Slashdot Mirror
Cheap Cancer Drug Finally Tested In Humans
John Bayko writes "Mentioned on Slashdot a couple of years ago, the drug dichloroacetate (DCA) has finally finished its first clinical trial against brain tumors in humans. Drug companies weren't willing to test a drug they could not patent, so money was raised in the community through donations, auctions, and finally government support, but the study was still limited to five patients. It showed extremely positive results in four of them. This episode raises the question of what happens to all the money donated to Canadian and other cancer societies, and especially the billions spent buying merchandise with little pink ribbons on it, if not to actual cancer research like this."
There is no money in a cure....
It does to administration and hosting all those ridiculous charity events.
Some rich asshole who runs the fucking things new beach house
what about the magical free market fairies!!!
Tumours? Does this only work on Canadian cancer patients?
--saint
Most of the time it goes to organizations the give out grants to companies to do the research and testing. Unfortunately what happens is it gets given out to Glaxo and the like, which then uses the money to research and test ... and patent what they come up with.
Some of the money goes to universities who research it, patent it, and sell it to drug companies so they can raise their own salaries.
This would be all fine and dandy if the drug companies gave back.
They do give back, but they don't give back anything like they get. They give back just enough to say 'we give back' in little strategic bits that make for good publicity.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
From TFS:
first clinical trial against brain tumours
From TFA:
Sorry, this story is not available.
Drug companies can patent just about anything, so long as they do the research and file the patent. Example: a drug called Finasteride 5mg, which treats enlarged prostates, was discovered by its maker, Merck, to stop male pattern baldness. But the patent for Finasteride is expired. Merck did some studies and found that a 1mg dose was enough to treat baldness, and got the 1mg dose (Propecia) approved by the FDA. They patented the 1mg dose and to this day, 1mg Finasteride costs $60/month ($2 per pill), whereas 5mg Finasteride pills (the same drug, different dose) is basically free from generic drug manufacturers.
The moral of the story is that he who does the research gets the patent, even if the chemical itself cannot be patented.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
>"It also raises the question of where all the money donated to cancer societies [...] goes, if not to actual cancer research like this."
Apparently a lot of it goes to marketing type stuff trying to convince people to change their lifestyles. At least, that is what I have noticed the most.
Money spent on e.g. breast cancer awareness goes towards raising awareness of breast cancer, not to finding a cure or even a treatment. It's the same with every other X cancer awareness non-profit charitable organization.
>> It also raises the question of where all the money donated to Canadian and other cancer societies, and especially the billions spent buying merchandise with little pink ribbons on it goes, if not to actual cancer research like this."
Answer:
http://www.preventcancer.com/losing/acs/wealthiest_links.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100512141909.htm
Generic Drug May Be Potential Treatment for Deadly Brain Cancer
ScienceDaily (May 13, 2010) — Medical researchers at the University of Alberta have reported evidence that the orphan generic drug dichloroacetate (DCA) may hold promise as potential therapy for perhaps the deadliest of all human cancers: a form of brain cancer called glioblastoma.
The report is published at the journal Science Translational Medicine, a journal of the American Association of the Advancement of Science.
In 2007 the U of A team led by Dr. Evangelos Michelakis, published evidence that DCA reverses cancer growth in non-human models and test tubes. The team showed then that DCA achieves these antitumor effects by altering the metabolism of cancer. By altering the way cancer handles its nutrient fuels, specifically the sugars, DCA was able to take away cancer's most important strength, the resistance to death. Since then, several independent groups across the world have confirmed the Alberta team's findings. In December 2009, the editors of "Science" predicted that cancer metabolism is one of only 5 areas across all scientific disciplines, to "watch for major breakthroughs" in 2010.
The U of A team set out to show that the way that DCA works in actual patients is the same with the way it works in the lab. In addition, researchers wanted to show whether DCA is safe and possibly effective in very sick patients with brain cancer.
By extracting glioblastomas from 49 patients over a period of 2 years and studying them within minutes of removal in the operating room, the team showed that tumors respond to DCA by changing their metabolism. Then, the team treated 5 patients with advanced glioblastoma and secured tumor tissues before and after the DCA therapy. By comparing the two, the team showed that DCA works in these tumors exactly as was predicted by test tube experiments. This is very important because often the results in non-human models tested in the lab do not agree with the results in patients. In addition, the team showed that DCA has anti-cancer effects by altering the metabolism of glioblastoma cancer stem cells, the cells thought responsible for the recurrences of cancer.
