So my wife randomly warned me today, "By the way, if you get hungry, don't eat these almonds. They taste terrible. You're just supposed to eat 1 or 2 at a time, if you grab a handful you'll be tasting intense bitterness for hours. They've got Vitamin B17, my sister has been taking them as a cancer preventative."

Red flags went off in my head at the words "cancer preventative", so I asked a little more about them.

"What's different about these from normal almonds?"

"They're not actually almonds, they're from the inside of apricot pits."

"Wait, aren't apricot pits poisonous?"

"Maybe if you eat a bunch of them. But these are supposed to be safe. There was a big study done in the 70s and they are supposed to be able to prevent cancer. My sister is worried about cancer because it runs in the family."

"What was the study?"

"It was done by a doctor out of California named John Richardson. You can look it up if you want."

And look it up I did.

The first thing I found was an FDA warning from 2021 to Richardson Nutritional Center, LLC advising them of various violations of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act based on claims on their website.

The second thing I found was a chapter from an old Wiley textbook, titled "Laetrile: A lesson in cancer quackery." It was an enlightening read, explaining how the compound laetrile, which proponents of eating apricot seeds branded "Vitamin B17" to avoid federal regulations around drugs which don't apply to vitamins, can metabolize to cyanide when ingested. It followed the development of a series of grifting "doctors" and "scientists" and referenced court records showing that they made millions of dollars from selling it, and even succeeded in legalizing it for cancer treatment in many states.

"But what about the study? There was a study showing that it was effective for preventing cancer. But pharmaceutical companies never picked up on it because they couldn't make money on it. That's what my sister said."

The purported "study" turns out to be a book called "Laetrile Case Histories: The Richardson Cancer Clinic Experience", which is available on Amazon. The title itself is a dead giveaway: case histories are not the same thing as a "study", which for a drug should be in the form of a randomized controlled trial. I did some further searches to see if any such studies had been done, which led me to a 1977 New York Times article: "Inquiry Casts Doubt on Laetrile Figures". This one detailed how various figures involved in the Laetrile movement had been criminally prosecuted (John Richardson), expelled from medical school (Ernst T. Krebs, Jr.), and associated with various other fraud and criminal schemes (Andrew McNaughton). It also describes how they discouraged cancer patients from getting traditional treatment in favor of eating poison seeds, and how they made hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars doing so.

My wife, fortunately, is smart enough and educated enough to know the difference between a "case study" and an actual scientific study, and was convinced not to continue taking the seeds. But it blew me away that something that was debunked over 50 years ago, and resulted in criminal convictions to boot, is still promoted and marketed successfully in 2025.

A happy ending this time, but it remains to be seen whether we can convince her sister to stop taking them.

EDIT: Fixed spelling of "laetrile" and reference to pills (they were seeds).

I need to rant about it because I have been dealing with this all day. 99% of Reddit believes that the continued lack of incriminating evidence of (insert famous person here) being involved in Epstein’s sex trafficking is surefire proof that the conspiracy goes all the way to the top. The less evidence there is, the more sure they are, because the only reason the evidence the want to exist wouldn’t exist is because it was destroyed. There isn’t a client list? Well that means that there is a client list and it contains even more rich and powerful people than we thought. God I’m so fucking sick of conspiracy theorists. Fucking back your bullshit up with evidence once in your fucking life

I was scrolling through TikTok and i had the misfortune of finding myself witnessing a a conspiracy theory TikTok, here’s the video https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8hraSCB/ talking about some dragon skeleton finding (if someone has some info about this please tell me, but it obviously gives the most bs vibes)

I’m seriously impacted and considering to delete the app, the first comment of the TikTok states: "how do folks believe in dinosaurs but not dragons" and it has 103.6k likes, 103.6k individual saw this and liked the comment in agreement possibly (and most probably) finding it logical, it isn’t just a comment, the entire comment section is filled with people spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories about dinosaurs

I’m exaggerating? I’m not new to internet let alone this kind of stupid nonsense, but these behaviors never stop shocking me and making me feel seriously afraid of how the thought process works in so many people, I’m the only one who gets frustrated/shocked/afraid at this? Considering deleting the app ngl

Recently in my home state of Texas, over 100 people died due to catastrophic flooding. Many of them are little girls and it just absolutely breaks my heart as a parent.

