Slashdot Mirror
Cheap, Safe, Patentless Cancer Drug Discovered
PyroMosh writes "The New Scientist is reporting that researchers working at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada have discovered that an existing drug called dichloroacetate (DCA) is effective in killing cancer cells, while leaving the host's healthy cells unharmed. DCA has already been used for years to treat metabolic disorders, and is known to be fairly safe. Sounds like great news, is it too good to be true? Why is the mainstream news media failing to report on this potential breakthrough? The University of Alberta and the Alberta Cancer Board have set up a site with more info, where you can also donate to support future clinical trials."
Open Source Medicine?
How would you write the GPL of pharmacopeia?
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Patentless is the best part. Now, capitalism will lower the price and make it more affordable to those who need it.
The government can't save you.
Cancer Drug May Not Get A Chance Due to Lack of Patent
Thanks for playing.
Why is the mainstream news media failing to report on this potential breakthrough?
Because reporting on the mooninite invasion of Boston gets more ratings?
Push Button, Receive Bacon
And the reason it won't get any funding to study whether or not it's a real cure for cancer is because there's no money in it! If it's a cheap solution and it magically cures cancer... where's the profit in that?
So people will continue to die from cancer, who could have been cured by this cheap drug, because it would offset the bottom line. Nice world we life in, huh? Up next: Other things about this world you didn't know! Wal*Mart sells toys made by third-world children in order to sell them cheap in the United States!
I will *not* donate. There should be some sort of government program to support drugs like this that benefit everyone. There probably is, I suppose, though I just haven't heard of it. I am sick of hearing that a drug is great but neglected because it's unpatentable or unprofitable. Maybe this is a scam?
DCA kills many sorts of cancer in mice. This is a good sign. It's based on something found naturally in food and is already used safely in humans. That's also good.
But many, many things kill cancer in mice but don't in humans-- mice have significantly different molecular machinery than we do re: cancer prevention (just look at the cancer rates of control lab rats!). This is promising, but it's no breakthrough until it proves itself in humans.
I feel there's a lot of politicking going on behind the scenes on this issue.
while the revelation of the compound is somewhat novel, research around diseases has supposed "breakthroughs" like this quite often. the quest for funding outright on the web seems awkward, since there's more than enough foundations that fund cancer research and medicine. but i'm not in academia, so maybe this is the norm?
i'm not a big believer in conspiracies, and if cancer folks will travel to the backwaters of the earth to get voodoo remedies, shark parts and holy men to pray over them, they will surely fund anything with even a glimmer of promise. if this works, i expect it to float to the top once the news catches on (and it works).
Newscientist.com ain't exactly Science magazine. I'll wait until a real peer-reviewed journal publishes some findings before I start donating oodles of money via the oh-so-conviently-located link in the TFA.
But, isn't it really more likely that the reason most of these things are not in common use (water-injected engine, free energy, miracle cancer drugs, etc) is because they truly don't work effectively?
at the required dose it actually causes the user to enter a state of euphoria
followed by long periods of incontinance.
Not only is this story a dupe but having read the paper in Cancer Cell I'm nowhere near that optimistic. Yes, they show death of cancer cells both in vitro and in vivo but the proposed mechanism of action (re-activation of mitochondrial metabolism leading to increased free radical production and apoptosis) is debatable to say the least. Moreover, even though DCA is registered for treatment of congenital lactate acidosis, it has quite a few unpleasant side effects so it's definitely not a silver bullet. The paper is not clear on how they came to interpretations they present as some of the data could easily be interpreted in other ways. Although the concept of targeting mitochondria to treat cancer is very interesting, as usual, beware of breakthroughs in medical sciences - they often aren't. jan
From what I understand the drug was designed for something and now they have found it can be used to something different. Seems like an episode of Regenesis: "let's try all the known drugs maybe one has a side effect which does what we want". In that particular episode I think they found it so let's hope it will be the case here too. Len
Between slashdot, digg, and google news, I must have seen a dozen reports already.
well if there has not been clinical trials, why bother posting this as a news anyways? My cellphone theoretically can have a 10Gbps internet link always on, but since no one has actually tested the bandwidths with such high frequency you can't actually have it until 2200...
That's actually good news. It means that a drug company can develop a new way to deliver the drug that lowers its toxicity/side effects, and then patent that. If they can get a patent, they'll pay for the clinical trials.
Monkeywrench Ex Machina.
I'm a student at the University of Alberta. The student newspaper is called "The Gateway" and at the end of the winter term there is a joke issue called "The Getaway." In THIS YEAR'S December joke issue the cover story way "U of A Scientists Cure Cancer." Five issues later they broke the real story here: http://www.gateway.ualberta.ca/index.php?iid=247. No one believed the real story...
The questionable veracity of the story would certainly not scare the 24 hour news cycle away. The subject matter is certainly important enough to everyone. But does it scare you? No, a non-poisonous cure for cancer doesn't keep you glued to TV in fear to watch the 55 minutes of speculation, filler, and opinion to follow, and is therefore not news.
The news day has to be really slow to get more than a passing mention of good news on any major media network.
Then again, I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed.
Lost my mother to cancer 7 weeks ago. Stupid cancer.
Hug your mom if you have her.
Now, if it was brand new, and cured an imaginary illness, then we'd be inundated with advertising on its behalf, as the plutocrats running the drug industry would be spending every dime they could to make as much money as fast as they could to recoup the losses of development and to line their own greedy pockets.
I don't see why this is even a question.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Yes. You are right on the money, there are no profits to be made
on DCA, in fact it even harms industry profits. Think of all the
chemotherapy, surgery and radiation therapy that doesn't get done
because of it.
A cancer patient usually brings in more or less a cool $100,000 in
profit, a breast cancer patient slightly less, a prostate cancer
slightly more.
I guess this will not receive any help from Pharma companies.
Reason, low amount of money.
I have personally seen this happening in case of another drug.
Once after a culture report we found that the only drug which would deactivate this bacteria was the cheapest antibiotic available in the market (1rs/tablet in India, or 1p in US$ amount).
But very few chemists stock it.
Why? doctors don't recommend it. It also can take care of many bacteria for which there are much more expensive antibiotics available and only those get prescribed.
Had to literally scout the whole city to get the medicine.
Low profit margins? Nobody is interested, this is the state of the drug industry today, and it is a sad state. So if somebody developed a cheap "open source" drug which will take of most bacterial infections, nobody will be interested, however, if the same drug is so expensive that you can't afford it without insurance, it will get backing, no matter how lousy it is.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
Most [rich] people will probably just take DCA and not give a flying
fuck what the FDA has to say about it. If I ever get cancer I know
I will be taking DCA even if it is then made illegal to treat yourself
with it. (Oh yes, they would make that illegal).
I believe "socialized medicine" is a term invented by private health care companies to slander public health care systems (which tend to cost less than private system to run).
Public health care systems still relies on patents to finance private medical research, so no difference there.
DCA is one of several haloacetic acids (HAA) that are disinfection byproducts (DBPs) water. When chlorine (or chloramine) are added to natural water to kill microorgamisms, the chlorine reacts with natural organic matter in the water to produce several byproducts, most notably trihalomethanes (THMs) and HAAs. The other HAAs have different levels of bromine and chlorine substitution. Disinfection byproducts are regulated because they may increase your cancer risk (surprise!). It's a problem because drinking water represents a chronic exposure.
The regulated concentration of DBPs is several orders of magnitude below the doses of DCA that are listed in the linked articles, so don't count on getting (or killing) cancer from your drinking water.
List of common Drinking Water Contaminants
Crap, I forgot to include the summary:
The unique metabolic profile of cancer (aerobic glycolysis) might confer apoptosis resistance and be
therapeutically targeted. Compared to normal cells, several human cancers have high mitochondrial
membrane potential (DJm) and low expression of the K+ channel Kv1.5, both contributing to apoptosis
resistance. Dichloroacetate (DCA) inhibits mitochondrial pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase (PDK),
shifts metabolism from glycolysis to glucose oxidation, decreases DJm, increases mitochondrial
H2O2, and activates Kv channels in all cancer, but not normal, cells; DCA upregulates Kv1.5 by an
NFAT1-dependent mechanism. DCA induces apoptosis, decreases proliferation, and inhibits tumor
growth, without apparent toxicity.Molecular inhibition of PDK2 by siRNA mimics DCA. The mitochondria-
NFAT-Kv axis and PDK are important therapeutic targets in cancer; the orally available DCA is
a promising selective anticancer agent.
