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Cancer Fighting Drug Found in Dirt

Posted by samzenpus on from the a-shovel-a-day-keeps-the-doctor-away dept.

firesquirt writes "From an article in LiveScience, the bark of certain yew trees can yield a medicine that fights cancer. Now scientists find the dirt that yew trees grow in can supply the drug as well, suggesting a new way to commercially harvest the medicine."

18 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. Next headline... by wbren · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Pharmaceutical company patents dirt; Critics claim prior art"

    --
    -William Brendel
    1. Re:Next headline... by delire · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Your joke points to a sad reality however, that it's only through patenting cures (ie having a monopoly over a cure) can pharmaceutical companies (free enterprises) get the investment capital to develop medicines. Cures are IP, traded and guarded.

      Moreso, the last thing any pharmaceutical monopoly can afford is for people to get better very easily. For this reason cures are highly guarded discoveries: there are many cures around we don't have access to, and perhaps never will, either because they threaten an existing sickness market or because the IP pushes the price up beyond our reach. Just because we hear about a cure doesn't mean we'll ever see that cure in the wild. Expand this grim fact 100 fold in places like Africa or India where the cost of IP literally comes between them and surviving an otherwise perfectly cureable disease (if only production and distribution were the only cost).

      In many respects sickness itself is a managed resource and pharaceutical patents - as a monopoly of a cure - are an active ingredient in this logic.

    2. Re:Next headline... by bunratty · · Score: 4, Insightful

      For this reason cures are highly guarded discoveries: there are many cures around we don't have access to, and perhaps never will, either because they threaten an existing sickness market or because the IP pushes the price up beyond our reach. Just because we hear about a cure doesn't mean we'll ever see that cure in the wild
      Surely there are researchers involved in finding these hidden cures you refer to. Why don't any of them blow the whistle on this massive conspiracy?
      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    3. Re:Next headline... by LurkerXXX · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Take off the tinfoil hat. I'm a medical researcher. If I discover a cure for a disease, I get famous in my field, guaranteed funding, and get invited to speak at research Universities around the world. Maybe even win a Nobel prize. It's all pluses. What do I get to keep it secret if I'm a researcher? Nada.

      Uninformed conspiracy nuts seem to think Pharm companies do all the medical research. The NIH (National Institutes of Health) will spend more than 28+ Billion on medical research this year (your tax dollars at work). I do research funded by them. My work is all published in journals you are free to subscribe to, or browse for free at your local research university's library.

    4. Re:Next headline... by LurkerXXX · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I assure you, being in the field and being involved in the patent process, I am much better versed on the topic than you. Thanks for the offer to look around, but I've already done it. A lot. I do it for a living.

      There is no grand conspiracy as you would have others believe to keep cures hidden. As I said, NIH does most of the basic research for exploring biology and finding new drugs. Pharm companies do some drug exploration, but the bulk of their research dollars are spent on clinical trials which are *extremely* expensive. Many times there are candidate drugs which don't go on to clinical trials. These are not 'hidden'. Anyone is free to look at the literature to see them. And many researchers I know who have published new exciting results, try to get a story in the more general public news. This gets their name out there, and the Institute/University they work at gets some press that they love. Once again, not hidden. No conspiracy.

      Patents are an entirely different issue. Patents are public record. Once again, they aren't hidden from you. Drugs generally have a use patent, so it's easy to see exactly what disease they are for the treatment of. Nothing hidden. Also patents don't last forever. Anyone with a patented drug that works will try to sell it like made for several years, because the patent is going to expire, and then anyone will be able to make a generic version of it, with no patent worries.

      If the company patented a drug and sits on it because they don't think they will recoup as much as it would cost to do the trials/manufacturing, well, the patent is still going to expire, so others will be able to use it then. Nothing hidden again. No conspiracy.

      Now, if the original company didn't want to go through the expense of doing clinical trials for it because they didn't think they would recoup their money, no one else is likely to want to foot the bill entirely either, since when they get it passed, all their competitors are then free to manufacture generic versions as well.

      It all boils down to clinical trials, and who pays for the huge expense of them. No one wants to foot the bill for unpatentable or patent-expired drugs because it's 100+ million down hole for the company doing the trials, and a free ride for all their competitors. It's just terrible business sense. No 'conspiracy' involved at all.

      Put away the tinfoil hats. It comes down to simple business decisions a 12-year old should be able to grasp. Blaming pharm companies and academic researchers for 'conspiring' to keep them off the shelf is simply stupid.