In the 5 patients tested, the drug took 3 months to reach blood levels high enough to alter the tumor's metabolism. At those levels, there were no significant adverse effects. However, at some of the higher doses tested, DCA caused nerve malfunction, i.e. numbing of toes and fingers. Importantly, in some patients there was also evidence for clinical benefit, with the tumors either regressing in size or not growing further during the 18 month study.
No conclusions can be made on whether the drug is safe or effective in patients with this form of brain cancer, due to the limited number of patients tested by the study's leads Drs Michelakis and Petruk. Researchers emphasize that use of DCA by patients or physicians, supplied from for-profit sources or without close clinical observation by experienced medical teams in the setting of research trials, is not only inappropriate but may also be dangerous. The U of A results are encouraging and support the need for larger clinical trials with DCA. This work is also one of the first in humans to support the emerging idea that altering the metabolism of tumors is a new direction in the treatment of cancer, Michelakis and Petruk said.
The research team hopes to secure additional funding to continue the ongoing trials with DCA at the University of Alberta. Further studies would include more patients with brain cancer, and test the combination of DCA and standard chemotherapies, eventually including patients from other academic health sciences centres.
One of the intriguing features of this work was that it was funded largely by public donations, including philanthropic foundations and individuals. In addition, it received strong support by Alberta public institutions, both the University of Alberta and Alber
You, sir, are and idiot
Oh, the irony...
There is no irony. It's a meme and you failed at life.
-- about cancer societies and research.
Read books like "Murder by Injection" and similar.
The various disease societies are pretty much PR/Marketing arms or heavily supported organizations of pharmaceutical companies and the like. Does some good come of their activities, yes. Does a some bad (in the forms of where their loyalties lie) come from their activities, yes.
"A patient cured is a customer lost"
Why are they creating a drug that creates cancer? That seems like the exact opposite of what they should be doing!
Cancer was cured last month:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/manchester/4423847.stm
Except that it almost certainly doesn't go fully to raising awareness. Most is probably spent on overheads as with many charities. Such overheads include large expensive buildings, ridiculous salaries for people on the 'board' etc.
Here in the Netherlands there was an outrage about the heart foundation's director getting a salary of nearly 200,000 euro (annually) a few years ago. And rightly so. If you're in a charity, you should make do with a more modest salary because of the fact that the money should go to research/prevention etc., not paying a fat-cat. The people who collect the money are usually volunteers and get nothing, yet the guy/guys in the top positions get loads of money basically for being nothing more than a secretary/secretaries.
For years now I have been following the progress of DCA by lurking on thedcasite, where people exchange information about their own DCA use to fight cancer. It's an amazing story of Open Source Medicine, as it builds up one testimonial at a time. Dr. Michelakis, who leads the U of A group that discovered its potential for cancer treatment, is vehemently opposed to its use outside of clinical trials, and he has used his influence to make it unavailable in Alberta. There are doctors in Canada who will prescribe it off-label to cancer patients, but most of them choose to remain anonymous for fear of censure. Medicore Clinic in Toronto, however, has a practice openly specializing in the treatment of cancer with DCA. They have done their best to publish objective results on their website. Given that most of their patients have exhausted other avenues of treatment, I would say their results are impressive. TFA tells us that it has only been used on 5 patients, but in reality there is a large body of practical knowledge being gathered about its use. We know, for example, that it can reduce a cancer tumor so quickly that the body becomes overwhelmed with the byproduct of that, a condition called tumor lysis syndrome (TLS). We are discovering that it is more effective in people who drink a lot of black tea. Its only known side effect (other than TLS) is peripheral neuropathy, and this can be relieved somewhat with vitamin B supplements. Yet this knowledge, gained outside of official channels, is disdained as heresay. Governments expend tremendous effort to keep it out of the hands of cancer patients for fear of ... what? A terminal patient might live longer??
Yeah, it is called vitamin D. If you supplement at least 1,000 IUs and do not consume diary, you will not develop cancer later in life.
"Drug companies weren't willing to test a drug they could not patent"
Fucking sickening
Not recognizing a stupid meme is actually WINNING at life.
My wife died of a GBM (glioblastoma multiforme) in Jan 2006, 7 weeks after diagnosis - sigh. We were together for 20 years; I had hoped for many more.
By-the-way, the cutting-edge drug for this is Temodar at a list price of $11,000 / month (for several months), but co-pay w/insurance: BCBS: 10%, Optima: $40 - go figure.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
is fire a warning shot across the bow of every pharmaceutical and huckster awareness group huddled close to the money-teat of sorrow and suffering. Open Source curative medicines would i think turn the tides.
Good people go to bed earlier.