I won't claim to understand what it means, but there it is.
There's a direct link to download it, in case you understand that sort of thing, here:
http://www.depmed.ualberta.ca/dca/cancer_cell.pdf
I believe this is what he's referring to:
http://www.dyewell.com/saveboston/
Though all that screen tells me to do is update my flash player...
Actually, no-one can afford to run it through clinical trials since they can't protect their investment.
thats no one in the US under the FDA.
Well done, good job FDA guys!! They protect 1) themselves 2) the government 3) companies that pay bribes to 1 & 2, 4) The Welsh 5) US Subjects. Actually screw 5 they're to busy on 1 2 3 & 4.
...who misread that as 'pantless cancer drug'? I was slightly confused there for a while.
War is one of the most horrible things a human can be exposed to. And one of the worlds largest industries.
I bet the public Canadian Health Care System would foot the bill to produce this drug. If you had a universal health care system in your country eradicating cancer cheaply would definately reduce the money the government would pay for overall health care costs.
Keeping all the people who would have died of cancer in your economy would also keep it nice and healthy.
Apart from the fact that the US has the truly wonderful NIH (all you "Libertarian" opponents of state funded medicine out there really need to find out what the NIH does for you, and then think very hard), most European countries have state healthcare systems which have incentives to save money. The fallacy in your argument is that State systems do not want or need to make a profit, whereas they do want to reduce the cost of treatment. They have the simple option of paying for clinical trials knowing that later on they can simply pay a pharmaceutical company to make the drug - and if the likes of GSK or Merck decline, they can go to India or Brazil. Which the Western drug companies would just enjoy so much.
Pining for the fjords
If this treatment or some other new treatment did in fact cure many cancers inexpensively, it would be a nightmare come true for the chemotherapy industry.
How big is that industry, something like $40 billion a year? Wow...
.. just not the very large, extravagant and in most cases grossly excessive profits the pharma industry is used to. But there's nothing stopping anyone from manufacturing this and reselling it for a normal profit - maybe it's even a way for the developing countries to sell some of what they manufacture for their own, it would be a nice payback to the great TLC they've been receiving from global pharma.
:-)
And then it WOULD be news
We have The Danish Cancer Society, which is a highly-respected non-profit organization that fund cancer research and support to cancer patients. It is pretty well funded, probably because cancer also hit rich people.
I'm sure there must be similar organizations in other countries, so funding for a promising treatment should be possible even without a profit motive.
Published in the New Scientist January 20 Issue
I mean, even if I want to pay for it? Man, talk about a rock and a not-so-hard place...
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
"A couple of more cluesticks on dichloroacetate (DCA) and cancer" (5 February 2007)
If you need text styles to communicate then you don't have a message.
DCA is not in any medical formulary that I have seen. The prospects of it being accepted as safe and efficacious for anything look rather thin, in view of the neurotoxicity seen in a recently reported clinical trial for a different possible medical indication ----
3 /324 ]
see "Dichloroacetate causes toxic neuropathy in MELAS, A randomized, controlled clinical trial "
P. Kaufmann, MD, MSc, et al, NEUROLOGY 2006;66:324-330
[see http://www.neurology.org/cgi/content/abstract/66/
[excerpts:-]
"Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of dichloroacetate (DCA) in the treatment of mitochondrial myopathy, encephalopathy, lactic acidosis and stroke-like episodes (MELAS)."
[...snip...]
"Conclusion: DCA at 25 mg/kg/day is associated with peripheral nerve toxicity resulting in a high rate of medication discontinuation and early study termination. Under these experimental conditions, the authors were unable to detect any beneficial effect. The findings show that DCA-associated neuropathy overshadows the assessment of any potential benefit in MELAS."
It seems that the researchers at Alberta have not put DCA into any patients yet, and so we can't know how the effective human dose (if there even is one) for discouraging the growth of cancer cells relates to the toxic doses (which unfortunately do exist) seen in the reported clinical trial for another potential medical indication.
This begins to smell to me of hype.
-wb-
Big Pharma doesn't want cures... cures mean the problem goes away... Big Pharma merely wants symptom management... then you have to keep going to them for it...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
If this drug were patentable then it would be worth the cost of bringing it to market, setting up factories, distributing it, and undertaking the risks if it caused harm. But it's not so the drug founders. It might not even be any good after. But we'll never know because the research to really test it in clinical trials won't get done.
One could bring this to market through a socialized medicine scheme of course. Or one could let third world countries implicitly test it for us for safety and efficacy.
It's a really good example of why patents and intellectual property are good things. They encourage private investment in the public interest by creating a profit incentive.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Many infected with AIDS prefer the virus than the
slow death inflicted by what is at best a palliative
drug but you're certainly right here.
I personally however doubt they would take the same
approach on DCA and give someone a monopoly on DCA,
as DCA saves lives. That however is not their concern.
Here's another one... take "TeenScreen" for an example,
the Bush backed at school mental illness screening programs
they've set up. Kids are asked to fill out a questionaire
developed by pharma usually without parental knowledge or
consent and if they check the "wrong" answers they're
prescribed medication.
BY the way, there is an ancient market-based solution to this conundrum where a socially good activity is not perused because of insufficient profit margin. Rather than revert to socialized, state sponsorship which is paid from the people's existing wealth, the state can instead create new wealth by granting a monopoly on the activity. In this case, granting a limited term monopoly, perhaps with second source requirements, to the high bidder drug company, will ensure that the drug is studied sufficiently and brought to market.
This goes way back. England used to grant monopolies on piracy markets to so-called "privateers" who where effectively an extension of the navy to perform what was considered as a public service of checking spanish adventurism and harassing the spanish colonies.
There's also an interesting, perhaps cautionary, market based tale of woe regarding privateering. In the earliest ever stockmarket boom, really at it's infancy in england, the south sea company was formed to supposedly bankroll privateers to raid spanish treasure ships. The apparent return on investment was huge and it sucked up nearly all of the free investment wealth. At one point the company was so flush with cash on hand that in return for favors and grants from the government it in turn absorbed the entire national debt of england. As you are probably guess by now this turned out to be a ponzi scheme with new investors money being paid to old investors to fake a high rate of return. When it collapsed if was known as the South Sea Bubble crisis.
What was particularly remarkable about this even was that because of it's run-away investment attraction it drove out many other public offerings for other companies. Two such offerings were for 1) a concept for an automatic machine gun that "shoots round and square" bullets 2) steam powered high speed troop transport ships. These technologies were not brought to market. Notably these ideas languished till well after the revolutionary war in the colonies.
If the british had had rapidly deployable troop transports, and machine guns, in 1776, it's a fair bet that the queen still would be on the united states money and people in the US would speak english.
in short market forces are powerful. they can be used for bad but they can be used for good too. Only idiots would assert that free-information, lack of patents and property rights, and freedom from monopolies, is somehow a superior state of existence.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
As an Aussie I concur, few people here have private health cover, and the cover normally boils down to a gaurentee of a private hospital for elective sugery. All private hospitals are fairly small and some have nice nice garden's, they are generally less well equiped and use the same doctors/surgeons as public hospitals, if something goes seriously wrong with a patient they are immediately transfered to a better equiped public hospital.
...what's that thing called...oh yes, "the market".
If you are just interested in your health then use the "free" (1.5% of taxable income) universal health cover, even millionaires are not forced to pay more than $1200yr for prescriptions. The doctors are well paid, nurses are well trained and the PUBLIC hospitals measure up to anything offered overseas. What's more I recently visited the UK and got a chest infection, went to casualty twice and got antibiotics "free". The doctor laughed when I ask "should I pay at reception", seems our governments have a recipricol arrangement to look after each other tourists.
A company must make a profit, that is it's sole reason for existance, if the government can't do it to a higher standard with less money then they are doing something wrong. No Australian politician would dare dismantle the public scheme and go back to the early 70's privatised "pay or die" scheme, the voting public would tie them to an ambulance and drag them through the streets. This situation is also boosted by a "balance of power/share the blame" component, the fed's collect the money and the various states spend it. If you are seriously ill in this country there is absolutely no fucking around, especially with admin, accountants and lawyers, because guess what - prevention and early treatment is much cheaper than "the machine that goes ping". Oh and guess what - a healthier population is less profitable for private hostpitals and more productive in
Having said that I will also point out Godel has proven no system is complete, some doctors are butchers and that is when the lawyers, accountants and admin come out of the woodwork. However all I ever hear from American's when asked "why not have UHC like just about every other wealthy country", is a ranting reply about their pathological fear of "socialisim" and vacuous examples of "higher costs". Some will listen and are surprised by the reality they find, others are like the people who talk about global warming on Mars to deny it on Earth, there is no possible reply to that level of brainwashed dogma other than sarcasam and abuse.
