," they said, "to invest money and time to do pharmaceutical studies and clinical studies to develop data for ourselves and the federal Food and Drug Administration [FDA]." Arnar-Stone Laboratories, Inc., Mount Prospect, Norwich-Eaton Pharmaceutical, Chicago, and G. D. Searle Laboratories Division, Skokie, echoed what Abbott Laboratories said about laetrile. These drug firms say that it would require too much time and money to check on a new drug such as laetrile. A Norwich-Eaton spokesman said his company recently submitted a new drug application to the FDA for approval. It had taken the company nine years of research and expense before they were able to submit that application. He said before Norwich-Eaton would attempt any research on any new drug, there would have to be a nationwide market. [The FDA has banned interstate transportation of laetrile.] But the spokesman for IDPH's legal department says there is currently an injunction against the federal FDA for interfering with interstate transportation of laetrile. Judge Luther Bohanan of the U.S. Western District Court of Oklahoma issued an injunction December 5, 1977, in the case of Rutherford v. the U.S., wherein Glen Rutherford tried to obtain laetrile in Oklahoma and transport it back to Kansas. IDPH's legal spokesman also said Illinois' law does not deal with transportation of laetrile across the stateline, but only with protecting physicians and health centers who administer the drug. The spokesman said that since the Oklahoma injunction was issued, in assumes that laetrile will be free to flow across state lines until the court decides the case. At stake may be questions of states' rights as well as personal freedom of choice. In Illinois and elsewhere it has been decided that the use of laetrile is acceptable. Since no federal law contradicts such state laws, it is uncertain whether any federal agency has the authority to regulate use of the drug. Yet this is just what proponents of laetrile say the FDA appears to be doing in banning interstate sale and transportation of laetrile. Opponents of the use of laetrile--those who say that it is a bogus and cruel hope offered to suffering cancer victims — believe the federal food and drug agency has an obligation to keep such false cures off the market. Gov, James R. Thompson was one of those who supported this view when he said in his veto message, "freedom of choice in a democracy always depends on accurate knowledge about the choices available. Very few citizens have the laboratory facilities to test laetrile on their own And no cancer victim has the time. That is why it is very much the government's responsibility to make a judgment about laetrile on behalf of the people it represents." In Illinois the people's representatives have already made a judgment: the use of laetrile is to be allowed. For the moment, at least, interstate trasportation is also legal.
2/ April 1978/ Illinois Issues
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