The current means of "curing" cancer is to poison the cells that have cancer, which sometimes mean poisoning all of your cells and hoping the ones with cancer are more susceptible to the poison. If they die before you do, you are cured. If not, well, then you "died of cancer".
The actual cure for cancer would involve making the damaged DNA not be damaged any more. But it's not just the DNA, it's also the biological nanomachines that replicate and repair the DNA.
Personally I don't think it's impossible. But the difference between the current medicine and that kind of medicine is like the difference between splashing a bucket of paint on a wall and rendering Avatar in real-time.
We are as da Vinci in the middle ages, all imagination and no concept of technology, drawing pictures of flying machines made of sticks and sack-cloth with all the aerodynamic efficiency of a mid-air collision. The real things may be centuries off. Or maybe decades, if technology has taught us anything about accelerating technological change, and if greed hasn't so crippled the medical-research industry that it prefers maximizing long-term profit from poison to actually finding a cure.
There's a similar situation occurring with MS patients and the research findings about CCSVI. It's a radical departure from the accepted theory about MS because it points at vascular problems in MS sufferers' veins that drain the brain. Chronic Cerbrospinal Vascular Insuffciency (CCSVI) can be treated with balloon venoplasty that is safe and relatively low cost or with stents. The issue at present is many neurologists and the MS Societies of US and Canada have resisted pushing funds to validating the hypothosis and doing trial to show the efficacy and safety. So patients are traveling to Poland, Bulgaria to get treated. Big Pharma is also threatened because MS drugs are a very very big money maker for Teva and others. Some nurologists are crying hoax and 'it can't be'. See http://csvi-ms.net/en for references to information about CCSVI.
Claims about the big bad pharma companies not wanting to research this due to the inability to patent are inaccurate. See this analysis: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/01/in_which_my_words_will_be_misinterpreted.php.
"Healthcare" is not about health, it is about profit, just like everything else in our modern world.
Like the inimitable Groucho Marx, I would never join a club that would have me as a member.
It really depends on where you send your money, as someone here points out, awareness is not research. Some groups do sponsor research, but it's hard to really do trials without major, major funding.
One thing you can assume that any money you spend on a research oriented charity is only half as effective as you would expect. Most research organizations (universities, national labs - medical research is popular at national labs now) charge ~50% overhead on all grants. That's 50% hopefully going toward facility maintenance, but possibly going to retain administrative "talent." That's after whatever non-profit you donate to takes its operating expenses out.
Ok, so how much do human trials cost? If you raise $100k, that probably won't pay for one trial patient once it's been chopped into little pieces.
This is also why you can get a PhD in microbiology, be an excellent cancer researcher and make less than $30k/year (NIH "minimum" is supposed to be ~$45k at this point by the original law, but they don't even have the resources to support that level themselves and fund the people they want to fund). Once you're allowed to spend money on in-lab expenses, you really try and stretch those dollars. Sometimes you take less money to work on the research you care about (and hope some company, university or non-profit makes it up to you later).
I think it's amazing someone got up to human trials with this drug. It's a marvel of fund raising and organization. Really, very nice.
Finds the best solution to everything!
Damn commie pinko socialist government run testing program.
Oh my, YOU haven't heard of a meme, so therefore it must not be common?! *gasp* how the FUCK could I have been so blind? Toss off, you arrogant fuck. It's a dirt-old meme, and more common than your mom's phone number in bathroom stalls. And I believe that since you practically live online, YOU fail at life.
(And I'm aware that ranting at an AC also puts me in running for that failure, but I'm comfortable with that)
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
"Not for profit" in the description of an organisation does not mean that someone is not making a very good living out of it. :--(
From personal experiece: Stop Aids Now, RIPE, UNESCO, and many, many more
It turns out that guys that need Viagra are at a hugely increased risk of a heat attack in the next few years. The same blocked arteries that make it difficult to get an erection are a needed for other functions such as "living". Erectile Dysfunction is a really great indicator for severe Coronary Artery Disease.
Doctors are taking the easy way out and handing out boner pills instead of scheduling tests to see how long is is before the patient goes in for the "last roundup".
This a side note but it's relevant inasmuch as it shows that drug companies truly don't care about patients. Propecia is actually quite dangerous. See propeciahelp.com for some horrible stories of permanent side effects that happened in a small percentage of men who took the drug. I am one of them, and I can attest to how life destroying they are. Does Merck know about these issues? Yes, they were informed years ago. Have they updated their product guidance? No. But then they did much the same thing with Vioxx.
