100 Year-Old Drug Halts Progress Of Alzheimer's

pafischer writes "Several Australian and UK websites are running articles on this story. I'm shocked that I heard it on the Baltimore rock radio station news, but don't see it on any of the big US new websites. 'Clioquinol, developed 100 years ago, can absorb the zinc and copper compounds that concentrate in the brains of Alzheimer's sufferers before dementia sets in, the study found.' Read all about it at ABC Radio AU, The Sidney Morning Herald, and The Age." Of course, the pathology of Alzheimer's is far from fully understood.

Comments

Re:Watch the big drug companies kill this QUICK

[Meowing]

Tell that to the generic drug manufacturers, and the companies that have been cranking out the same public domain OTC remedies forever.

Really, drug manufacturers don't mind at all if you get better from disease A and live a bit longer, because they'll get to see you when you come down with disease B a few years later. See, the neat thing about the medical industry, from a financial standpoint, is that pretty much everyone manages to get real sick and even die sooner or later, so there's always going to be an opportunity to sell something.

Re:Watch the big drug companies kill this QUICK

[ctr2sprt]

Since when is nonsensical paranoia interesting? Common sense proves the AC's an idiot. Go down to your local pharmacy. Note the shelves full of dirt-cheap medications, both brand names and generics. Obviously drug companies can continue to make money off extremely old medications.

The reason is incredibly simple. The entire cost of a new medication comes from years and years of research. Not just of the medication that makes it to market, but of the ten which don't. Producing the actual pills costs virtually nothing.

So you see, it does make sense for drug companies to sell unpatented pills. They won't make a killing, but they don't need to: they invested no money in research of the medication, they have no losses to recoup. Even if they only make five cents per hundred thousand pills, it's five cents they wouldn't otherwise have.

Article title is grossly inaccurate

[Tuxinatorium]

100 Year-Old Drug Halts Progress Of Alzheimer's Rather, all the drug has been shown to do in this study is stop a few of the many chemical abnormalities that are coincident with alzheimers. It is unknown whether these chemicals actually do anything to cause alzheimers. They may as well be a byproduct of it, for all we know. It is also unknown how else this drug alters brain chemistry and what the side effects of that could be. So proclaiming it a miracle cure is very premature.