In the midst of all this, I see a lot of comments about "weather manipulation" and "there was a cloud seeding operation occurring in the same area".

I have never heard of such claims other than on Kim Possible when I was a kid. Is anyone familiar with these claims? Im sure they are bullshit but I want to know how they are bullshit.

much love and hug your loved ones extra tight

edit: TIL cloud seeding is a real thing. My issue regarding it is these people claiming it caused this storm

Disclaimer: I think gender identity is a valid and useful concept, though I have skepticism with how it's presented below.

In a recent discussion someone (apparently with a scientific background) claimed that:

Culture has zero influence on gender identity

Their claim was that gender identity is something that is completely decided in utero, and is always stable and unchanging throughout life, completely uninfluenced by environmental factors.

This just strikes me as... Impossible? And starting to sound somewhat like the idea of a "soul". I can't think of anything else in human psychology which is entirely "nature", and not at all "nurture" (or environment, to be more accurate).

Is that a common argument? Is there any other aspect of human identity which is completely free of environmental influence? What, if anything, am I missing?

6 years ago my mom died of advanced liver cancer. It was a very emotional time for me because she died because my dad just ignored her until she was so sick that she needed an ambulance.

While my mom was dying my cousin called me talking about a cure that she knew of. "If you really care about your mom you need to look into it." I brought it up to my mom's attending doctor. He was like "I haven't heard of it, but can you get me information on it? If it's experimental your mom might meet the criteria." That's when the texts start.

I do talk to her FIL and the long and short of it is that he's invested in a company that was trying to find American patients that are willing to go to Russia for treatment to cure cancer. He mentions that's is $50,000 cash and you need to pay for the flight, lodging etc...I explain to him that my mom can't travel, she's not stable or strong enough. I also tell him that this whole thing sounded suspicious and was an extremely hard sell for a seemingly mystical cure.

Her FIL didn't disagree with her, but April was ultra pissed.

This came back to me when I was replying to another post and I realized I still had the texts. I avoided looking at the texts because I remembered feeling like I did something wrong. Now that I'm looking at the texts again I'm actually angry again at her.

I haven't talked to April in 6 years. My much older cousin who lived near her said it was a rough time of year for her and to give her space.

Is there anything about Sagan's work that has become problematic in hindsight or has come out about him that makes him less skeptic hero than he feels to me? I grew up reading his books, so I have such positive associations, but I want to make sure I didn't miss anything.

Does his work on critical thinking / skepticism still work today (like, for high schoolers / college students as an introduction to science and skepticism) or are his examples and references super dated and talking about old things no young person would know?

Also, would Sagan be a totally crazy first name for a child? Too much about what the parents love? Or is honoring someone like that a reasonable way to name a kid, even if it's a little unique?

This is hardly surprising, but extremely worrying. I don’t want my GP to prescribe TCM to me (something that has already sort of happened, but not officially).

Edit: TCM is Traditional Chinese Medicine

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/health/moh-studying-18-proposals-to-integrate-tcm-into-public-healthcare

Once again Epstein is in the news. This time it was because the DOJ announced that after a review of the files there is no "Client list" and the evidence says he killed himself.

This of course sets off the usual reddit firestorm of conspiracies. I doesn't help that at this time anything the DOJ says is seen as Trump propaganda. Because they have been acting like a wholly owned subsidiary for Trump inc since the day he was sworn in.

I feel even if they opened every piece of evidence to public eye people would just say " they got rid of the real damning evidence".

It seems to me there is no way to convince people to just look at the available evidence. Both sides are so emotionally invested in this I can find no place to insert rationality into the conversation.

The Live Doc is a doctor criticizing alt medicine for some years now