Merola Productions presents the US Theatrical release of SECOND OPINION: Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering, a documentary film by Eric Merola.
SECOND OPINION: Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering is the true story of a young science-writer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, who risked everything by blowing the whistle on a massive cover-up involving a promising cancer therapy.
The War On Cancer, launched in the early 1970s, set the stage for a massive influx of new ideas in fighting the disease of cancer. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, America’s leading cancer research center at the time, was assigned the task of testing an unconventional therapy called “Laetrile” in an effort to curb the public’s “false hope” in the alleged “quack” therapy. Ralph W. Moss PhD, a young and eager science writer, was hired by Sloan-Kettering’s public relations department in 1974 to help brief the American public on the center’s contribution to the War On Cancer. One of his first assignments was to write a biography about Dr. Kanematsu Sugiura, one of the Center’s oldest and leading research scientists as well as the original co-inventor of chemotherapy.
While meeting with this iconic scientist to pen a biography on his 60-year career at Sloan-Kettering, Moss discovered that Sugiura had been studying this “quack remedy” in laboratory mice, and with unexpectedly positive results. Shocked and bewildered, Moss reported back to his superiors what he had discovered, only to be met with backlash and denial from Sloan-Kettering’s leaders on what their own leading scientist had found. Fueled by respect and admiration for Sugiura—Ralph W. Moss attempted to publicize the truth about Sugiura’s findings. And after all diplomatic approaches failed, Moss started living a double life, working as a loyal employee at Sloan-Kettering while also recruiting fellow employees to help anonymously leak this information to the American public— through a newly formed underground organization they called—“Second Opinion”.
About Ralph W. Moss, PhD:
Ralph W. Moss is the author of the infamous book “The Cancer Industry”. His latest book, “Doctored Results” was released in February 2014. As a medical writer, Moss has written 15 books on questions relating to cancer research and treatment. Moss is a graduate of New York University (BA, cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, 1965) and Stanford University (MA, 1973, PhD, 1974, Classics). The former science writer and assistant director of public affairs at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York (1974-1977), for the past 35 years Moss has independently evaluated the claims of conventional and non-conventional cancer treatments.
In 1994, Ralph W. Moss was formally invited by Harold Varmus, MD—the director of America’s National Institute’s of Health (NIH)—to be a member of the NIH’s Alternative Medicine Advisory Council where Ralph became a co-founding advisor to the NIH’s Office Of Alternative Medicine (now NCCAM). His articles and scientific communications have appeared in The Lancet, the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the Journal of the American Medical Association, New Scientist, Immunobiology, Anticancer Research, Genetic Engineering News, Research in Complementary Medicine, the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, and Integrative Cancer Therapies (SAGE), of which he is Corresponding Editor. His op-ed “Patents Over Patients” appeared in the New York Times.
The film will open at Cinema Village in NYC on August 29, and at Laemmle Music Hall in LA on September 5. A national release will follow.
75 min Not Rated In English 2014