      If you want a better system for orphan drugs, then lobby your congressmen to expand NIH funding to include drug trials for orphan drugs. Public dollars would be well worth spending in that area.

  2. In the greater scheme of things... by mudshark · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... it's not all about yew, after all. It's the dirt from whence yew came, and where yew shall ultimately return....

    --
    In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
    1. Re:In the greater scheme of things... by mrogers · · Score: 3, Funny

      You're barking up the wrong tree.

  3. Time and time again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...we discover these things that the Earth provides us, and yet we learn nothing of protecting it from ourselves.

    Silly monkeys.

    1. Re:Time and time again... by Skrynesaver · · Score: 4, Informative
      This is not an alternative to anything, this is a chemical which can be found in yew bark. Do you consider Asprin an alternative remedy? it can be harvested from willow bark after all. As yew is a highly toxic plant I don't recommend chewing on it in the hope of a cure, similarly the concentration of salicylic acid in willow bark is variable and chewing on willow bark will give you ulcers as a result.

      Bayer managed to patent not Asprin itself but the process of synthesising it. As I don't believe you can patent discoveries even in the US.

      --
      "Linux is for noobs"-The new MS fud strategy
  4. Here we go again by El+Lobo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I HATE when people and even pseudoscientific articles talk about a medicine against "cancer". Hell, there is NO cancer. There are CANCERS. Lung cancer has a completly different nature than, say, bllod cancer, ot colon cancer, or skin cancer. Yes, all of them are chaotic grow of the cells, but their nature, symptoms, erradication and even cell behaviour is completly different. It's therefore naive to talk about a "cure for cancer". It's like saying: a drug against virus has been found. Hell! WHAT virus? They are all different!

    --
    It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
    1. Re:Here we go again by VirusEqualsVeryYes · · Score: 4, Interesting

      But do most people know about these differences? Hell, I'll admit that even I have no idea what you're talking about. All I know is that mutations in cells's DNA can cause them to replicate uncontrollably, hence cancer. There are differences in lung/blod/colon/skin cancer? Sounds plausible! ... but I have no idea what they are. To me, and to most normal people, "cancer" encompasses all cancers.

      I guess it's like saying a certain finding advances "science". But wait, you say, there are a lot of sciences! Yes, there are, and the finding most likely only really advances one of the sciences ... and yet, we all understand what is meant when we say something advances "science".

    2. Re:Here we go again by krotkruton · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't think people are really that ignorant about the disease. Ask someone for one of the causes of skin cancer and you'll probably get "too much sun without sunscreen", or ask for one for lung cancer and you'll get "cigarette smoke". I think most people understand that there are many different types of cancer that can all be caused by different things, but I don't know if they understand that a cure for one might not be a cure for all, if that was even the initial point of this thread. On the other hand, someone may very well find a single cure for all forms of cancer, in which case, is it really wrong to call it a cure for cancer?

  5. Wow by Tawg · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now this is what i call a cancer Treetment.

  6. Pacific Yew by Tawg · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's quite interesting to note that one of the species of yew mentioned (i assume the most useful at yielding the drug) has been classified as NT (Near threatened).
    This basically means the species is "considered threatened with extinction in the near future". With such a large area of yew trees producing such a small amount of drug, careful measures are going to have to be taken so as not to kill off our new hope for a cancer cure. It's also quite interesting to note that the yew only grows to about 15metres, and so much smaller than what i would know as a (european) yew tree.

  7. Cancer Fighting Drug Found in Dirt by Rik+Sweeney · · Score: 4, Funny

    *tch*

    The things people throw away these days...

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    Summation 2
  8. It isn't a new medicine just a new way to get it by MSRedfox · · Score: 3, Informative

    The headline makes it sound like a new wonder drug was found. According to the article, this drug was found in 1967. So it's been around for quite a while. They've just found that the soil around the trees end up with the drug in it to. Thus when they harvest the drug, they can harvest the soil to get more of it at one time. Nothing new cure wise, just a better way for drug companies to produce a product.

  9. It's not the tree - it's the microbes by csoto · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Most people forget that all higher organisms depend heavily on micribiota for their survival. For example, most of the complex micronutrients (e.g. B-comlplex vitamins) in plants are generated in soil bacteria. For these drugs, look to the rhizobacteria as the source of the genes for these compounds. The commensal relationships these bacteria sustain with particular plant species could be important, but it's possible these things could be grown in vitro and yield a nice industrial solution.

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    There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
  10. Well, there's a new one... by Khyber · · Score: 3, Funny

    Let the strip-mining operations to cure cancer begin!

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.