And before some free market zealot starts waving the WSJ to point out the painfully obvious: yes UHC is a form of "socialisim", some things just work better that way, New York's central park for example or does Disney sell tickets to walk your dog now?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
If a totally ineffective and toxic compound like Laitril can attract thousands of United States citizens to go to Mexico, then I don't see why a potentially effective, non-toxic substance like this can't do the same thing. If this stuff really works, it will gain traction outside the establishment. For once, the outsiders might actually score a moral victor here (usually they're just ripoff artists who prey on the desparate). The appearance of this article on Slashdot demonstrates that the information isn't bein suppressed. In a few years, we will know if this stuff works on desparate cancer patients who've tried all else. The big losers will be victims of treatable cancers, who will suffer needlessly on chemo. However, if this gains traction as an actual alternative that works, I don't see how it can be stopped. If it gains enough traction, the government will have to run clinical trials due to sheer public outcry.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The premise of the article is flawed. First, using DCA to treat cancer IS patentable -- it would be a new indication for the compound. Also, it's known to be moderately toxic in humans, causing organ damage and exacerbating certain cancers (esp. hepatic). Also, there's not any evidence that it may have the sames effect in humans as in mice. Further, the safety work for the drug, production, and formulation have been worked out long ago. Right now, one would only need to do a study to show efficacy and that'd likely cost less than $1 million; which is an amount for which grants are still widely available.
So, the article is a little misleading. Nobody (other than the article author) feels that this drug would cure cancer, or that it's even less toxic than current treatments. There's also most assuredly profit to be had from it.
Otherwise they could simply claim it cures cancer and market it as an herbal remedy*.
* This statement not approved by the FDA
Actually cures can be profitable too.
Would you take $100/month over the remaining X years of patent protection/patient life.
Or a lump sum of $10k.
My bet would be on the lump sum, you don't have to worry about a competitor coming along, and fewer side effects due to long term usage.
Cures can be better for everyone, drug company, patient, insurance company etc.
Something similar happened when Eli Lilly's patent for Prozac neared expiration. It was indicated for severe PMS symptoms and repatented as Sarafem for treatment of that condition. I'd bet that was the reason GlaxoSmithKline renamed Wellbutrin to Zyban when it was used as an aid to smoking cessation, but I think that they did not get a new patent for that one, although they may be able to pull it off for seasonal affective disorder treatment.
Repeat after me: "current international patent laws stifle pharmaceutical research." There is too much potential benefit for companied to make minor (or nonexistent) formulation changes to existing drugs to effectively renew an existing patent. Why on earth would a big pharma corporation place its future in the hands of an untested, potentially dangerous drug that requires massive R & D when they can get the same patent protection for existing drugs.
If this drug has the potential that the article claims, you can bet it'll have a patent slapped on it in no time.
How does a 7-person democracy cut a pie? Into 4 pieces.
The vast majority of chemotherapy costs are *not* drug costs.
Case in point: My spousal unit has Stage IV breast cancer and has had for almost eight years. She's currently on her sixth course (not round, course) of chemotherapy and is doing pretty well, thankyouverymuch ;-)
Let's talk about drug costs. Doxorubicin (trade name Adriamycin) is generally accepted first line chemotherapy for breast cancer in combination with another drug, Cytoxan. In some parts of the world they use Epirubicin instead, but I digress.
Wholesale drug cost for a single dose of Adriamycin is about $300. Considering the drug is toxic as hell and requires special handling and disposal protocol at the manufacturer level that seems reasonable. Cost to administer? Seven thousand bucks - I can show you the bill. Since it's administered as an IV push over a couple hours it takes a little more work than other drugs but in a healthcare system that charges $180 to start an IV (doesn't matter that the spousal unit has a mediport in her chest) or $40 for a liter of normal saline for that IV it's not difficult to see where the markup is.
Don't get me wrong, I have no real love for drug companies - the two most widely prescribed post-chemotherapy antinausea meds are Zofran and Kytril. Zoftan has an average wholesale price (AWP) of $26.25 _per_tablet_. Kytril is even better, at $59.67 per pill. They normally give you Kytril if Zofran doesn't work. You pay or you puke for a couple days - your choice.
The drug that's keeping the spousal unit alive right now is called Herceptin and costs about $48k per year. Reasonably new monoclonal antibody made from the ovaries of Chinese hamsters. Guess $1000 per dose is reasonable since you probably gotta grind up a lot of hamsters to get enough to be useful.
But again, it costs much more to give the IV than the drug costs.
I got sued by our local cancer center because my insurance company decided to play games one month. Since the patient is responsible for medical charges in order for the hospital to collect they have to sue you and name the insurance company as a codefendant. One month of treatment - which included two rounds of chemotherapy, two 15 minute doctor visits, probably eight blood tests and ten days worth of a drug called Neupogen they used to give you to stimulate white blood count?
Glad you asked. $39,000. Thirty Nine Thousand Dollars for one month's treatment. Drug costs? Less than 20% of that. Fortunately it only cost me $150 to a friend who's an attorney to write a letter to the insurance company to make it all go away.
One more and then I'll STFU. I hate insurance companies too, even though the spousal unit would probably be dead without them. The aforementioned Neupogen? They give it to stimulate white blood cell production - we decided to give it at home. Got the oncology nurses to give me a class on giving injections and even got to practice on the spousal unit. Our oncologist writes the prescription and I take it to the corner pharmacy. Pharmacy calls two days later and says prescription is in, your insurance company won't cover it and please bring in a check for $2800.
Turns out my insurance company at the time was really an insurance broker and the prescription and major medical components got in a big argument over who was gonna get to pay for this. Major medical lost - and rather than give the shot at home we had to go in for an office visit every day from day 4 through about day 10 of each treatment cycle to get the shot.
There are so many holes in the system it's tough to pinpoint any one problem, but I've rambled long enough.
cheers -
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
This sounds very exciting, but it left me wonder that if there is a simple answer to fixing cancer, why hasn't nature evolved a way to apply it on its own, the same way out bodies raise temperature to fight infections, or eject bowl content when poisoned. Cancer, after all, is quite common.
(I can imagine it would be because people with cancer are usually older than fertine age etc., but wouldn't it make sence that people less prone to cancer make a statistical impact on evolution big enough to apply "easy fixes" like this?)
By the way, the Newsweek article on the site is interesting, check it out (:
The research is published in Cell, for Christ's sake. Pay attention. The link is right on the U of A page linked in the /. post.
It is not clear to me that one will need clinical trials - ever. You can be absolutely sure that there are hundreds if not thousands of people taking this already - off label - which is perfectly legal. What would you do if you had a serious cancer that was untreatable or did not respond to other treatments? If it works - doctors will start publishing case reports of the results. If the results are dramatic enough - ie curing many people with otherwise hopeless cancers - then that will probably become clear from the case reports and word of mouth. I know - not a controlled study - but still, if the results are dramatic enough it would become clear that it works. In that case, it would fairly quickly work its way into general use - given the way information spreads on the internet - and how particularly active cancer patients must be in looking for the latest treatments.
The other thing is of course that you can be sure that drug companies have their organic chemist busy synthesizing analogues that are likely to more potent - and patentable.
Dr. Steven Novella discusses this drug on his blog.
From: http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/default.asp ?Display=28
..I thought it said PANTSLESS. Boy was I hoping for that kind of cancer.
Did you have to go to special classes to become that stupid or did you come by it honestly, in your genes?
Those are interesting links and it's always good to keep the downsides in mind. But, on the scientific merit I did want to add:
The first link refers to a summary about trichloroethylene environmental cleanup, and the effects of DCA as a metabolic breakdown product of TCE. This is rather different from controlled dosage in a medical application. Every cancer drug known is a violent poison whose effects at uncontrolled dosage are not pretty.
The second link is a scientific article talking, again, about the medical effects of TCE in the environment.
