An email of unknown provenance received by a senior staff member of the Indian Council of Medical Research in Delhi, and hundreds of other ICMR scientists, claims that lemon can kill cancer cells and is 10,000 times more effective than chemotherapy.
The claim was attributed to research work carried out at the Institute of Health Sciences in Baltimore, USA, and so kick-started a debate in scientific circles, but the Institute denies having found lemon to be 10,000 times stronger than chemotherapy.
‘Lemon (Citrus) is a miraculous product to kill cancer cells. It is 10,000 times stronger than chemotherapy. It is credited with many virtues, but the most interesting is the effect it produces on cysts and tumours. This plant is a proven remedy against cancers of all types,’ the email claims.
"The email did not come from the Health Sciences Institute. Whoever started this scam email did use some of our published material – which had nothing to do with lemons in any way – and inserted the information about lemons."
"It is erroneous and has caused us a great deal of trouble. However, most troubling is that it is giving false or un-tested medical advice to people suffering with cancer," the Institute pointed out when the email first originated in April this year.