Banned and Fined: The price of selling apricot seeds (and extra virgin olive oil)

Spare a thought for Jim Wright, who ran a natural products company from his home in Wales.  Following two dawn raids by enforcement agencies, his business has been closed down, he’s been fined £1,000 and has been ordered to perform 120 hours’ community service.

His crime was supplying some apricot seeds to an enforcement agent who claimed to be a desperate woman looking for a treatment for her husband who was dying from prostate cancer.

Once he sent the plant to the woman, enforcement agents from the UK’s Medicines & Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority made a second dawn raid on his home, and took away documents and the rest of his stock, including extra virgin olive oil.

The plant contained B17, or Laetrile, which was banned in Britain in 2002, despite overwhelming evidence of its role as a natural cancer fighter that has been used since the time of the ancient Egyptians.

It was the second time that Wright had been set up.  The first dawn raid happened after he sold some natural products to a BBC reporter, who was pretending to be someone with a serious illness.  Bizarrely, nothing that he sold on that occasion was illegal or banned.

If you do want to make sure you’re getting plenty of B17, despite the best efforts of our health guardians, you’ll find it in lentils, chickpeas, wild berries and brown rice.
 
(Source:  Alliance for Natural Health, 15 December 2006).


E-news broadcast 21 December 2006 No.320 [Subscribe]