The third link discusses the use of DCA in a similar context to the cancer study, ie to lower metabolic rate of mitochondria. However, they were trying to lower the rate of all the patient's mitochondria, not cancerous ones, because they were trying to treat a metabolic disease. The dosage rate was 25 mg/kg/day. For a 70kg person (154 lbs), that's 1750 mg per day, which is on the order of two teaspoons-worth of pure drug. That is an enormous dose. The whole point with the cancer cells is their metabolism is so revved up that they're susceptible to much lower doses than normal cells. I don't know what the dosage in the Alberta study was, but I'd expect it to be a lot lower.
The fourth link discusses research that showed DCA-induced cell death (=apoptosis) in the smooth muscle cells of pulmonary arteries. Again, these are not cancerous cells, but they are over-active, I gather from the article, in pulmonary hypertension.
Any time there's a difference in mitochondrial activity between normal cells and targeted cells, there's the possibility that DCA could be used to selectively target the abnormal cells without harming the others. That said, anything that targets mitochondria is a vicious drug that does need to be treated with lots of caution.
The doctors don't squeeze. Investors/shareholders (through HMOs and for-profit healthcare companies) squeeze.
There's at least one more link in the chain that you're referring to... Don't forget the attorneys that launch frivolous lawsuits against the doctors and insurance companies to extract windfalls for clients and take 40%.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Why is the mainstream news media failing to report on this potential breakthrough?
Because this is a potential cure for cancer, not a proven one, and potential cures are a dime a dozen. If they made a big hooplah every time somebody came out with a potential cure, that's all they'd ever be reporting about.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
is that Canadians have to flee to America to get out of line, esp. if they don't want to die of something that needs treatment in a short timeframe.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
I reported this story a week ago, but somehow I must not be good enough. All I can add is read the docs from the research and some of the related theories as to why this works. DCA as a treatment is great and has promise, but the best news from this may be why it works.
Researchers believe that DCA somehow restimulates dormant mitochondria in the cancer cells. This is significant because researchers had thought that the mitochondria was damaged by the mutation and unrepairable. Mitochondria control the apoptosis process by which cells self destruct. It is believed that mitochondria trigger apoptosis when the cell becomes damaged which would normally be the bodies frontline defense against cancer. When this process goes awry, tumors form and cancer takes hold. That is also why cancer cells seem so resilient and can live almost forever. There is nothing to regulate their mortality anymore.
If they are correct, this could open up a whole new avenue of research since this would prove that the mitchondria in cancer cells isn't destroyed or damaged, it is just dormant and can be re-awakened.
There is plenty here to interest pharma companies. DCA might not be patentable, but derivatives could be. There also could be other substances that will do the same thing and possibly more effectively and across more cancers.
The question does still remain though. Will DCA make it into phased human testing and how quickly? My hope is that some large pharma company will see the possibilities and sponsor it just to be the first to get it's hands on the research.
I have lost four family members to cancer, so I was curious. I went the the American Cancer society and found this post: http://www.cancer.org/aspx/blog/Comments.aspx?id=1 30 So what we have is a chemical that may be effective, or may actually give you liver cancer. Probably there will be clinical trial at some point even if there is not a lot of profit to be made. I suspect that this is part of a funding drive, but I am a cynical bastard.
.to say this?
Estrogen is an environmental contaminant these days, because of waste from hormone replacement patches (which retain traces) and the like. Estrogen can cause cancer. And yet, without estrogen AT THE RIGHT DOSE none of us would be here to discuss this issue.
DCA is an environmental toxin. DCA as a metabolite of trichloroethylene (TCE) is toxic and carcinogenic. DCA's toxicity -- at the right dose -- kills cells outright instead of letting them transform to cancer cells. DCA at really high doses (see earlier comments), kills all cells. In other words it kills you.
Many cancer therapies interfere with metabolism one way or another, because cancer cells have a much higher metabolic rate than normal cells. Any time there's a difference like that, you can hope to target the revved up cells while not affecting the others. The reason people's hair falls out in regular chemo is that hair cells are also very fast growing, and our current chemo drugs can't be finely tuned enough to leave active regular cells alone. Current chemo also interferes with spermatogenesis for that reason, and it's also why it makes people feel so sick.
The point of the Alberta study is that DCA --at the right dose-- seems to be more finely tunable than our current crop of chemo drugs. Whether it really is or not will become evident in the clinical trials.
I'm not from north america, but as to why the mainstream (american) media is failing to report this "breakthrough", I believe I have the culturally correct answer.. where did I put it, ah here.. "It's from Canada".
My brother has been an Infantryman for 17 years. He works around 80 hours a week, goes on high stress training exercises (read: 20 hours a day 7 days a week for a month or so) about three times a year, his weekends and vacations get cancelled pretty frequently, not to mention the deployments (four of the last 17 years). His income? Around $50,000, adjusted for the perks (mostly housing and medical), and that is after 6 promotions (he is a Sergeant First Class) and 17 years of annual pay hikes.
Now, I know you are going to say he should have just gone to school and been better at it if he wanted your income, but since our parents were poor and he was the oldest that wasn't really an option.
So, while you seem to have convinced yourself that your income is justified, please don't be surprised when the rest of the world (slashdot mods excepted) tells you to go fuck your high horse.
Just another case where nobody can figure out a way to get a big monopoly on the product, and so it suffers through neglect.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Nature is about reproduction, once you have allowed for the survival of the species, you are done.
Cancer isn't that common.
We may have more of it now do to enviromental effects.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
mostly I just find myself wishing I had mod points so I could mod this up. I have rosacea and my dermatologist prescribes an antibiotic for it. There's no cure and I'm told there's not going to be one because nobody is bothering to try and cure it. The response I've gotten from multiple dermatologists is that they can "manage it" which basically means that I get to take a pill every day that makes me sick to my stomach whether I take food with the medicine as recommended or not.
I get to pay a doctor once a year to go into their office and get told "Yep, you still have it. Lets write that prescription for another years worth of puking pills and some topical crap that I get a kickback for recommending".
If Doctors can treat it forever instead of curing it they will. I spend moments with my doctor and he charges my insurance company hundreds of dollars. It's an immense crock of shit.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
I need more coffee. I first read the headline as "Cheap, Safe, Pantiless..." and thought, "Hey, I'm in!"
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
I appreciate that things must have sucked for you, being shouted at and running in circles for three years. (Also, being shot at, if you were deployed.) But honestly, you were "protecting" me only in the vaguest and hand-waviest of senses. (Here's a good article about what I mean.) American soldiers are, at best, fighting to protect George Bush's fragile ego and assure that his failures can be blamed on whatever grownup has to extricate us from his mess, and at worst, are simply "gangsters for capitalism", as Smedley Butler put it.
But no, I'm not going to tell you how much I admire you because you fell for the propaganda, or because you were forced into a dirty, dangerous job. Plenty of people work dirty, dangerous jobs, and yet we're not exhorted to run around thanking our timber cutters, fishers, pilots and structural steel workers. It's jingoism, it's militarism, and it carries with it some disturbing baggage, such as the recent habit of calling the President "the Commander in Chief".
I understand your sacrifice, but you didn't do it for my freedom. I'm sorry if you thought it was all for a good reason, I really am.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
As an american with friends in Canada... that is complete and utter bullshit. I can get an appointment on the same day with either of my doctors ( general internist or specialist [migraines] ) for a visit. My friends moved to Canada from California for a job. They loathe the health system, the waiting lists. It's too bad.
Personally I have to chalk it up to curing the actual problem is not as profitable as treating the symptoms. I honestly believe that a cure for cancer has been found, but it has been quited due to the loss of profit and jobs something like this would create. I know of an elderly individual in the south east US that has claimed to find a cure for cancer out of a mixture of herbs. This person was giving the cure away for free and many benefited. IIRC, the FDA came to their house, burned their crops and sterilized the soil so nothing would grow. Nothing else was done about it in the public eye because they didn't want this to be publicized. No lawsuit, no media, no word.
The sad thing is the US isn't the place of freedom it use to be. There is so much shit that goes on the average Joe doesn't hear about. Some of it is good and some of it is bad.
Psst. You already pay 1.5% of your income in Medicare taxes. Also, a goodly portion of your state taxes goes to Medicaid.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
No one cares about the FDA, because it's a Canadian university. Canada has Health Canada. Regardless of whether or not Health Canada is better than the FDA (when it comes to cancer-fighting drug trials), do not compare your FDA to our Health Canada. They are two completely different agencies, with two completely different agendas and morals.
