Abstract
The Chad Green case has again focused
national and international attention on the unproven cancer remedy known as
laetrile. Laetrile has attracted considerable attention in recent years as a
result of claims that it is a nontoxic form of cancer treatment. Twenty-one
states have legalized prescription of laetrile within their borders, despite
the efforts of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to keep laetrile off
the market.
The authors examine the claims about laetrile’s effectiveness and
comment upon scientific tests concerning its efficacy. They maintain that
scientific support for the use of laetrile is almost totally absent and that
evidence of the dangers of laetrile is substantial. After reviewing the
medical evidence concerning laetrile, the authors describe the efforts of
laetrile proponents to use the courts as the battleground to legalize
laetrile. In early skirmishes, laetrile proponents were successful in
opposing the efforts of the FDA; under a constitutional privacy theory
several courts upheld the right of competent adults to select laetrile
therapy.
Subsequently, however, as the authors demonstrate, the U.S. Supreme
Court, in United States v. Rutherford, and the
California Supreme Court, in People v. Privitera,
narrowed the federal constitutional privacy right by declining to read into
it a right to take laetrile. Finally, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial
Court, in the Chad Green case, considered the
question of laetrile’s toxicity to a recipient of the drug.
The authors discuss the interrelationship among the three cases. They
argue that the overwhelming proof in Chad Green
that laetrile is harmful undermines any statutory or constitutional claims
supporting legalization, because such claims assume that even if laetrile is
not truly therapeutic outside of the placebo effect, it is not toxic. In
light of the three decisions, the authors conclude that supporters of
laetrile should not expect that the courts will be sympathetic to future
legal efforts to approve or to permit use of laetrile therapy.