Blerg.
The answer is right there in the headline; it is a cheap, safe, and patentless cancer drug. If a drug company cannot make a raping amount of money off of a product - they aren't interested. Also, there is more money to be made off of symptom treatment than there is making cures.
Riiiight... self-diagnosis, self-treatment and self-prescription of dangerous and pharmacologically complicated medications = !MONOPOLY!
If every idiot out there got a Z-pack every time they *think* they "felt a sinus infection coming on" we would have even MORE resistant strains of all kinds of fun diseases. Or heaven forbid--having an seemingly benign adverse drug reaction and not knowing enough (i.e. not having the 8 years of training) to realize the sigificance. Something as simple as a cough can be indicative of a severe reaction and REQUIRES drug therapy modification. Are you telling me that most laymen know when and where to look? Having someone that knows what they're talking about (i.e. a doctor, nurse practitioner, pharmacist, physician's assistant whatever) monitor your situation is important. I hope that you never have to personally find that out for yourself.
This is not to say that the health care situation doesn't need a severe overhaul, but to call "needing a prescription from a medical professional" as a "monopoly" is pure idiocy.
However, your kvetching about the HPV vaccine (I see you're referring to a "sexually transmitted disease virus" instead of a "cancer virus" there) shows an ignorance of the concept of herd immunity. The point of mandatory vaccinations is that they can't reach everyone, but if they reach a critical mass of people, the disease can be eradicated, like smallpox or polio have been eradicated. Vaccines don't do their public-health work unless nearly everyone gets them; if not, the disease hangs around in unvaccinated people.
Did you think it was a mistake for the government to FORCE people to be vaccinated against polio? Against smallpox? Against measles? Mumps? Rubella? Meningococcal disease (for college students)? Diphtheria? Plenty of these other vaccines make money for pharmaceutical companies; why aren't you complaining that we're FORCEd to take them? Except we're not actually forced, because parents who want their kids to get cervical cancer when they grow up can leave them vulnerable to it, which I suppose is their own business.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
IAAB (or at least just majored in it last year...hello job market). Translated into plain english, the first part says whats already been repeated several times, that some human cancer types exhibit hyperpolarized mitochondrial membrane potentials, and low expression of the membrane protein that facilitates potassium transport across the membrane. This results in a low permeability of the membrane to proteins. Several apoptitic pathways rely on various proteins being taken up by the mitochondria, which then releases several other proteins back into the cytosol. These cancer cells would then become resistant to induced apoptosis via these mechanisms. DCA seems to lower the mitochondrial membrane potential and activate mitochondrial potassium channels by blocking a kinase (a protein that adds a phosphate group) whose target is responsible for the formation of AcetylCoA, the first step of oxidative metabolism, which then "normalizes" mitochondrial function. Importantly, the researchers have tested their experimental result by using siRNA, (small interfering RNA) to block the action of the kinase whose target is the original pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase (thus the PDK2, the 2 being the same as a PDKK). siRNA confirmaion is a strong indicator that the pathway they are targeting is working and having the effect desired by the drug.
Just because DCA is unpatented as a chemical and unpatented as a method of treating obscure metabolic diseases doesn't mean it unpatentable as a method of treating cancer. I'm thinking that it would be pretty gutsy for any doctor in the US to treat cancer by using a drug off-lable, the malpractice liability would be extremely high. There is no reason that I know of that would preclude this doctor or his university from taking money to conduct the clinical trials and then if they were sucessful patent the method of treating cancer with this drug later other than their honor.
As we have all seen lately "for the good of mankind" doesn't go as far in a university as it did years ago.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Because everybody knows that firemen are useless leeches hanging around the station, if something isn't actually on fire. And what about that radio dispatcher? He doesn't even go out in the truck! What a slob!
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
There's at least one more link in the chain that you're referring to... Don't forget the attorneys that launch frivolous lawsuits against the doctors and insurance companies to extract windfalls for clients and take 40%.
That's what got John Edwards his 28,000 sq. ft. mansion from which he plans his "Two Americas" speeches - in his suit against an obstetrician for causing cerebral palsy (seriously) he channeled the spirit of the little girl with CP to make his point (seriously).
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
"Resolved: That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and country."
-- Oxford Union, 9 February 1933
"For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an 'Chuck him out, the brute!' But it's 'Savior of 'is country' when the guns begin to shoot;"
-- Kipling
I am reminded of people who were outraged at all the money which was spent on Y2K fixes, because, since the world didn't come to an end, it was obviously all just a hoax and scam.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
I never understood the logic of that. We as a society will not let, for example, a truck driver drive for more than x number of hours in a day before they have to take a mandatory amount of time off. I forget what x equals, but it's 8-10 hours max. Yet, we'll stick a doctor into an emergency ward for days on end with said doctor only catching sleep when things are slow.
--
Part of it is pure hazing - the medical chiefs had to go through it so the new guys should too...
The other part, which is probably harder to fix, is that medicine is getting harder and harder every year. In 1940, when you set bones, had those new-fangled X-rays and antibiotics were cutting edge, you had four years of medical school to learn everything. Today you have four years of medical school to learn everything. This continues on into residencies and fellowships. Extending the term of learning would allow the hours to come down by allowing the number of students to increase for a given period of time. There are also very real studies showing that memory storage sucks when sleep deprived, as well as error rates skyrocket and judgment plummets. Yeah, it would suck for the students to have to be in school two more years, but if they're civil years I think as a society we can decide that's worth it to improve (and save) the lives of the citizenry.
I'm not a regulation-first kind of guy, but there's no opportunity for competition among philosophies here.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
But more seriously, this is the central problem of capitalism. It's very, very good at optimizing corporate profits. Unfortunately, there's a circular-definition problem where "good" is defined as "corporate profits" and vice versa. In many cases, they coincide--if you consider cheap consumer goods to be a social good, then capitalism happens to be working well. On the other hand, when you find yourself making ridiculous contortions in order to pretend that corporate profit is equivalent to social good, you might want to consider that this is why we have regulation; this is why we have what you feh-feh as "socialized state sponsorship." Note that one of these "socialized state sponsorship" programs originally developed DCA, the FDA's Office of Orphan Products Development.
You get yourself into the most ridiculous twists. Are you seriously claiming that handing money to a state employee is simply "paid from peoples' existing wealth", but handing twice as much money to a corporate employee is "creating wealth"?
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
It's a near-universal human impulse, closely related to the Golden Rule. To mangle some philosophy, which may or may not have been Kant: A stable morality is one that, when one person does something different, they can't do better. (Consider the Prisoner's Dilemma as a sample world-of-choices.) One stable morality is everyone being evil all the time. The other stable strategy is, "give the other person the benefit of the doubt, but if they are evil, then you be evil too to protect yourself". A lot of hand-waving aside, the latter strategy earns a higher total score (add both players' scores) than the former.
The point of all this? There's a good reason for people to have an innate tit-for-tat morality. It's in our interest to act in a way that we'd like everyone else to act. Of course, we don't do this consciously; people in different cultures justify it in different ways.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
You must not pay taxes if you think that you are not being squeezed for every penny with socialized medicine. But hey if having it taken out of your paycheck by force makes you feel like it's 'free' and better quality service... I have a bridge you may be interested in.
It looks like the GP is referring to a vague sense of satisfaction he gets from his altruism. But if he gets intangible satisfaction from it, then it's not really altruistic. But by this definition, anything anyone ever does by their own will is self-interested. Unless you narrow "altruism" to refer only to an increased likeliness of material benefit, the word becomes meaningless.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Of course, we could just educate the girls and parents and let them make the decision as to yes/no and if yes, when, themselves. If girls delay a year or two it could possibly result in millions of dollars less in revenue for Merck in the long run, since it wouldn't maximize the number of girls who have to get the protocol before the patent goes into the public domain.
It was precisely because of the FDA's rigorous approval requirements, pitted against the profit motives of the drug industry, that kept thalidomide from gaining FDA approval in the United States. You think that was a bad move?
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Treatments with laetril generally included lots of other stuff. Since careful modern tests have shown laetril not to be effective, if these treatments were effective, it must have been the other stuff that made a difference.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Are you kidding? You get to walk down the street without old, sick, disabled people heaped up on every corner. I think that's worth a few percent of my income. As for the programs not being around long enough for you to use them, whatever problems there are with Social Security and Medicare are eminently fixable; the manufactured panic of the last few years was yet another of those boneheaded drives for privatization.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I didn't mean that you do it for the appreciation or remuneration; by intangible benefits, I meant your sense of satisfaction at doing something good for other people. (Same reason I donate blood, for instance.)
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Insufficient profit margin? So the problem is that the pharmaceutical companies can't make enough money off of this unpatented drug, and the answer is to just hand them a patent? Aspirin isn't patented, but we still see companies making that. If we're going to effectively take the free market out of the equation by handing out a patent for doing nothing, why NOT have the government do it? Don't even start with the whole "government isn't efficient" bullshit. You've just taken any hope of efficiency out of the system by removing any competition.
Call me an idiot, but free information is preferable. Information is non-exclusive, it does not behave like normal property and the market is not able to handle exchange of non-exclusive goods efficiently. Patents are granted to benefit society, not the individual, and any time they benefit the individual at the expense of society, they should not be granted. Property rights are a positive right, not a natural right. Individual possesion is an important right, ownership of natural resources is theft of that resource. Resources should be controlled and administered by small, local democratic organizations. Monopolies are inefficient. they represent a market failure and should be regulated.
In short, the free market exists to benefit all, not just a few sharks. It works well where it works but it is not magic and it is not divine. It absolutely needs regulation to stay free because money can be used to control and manipulate markets just as easily as political power can be. With political solutions, the electorate can demand transparency. Not so with market based solution.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Well, Cass Ingram (or Cassim Igram) is famous enough to appear on QuackeryWatch, though not on Skepdic. I don't suppose he's come forth with any evidence for his claims in the last seven years or so?
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Ill never forget one of the conversations I had with my very first boss. A story relayed to me regarding salary vs importance of work.
He had some friends, husband and wife. One worked for RIM, the other worked for medical imaging company, both senior software developers. RIM was throwing more money at the husband, I presume because they had more money to throw.
Now, if the wife screwed up, and a key piece of medical imaging software failed, someone could potentially die.
And if the husband screwed up... well... some jerk cant check his email.
The story stuck with me.
Iran has apparently developed the cure for AIDS - http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/20060906-065147-6616r / - and is set to release it to the world soon. This is, obviously, not patented and because it is herbal would certainly be low in cost.
4 43087 has the story, as does the UPI and some other places. Why not CNN? Is someone paying to keep people sick?
So, how come we're not hearing about this? http://www.mehrnews.ir/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=
"It is not clear to me that one will need clinical trials - ever. You can be absolutely sure that there are hundreds if not thousands of people taking this already - off label - which is perfectly legal"
Sure, lots of people are probably taking it. But those people aren't also taking a bunch of other drugs because they have cancer. What if this drug plus one other drug results in an 80% mortality rate?
Here, I'll highlight the relevant portion that you misses.
The President, it says, "shall be Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States". He's not my Commander-in-Chief, because I'm not in the military.
I'm not militia in the actual Service of the United States. I'm not taking military orders from anyone. I'm not in the military. How can there possibly be debate about this?
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
The initial DCA studies in Canada and the US were funded by such programs, including the FDA's own Orphan Drugs program, which has discovered a whole host of new drugs.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
>7 years of residency and fellowship training in which I made $50K for 80 hour weeks + overnight in hospital calls and every third weekend on call.
I know doctors and pharmacists in residency. Their stories agree with what you say: they are way overworked. I am trying to find out why the 80 hour work week etc. is so prevelent? Is it because there are not enough doctors and the residents are used as slave labor? Is it because the doctors need to be prepared/trained for emergencies (like Katrina) which may require working 20+ hours without sleep? Or is it because the previous generation did it this way and they force the newcomers to follow suit (think of hazing and draft military)?
What would take to change the practice? Why nobody sued the hospitals that they overwork the doctors, thereby endangering the patients? Would you want a loved one to be treated by a doctor who was on duty for 12+ hours and/or has to work 80 hours that week? Why nobody speaks up?
In one instance a resident's contract clearly said 40 hours a week. That is what the hospital HR was aware of. The actual work included 70+ hours including every 3 weekends (2x12 hours shifts) every fourth weekend on call, etc. The position was advertised to accrue 10 PTO-s a year, according to HR the position was not eligeble for PTO...
Strange world...
> I would love to spend an hour seeing every new patient and half an hour on every followup. I am limited on how much the HMOs will pay me to see those patients, however.
I wish I there was a plan when I could pay the doctor directly as long as I am healthy. Currently the HMO gets the profit if the client is not a patient. The doctor gets paid if there is a problem. Talk about conflicting interests.
I am on a high deductable plan. Any preventive care is 100% free for me. It makes sense to see my doctor for a preventive checkup quite often, but does she get paid comparably for that as for seeing sick people?
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I asked Eva Vertes about this. She thinks the drug is interesting but she did mention that clinical trials on humans often have different results than trials with rodents or cell cultures. I for one think the funding thing is BS, if they want funding, I'm sure there are plenty willing to cure friggin cancer!
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
The inpression I got is the drug is approved for use in treating a very rare metabalic disease called congenital lactose acidosis, I haven't been able to find out much, but the little out their sounds pretty gruesome and life threatening. So even if the treatment is effective for one condition doesn't automatically mean the drug would be approved for conditions that have other treatments. This drug does have side effects, causing cancer is one of them.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
My mainstream paper newspaper did report on this. Actually it reported on the rumor going around the internet.
It claims:
- It has not been fully tested, and not all researchers agree on the resuts yet.
- Even if it works, it will not work on all types of cancer.
- There are actually several research projects (with funding) working on this.
- The medicine is in fact known to also CAUSE cancer in mice.
- Michelakis is using the internet to spread FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) in order to collect money. Which is not helping the search for a cure at all.
Don't know if it's true, but it is something to think about...
I sincerely believe what I posted above. If you want to have a reasoned debate about it, I'm game. But modding me down just makes you out to be the ignorant child you are.
Now, let me address something ShadowsHawk said in response to my comment.
That's right. People join the military to get job training, or to get money for college, or because they've been brainwashed into a military tradition by their family, or lastly and leastly, so they can serve their country. But what all of these people have in common is that, wittingly or not, they are doing just that.
Now, I would argue that any responsible adult should be able to consider the repercussions of their actions, and one of the things that results from joining the military is that it grows. I know this sounds like a very sophomoric point to actually address, but since some people (including your esteemed self) don't seem to be getting this point, I'm going to belabor it until the dead horse has been well-whipped. I can think of no other way to get the point across. When the military is larger, it is easier to apply it to various situations in which it is not warranted. For instance, http://adbusters.org/media/flash/hope_and_memory/t imeline.swf is one of my favorite little presentations on American military history. If you just glance through it you will see that the majority of American military actions were questionable to say the least. We forced Japan to trade with us by force, and of course we all know that we invaded Mexico repeatedly, and stole large portions of what is now the Estados Unidos Norteamericanos away from them, forcing them at gunpoint to sell the rest for a song. We were involved in the Opium wars. We annexed Hawaii in 1898. Especially check out Honduras in 1905; this is one of many American military conquests specifically supporting the United Fruit Company. Look carefully at Nicaragua in 1910, Cuba in 1917, Guatemala in 1954, Haiti in 1959...
The list goes on and on but what all of these things have in common is that they were financially motivated. They weren't about helping people. They were about money and power. Yes, in the same list there are conflicts that are about protecting people from bad people. There's attacks on pirates (the real kind) and their institutions. There's WWI and WWII.
Today, we are seeing much the same thing. We have bombed the shit out of a middle eastern company yet again. And yet again, the bulk of the rebuilding will be carried out by American contractors. In fact, the sole contractor overseeing and profiting from the entire thing is, guess who, Halliburton. The government claimed that they were the only contractor that could be ready "in time" and so they got the contract. Gee, I wonder why they were the only ones to meet the lengthy, detailed, and frankly unnecessary requirements so suddenly. Could they have had, you know, advance warning? Given the connection between certain high-ranking officials in our government and Halliburton, not only is that highly likely, but it is a virtual certainty.
Are you getting the message yet? There are times when the American military has done good things. Most of these were minor conflicts. A couple of them were major. In the case of the minor conflicts, a large standing military was not necessary. In the case of the major ones, the draft was utilized to bring up the numbers of people sent off to combat the menace. In neither case is a large standing military requir
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If the drug kills the cancer cells inside the body, does the body naturally remove the cells? Or do they need to be removed?
Agreed with most of the objections. However, there are several possible causes for the side effects, and for both a solution could at least in theory be possible.
Some of DCA's undesirable side effects may be linked directly with the mechanism of action of the substance against the cancer cells. They occur because of what the drug does to cells in general. Then it will be impossible to get rid of the side effects without destroying the activity, but the side effects might be moderated by optimizing the treatment and perhaps combining DCA with other drugs, for example to modulate its metabolism.
Other side effects, such as the reported neurotoxicity, may not be related to the mechanism of action, but the result of some other effect of the compound. In that case the next step is to establish a structure-activity relationship by creating a family of chemical derivatives of and analogues to DCA, and see which ones of these are active or not, and which ones are toxic or not. Standard procedure in drug development, and good chemists can do a lot.
Finally, if DCA is too dangerous as a drug no matter what action is taken, but the mechanism of action is real, one can still consider to start a search for novel chemical structures that have the same effect on cancer cells, but are safer. In drug discovery terms, that could be a partially validated target, and that is at least a credible proposition from a business point of view.
Of course this kind of drug development is emphatically not cheap, and the clinical trials would probably have to be repeated entirely. One can also forget about the resulting product being unpatented, as no developer will make this kind of effort without a patent to guarantee a profit. But that is not a surprise.
-- "Holding unnecessary death or sterility over your child's head as a consequence of possible sexual activity - which is usually unplanned, and sometimes non-consensual - is monstrous."
There are about 10,000 cases of Human Pappiloma Virus (HPV) infection
each year (pharma's numbers though) and they're non-lethal and out of
those 10,000 only a very low percentage will have cervical cancer
before they turn 50.
Contrast that to common teen/young adult fatalities like driving,
substance abuse or teen suicide to name a few - which are usually
unplanned - with hundreds of thousands of _deaths_ each year
you've got admit you're scaremongering here.
The only thing to really worry about during unplanned teen recreation
after homework is teen pregnancy.
Nice idea with the rape angle you had there, but a real Spinmeister
knows when he's overdoing it.
--"However, your kvetching about the HPV vaccine (I see you're referring to a "sexually transmitted disease virus" instead of a "cancer virus" there) shows an ignorance of the concept of herd immunity [wikipedia.org]."
You're obviously confusing apples with oranges here trying to appear smart.
HPV is _both_ transmitted by sexual intercourse as well as thought to be a
virus that may be the cause of cancer at a latter date.
As far as your herd immunity is concerned, that is theory. Another theory
to which I adhere is that vaccinations carry the diseases they supposedly
prevent into the population.
People who are interested in that point of view can learn more about that
here: http://www.thinktwice.com/ or just google for it.
American Cancer Society and other not-for-profit cancer-related foundations will jump on this as a cost-effective research investment with the potential for success.
There's no way to stop it now. The public wants nationalized healthcare and they will have it.
GWB has driven the last nail into the coffin with his nutball seniors prescription plan. Seniors are running all over the place madly trying to understand the plan until finally their meds run out and they croak. The Republican healthcare plan is to "drive 'em to death!": confound and confuse the elderly until they die.
Nobody cares what a good deal you're getting now because it will all be over in 10 years: no more employee health insurance, simpler OTJ benefits and a one-size-fits-all healthcare plan for all U.S. citizens.
... many, many things kill cancer in mice but don't in humans-- mice have significantly different molecular machinery than we do re: cancer prevention...
Which is probably why they tested with human cancers implanted in mice.
(No doubt using suitably hacked mice that would not fight off the transplanted human cancer - and in a suitably controlled study, in case they were able to make some attempt, so their own anti-cancer/anti-transplant action could be largely sorted out from the drug's action.)
The apparent mechanism of the drug's action is dependent solely on the machinery of the cancer cell, not that of its surroundings. The mice are just a convenient support medium, not part of the machinery that kills the cancer.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Actually, fotbr, your accounting is a bit flawed.
Believe it or not, as of 2007 you are paying 1.45% of your wages in Medicare tax. In addition, your employer has to pay 1.45%, so the government is ultimately getting a total of 2.9% of your wages for this purpose. And you probably don't actually get to benefit from any of this, because you don't qualify for Medicare. This is all before you (and/or your employer) even start paying for insurance and other medical expenses.
In light of all that, 1.5% would be a bargain!
You're an idiot if you think 'I have a cold' requires 8 years of any kind of experience to troubleshoot. In fact the doctor will just prescribe you [insert whatever antibiotic company has come by with free pens lately]
That right there tells me you indeed are an idiot. Colds are caused by viruses. An antibiotic will do absolutely NOTHING against a viral infection and 99% of people (you included apparently) do NOT understand this. And heaven forbid we get into the finer poitns of what a macrolide antibiotic does versus cephalosporin. Do you HONESTLY think that the public at large knows these details?
Thanks for proving my point. This EXACT mentality is why there are these checks to keep people from taking these types of medications without a doctor's prescription. (a little bit of disjointed knowledge in the hands of an idiot is a dangerous thing)
What does having friends in Canada tell you about the Australian medical system? Absolutely nothing.
I am an American. I have lived in Australia.
I was never on a waiting list. Heck, usually when I walked to my doctor's office to ask for an appointment for something minor, they told me I could see a doctor straight away. I'm usually lucky if I can see a doctor within three weeks in the US, unless I'm eight shades of green and about to fall over.
My doctors had more modern equipment than I've even seen in any of my US GP's offices. Nobody was in a rush to get me out of the office. The prices were all fairly reasonable. To be honest, I had no complaints.
DCA is used to increase the metabolic rate of mitochondria, not lower it. The whole point is that cancer uses an alternate metabolic pathway that doesn't use mitochondria.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
The 2 to 3 times pay increase is for pay while in a combat zone. Granted, the definition of what areas are considered to be combat zones can vary greatly in different parts of the world--from totally peaceful areas to areas of regular, well.. combat that the U.S. Army doesn't want publicized like on the DMZ in Korea.
Also.. While the government does cover a food and housing for single soldiers, the stipends are generally not much to support families (the ones who normally live off-base). And both the single and married are still made to pay for a variety of clothing and equipment items to do their jobs. I was a soldier in the U.S. Army for 9 years. And the hours are, essentially 24x7.
Matthew
The unfortunate truth of the matter is that the medicine is cheap and patentless. Pharmaceutical companies today are not interested unless they can make big profits, specially for something like cancer drugs.
d ex.cfm?DR_ID=42580
This behavior is already taking its toll on developing countries like China and India. I understand that it is very hard to find Aspirin in India since it's cheap to make and the drug companies make very little money from it. Instead, they make aspirin variants for cardio patients which are slow release drugs, bump up the price by 1000% and make a killing.
Patents in medicine are killing people, and preventing quick access to life saving medicine. This is being addressed by some countries like Thailand, where they broke a patent for a HIV treatment drug since the patent holder was intent on ripping off the country.
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_in
You're with the evil spork lobby. You're on notice, evil spork lobby!
But that doesn't change the fact that the result of all these people signing up is that the American hegemony is spread across the world, and these people must share in the responsibility for this.
:)
;)
In the long run, the entire human race shares the responsibility.
In the short run, every American citizen does - and especially right now. That means you and me too, drinkypoo, one way or another.
I'm not talking about voting. I'm talking about living here and sharing the burden. Voting is pretty much useless. ( George W. Bush, twice: I rest my case.)
Do the best job we can and in our spare time learn and speak out. We all bear the burden - and the responsibility lies on us - whether we choose to accept it or not.
But... you knew all that already.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Out of curiosity, how many dollars do you have to pay a year in order to practice your trade? Is it hundreds of thousands of dollars? No? If you fuck up once, what is the worst possible consequence? Can you be arrested, jailed and sued penniless? No? Gosh, us programmers and engineers have it tough.
I personally failed out of college and smoked dope for 5 years and can buy and sell my Doctor brother. I am not a sterling example, no, but comparing a typical engineers job preparation requirements vs that of a doctor's is a bit specious.
I imagine there is a pretty fucking steep turnaround at around 20 years in, when Doctors will get to coast a bit on the benefits of their built up practice, but hey if you are so bitter, start studying for the MCATs. No one is holding a gun to your head and making you code.
The doctors a sneaking in to your house and spreading germs on you.
Adjust the TFH. The rays are getting thru.
would never allow a practical and simple treatment to ever be implemented. Health care is entirely driven by profit. It doesn't matter what country you live in. Money is what it always comes down to. The most expensive, ridiculous treatment will always get preference because people lose sight of the patient/client's individual needs and instead overemphasize technology's role or the amount of money that can be made from interventions.
You're hmming and hawing here but still...
A 4,000 projected deaths at an age median of 50 do not merit putting the
health of millions of young girls in any way at risk, especially
in childhood. With reports of highly adverse reaction to the Merck "Gardasil"
HPV cocktail out there, I don't think you would personally roll up your sleeve
for this one yourself:
http://www.909shot.com/Diseases/HPV/HPVrpt.htm
According to NVIC:
Reported Adverse Events
Syncopal Episodes and Seizures. One-quarter of all reports filed after GARDASIL vaccination were for neurologic adverse events including loss of consciousness, syncope, syncopal events and seizures. An additional five reports included symptoms of dizziness and feeling faint.
Although these reports did not detail what happened to the individuals experiencing these syncopal episodes, other reports did. The 14-year-old DC girl mentioned earlier experienced a syncopal episode combined with amblyopia (poor vision in one eye), abnormal speech, vomiting, and headache. Also experiencing vision problems, a 17-year-old New York girl reported feeling dizzy and her vision went "black for a few seconds" and she turned pale and lips turned purple and she also had fever and chills. Similar to the DC girl, on July 18th immediately after being vaccinated, a 22-year-old Kentucky woman experienced slurred speech accompanied by pallor and shock. On August 29th, two hours after being vaccinated, a 15-year-old New York girl who had a history of asthma and was on four asthma medications experienced difficulty swallowing prompting a visit to the emergency room. On August 17th, 15 minutes after being vaccinated, a 14-year-old Pennsylvania girl passed out in the car on the way home.
and these are the immediate results minutes after injection. Who knows what the long-term
consequences will be?
It was Furadentin. Don't remember the spelling. What I have listed is how it was pronounced. The salt is Nitrofurans IIRC
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
"Just plain wrong", thats a revealing argument from you and every other dumass. Provide some credible evidence via a link, just once would do, your anecdotal rants about Canada are simply nonesense. Patients often think their own case is "life threatening" but since you used politicians for you anecdotes I'm sure neither were parinoid about "advisers".
Anyway we have had this debate before and you are sprouting the same anecdotes, in the interest of brevity and absent a credible link I will stop now and let your final rant go unanswered.
BTW: I don't mark people as foes, I remeber the more seriously brainwashed facists by name.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
its funny that the university in my city can come up with the cure for cancer but people have been waiting in our emergency rooms for 11 days at a time before getting a bed in the ER.......
Your article saddens me because of many reasons. I don't know much about rosacea but I had psoriasis attack me early last year on an unmentionable place where none of us guys wants a lot of pain. I was told there wasn't a cure but a cream was prescribed that cost $60.00 a tube, called Pro something or other. Two months after I started using it, found out from a World Health newsletter a class action is underway. Seems it causes cancer. Can I get the money back? Nope. They'd laugh me onto the sidewalk. I was doing battle with heart & lung congestion last year. I had Meniere's Syndrome that medical manuals say is INCURABLE yet I did cure it. I took 2-3 big multivitamin-mineral pills a day for 8 days. I reached toxic and stopped taking them til my armpits stopped hurting, but when it was over I've not had Meniere's since.
Incurable is what happens when we give up. "Incurable" assumes we are of average to low intelligence and will suffer the average result. At one point last year I got so ill in my right side I realized I was just plain dying, so I started throwing every nutrition product down throughout the day. If it was my time to die I was going down swinging. So finally a day came where I felt so bad I knew my tomorrow was in the balance. Long toward 6 pm I felt an awesome power of health migrate across from out of my left side, through my chest and into the right side that was so ill.
I believe what happened was I had so super-nutritioned my left healthy side that a wave of stem cells was produced and dispatched over to their corresponding cells on the right side. Last year I had a number of doctors. Some of them helped me but when it came to where Death was on the line, it was me alone keeping the health products industry in the black. And I had my faith, faith in me, faith in God, faith in good quality products, faith in my hard head. You might want to give these people in Minnesota a call and see what they have to say about nutritional help for the rosacea. I recall reading a great doctor once said -and yeah I forget his name- "All disease is nutritional disease". You can check my record of posts about the stem cell experience when I originally posted it.
Industrial Age 2 + How-to Stop Malignant Cancers.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19325890.200 -no-wonder-drug.html
-McDave
I was uninsured for part of my stay, and insured (out of pocket) for another part of my stay. (Though, in practice, I had to pre-pay and get reimbursed by the insurance, so on the doctor's end, there wasn't much of a difference.)
I always found the lack of ambulance coverage rather odd, myself. Yeah, it's expensive, but that's exactly why you need to cover it. The last thing you want is somebody dying, because they're worried about the cost of the trip to the hospital -- or worse, people trying to drive themselves to the hospital when they really shouldn't.
You can get ambulance/dental/extras/gap insurance in Australia, at fairly reasonable rates, but the folks who most need it are the ones who aren't going to have the extra money to pay for it.
--"So, let me get this straight: you criticize my sourcing and accuse me of scare-mongering, and your critique is a misleading article from the professional anti-vaccine lobby?"
:-)
As i have pointed out before, if you call the Whitehouse and ask who took out the WTC you will get
one answer. If you consider and weigh the evidence yourself, you _may_ arrive at another conclusion.
Same thing as far as this new vaccination scheme is concerned. If you ask Governor Perry who signed an
order last week to put Gardasil HPV vaccination on the list of _recommended vaccines_ in Texas and that
is rescinded as of today to the best of my knowledge - if you ask him he'll tell you what Merck and the
CDC are feeding him (he wont mention his kickback though).
If you ask medical experts who are upset with the damage vaccines do to people you will hear a different
story. These people get a different kind of kick back from pharma, though this is more like a kick into
the rib cage from their lawyers than a juicy $20,000 check and a trip to Jamaica.
As far "professional anti-vaccine lobbying is concerned" -- where I wonder is the money in that?
Some people make an extra $100-$150 a month selling a bookthey wrote on their own but Amazon wont carry.
That's a lot less than foodstamps and sometimes doesn't even cover the cost of promoting it so they
keep paying to put out their message. Anybody in their "right minds" would be well advised to lobby
pro pharma
People will undoubtedly find this entire thread when they search for HPV vaccination or Gardasil,
I suppose they'll make up their own minds about this who they will listen to.
--"The fact that pharma companies are not jumping on this particular one whole hog is nothing odd. It will get tested, it will get clinical trials, and if it works that's awesome. But there's no cause to just drop everything else and rush to test this."
Unless of course you happen to be a little out of time, like with a prognosis of having only six months to live.
I doubt they'll ask their doctors or the FDA for permission.
Vaccination - The Hidden Truth
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=861055467
"This is the shocking but extremely informative video documentary Vaccination -
The Hidden Truth (1998) where fifteen people, including Dr. Viera Scheibner
(a PhD researcher), five medical doctors, other researchers, reveal what is really
going on in relation to illness and vaccines. Ironically, the important facts come
from the orthodox medicine's own peer-reviewed research. With so much government
and medical promotion of vaccination for prevention of disease, the video is clearly
devoted to presenting the other side of the issue that parents and others are not
being told. The result is a damning account of the ineffectiveness of vaccines
and their often harmful effects. It declares that parents are not being told the
truth by the media, the Health Department and the medical establishment, with a
medical doctor, Dr. Mark Donohoe, confessing that "It is a problem for me that I am
part of a profession that is systematically lying to people?". Find out how vaccines
are proven to have harmful effects to your health and why do we still have to be vaccinated
although there is no real need for it. Although many people simply refuse to believe
this, the impeccable documentation presented in this amazing video has changed the
minds of many who saw it. 90 min"
I called you names? I called you "that guy", and then I explained what I meant by that. Is that what you meant?
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Hey they can go ahead and try I guess. But there's no reason to think it'll be especially more effective than homeopathy. Cancer patients looking for cures have often taken lots of different potential cures in the hopes that they would help. That doesn't make the jury be any less out on whether they have any effective use to fight cancer.