Biochemist Zheng Cui’s had grants and funding while researching cancer, but after he found a very promising approach to fight cancer -- it worked so well that he planed to move to human trials -- all the money dried up. Here is what he said:
There is some private funding and the university put some funding into it. And also, at early stages when we studied the mechanisms of these mice, we had one Mitchell Cancer Institute grant, several small grants from Cancer Research Institute. But they all stopped funding me. It was kind of a strange situation. I thought it was our common goal to come up with a new weapon to fight cancer, but the moment I announced I had a new weapon to test in real human cancer situations, everybody shied away.
Very interesting interview that can be read here: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/4273366
None dare call it a conspiracy!
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
If you can charge a customer fifty grand for one course of chemo treatment for the rest of his life, then what is the incentive to find a cure?
For the people charging the fifty grand probably not much unless their patent protection is about to run out. For everyone else who can charge nothing because they don't have a patented cure of their own there is plenty of incentive. Just because one drug company develops a treatment doesn't mean every other drug company and research institution will suddenly and forevermore stop all research on that topic.
Well, I follow the news, so I am sure I will hear if they actually cure cancer.
"Cure cancer" is a stupid phrase uttered by naive people. That's like saying you're going to "cure viruses" or "fix government". Cancer isn't one disease with a single cause. There never will be a "cure for cancer" because the phrase itself is almost meaningless. Doctors don't even refer to it as cancer amongst themselves. There might be a cure for a neuroblastoma or melanoma (and even those might ultimately refer to categories rather than specific conditions) but the word cancer is too broad to be meaningful in the context of a cure or even a treatment.
A lot of the big charities these days seem to be focused on "awareness" rather than "finding a cure".
The awareness campaigns are designed to get the word out that there is a problem so that real money can ultimately be directed towards research for a cure. A good example is what happened with HIV. Compared to other diseases HIV has a relatively small patient population in the US but it has received vast amounts of media attention and as a result, money for research. This happened largely due to an awareness campaign by members of the most affected communities. Breast cancer is another good example. It is only the fifth most common cause of cancer death but it gets huge amounts of research money due to awareness campaigns.
The short version is that if no one is aware of a problem, no money is going to go towards a finding a cure. No awareness = no money for research = no cure.
In 2008 I learned I had failed treatment for prostate cancer (72GY radiation & 2.5 years triple hormonal blockade). The disease was metastatic in skeleton and soft tissue with a PSA doubling time of 24 days which is very dangerous. Severe bleeding and bone pain quickly developed. Chemotherapy does not extend survival time for prostate cancer patients, moreover it has serious side effects. There was no clinical trial of DCA for prostate cancer. I decided to self-administer Sodium Dichloroacetate (DCA).
DCA is an orphan drug which for 30+ years has been safely used in the U.S.A. to treat infants born with congenial lactic acidosis; also to treat cerebral ischemia among other conditions, so it is well described in the literature and the side effects are understood. It is not completely benign but is far safer in my opinion than radiation, hormonal blockade or chemotherapy. I had already done my homework and knew to watch for hypoglycemia. I limited my dose to 15mg/kg and took benfotiamine to minimize peripheral neuropathy, R+Lipoic Acid for hepatic support, and arranged regular lab work to monitor liver function.
30 days after initiating DCA the pain in my hips and lower spine ceased. One day unremitting pain, the next day none. 60 days after starting DCA the profuse bleeding from bladder and colon ceased completely. My PSA doubling time dropped from 24 days to 72 months and stabilized.
I developed a little numbness in my toes, which was expected. That is reversible over time. As with many cancer drugs, the evil little cells eventually developed resistance to DCA and I resumed androgen blockade for a time before switching to another self-administered novel treatment. Because of DCA I enjoyed ten wonderful, pain-free months during which I traveled, worked outdoors, got a tan, recovered my strength and my spirits. I have no regrets, not one.
This pattern of temporary remission seems to be a typical experience for early adopters of DCA, although there have been a few reports of complete cures (prostate cancer, sarcoma). About 1,700 patients around the world are currently utilizing DCA as a cancer treatment, off-label. The most organized DCA treatment program is offered by the Medicor Clinic in Canada: http://www.medicorcancer.com/dca-reports.html
Reading about DCA on the web one encounters venomous hostility to self-administered novel treatments for cancer, and to the use of DCA in particular; sadly, one such source has been quoted today on /. A more appropriate reference might be this op-ed in the New York Times, "Patents Over Patients" http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/opinion/01moss.html
Whether it is more ethical to allow patients (and their doctors) to utilize an orphan drug off-label, or to tell them they can't utilize a molecule that may extend or even save their lives is a question for another discussion.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You're not cured if you have a relapse. Cancer NEVER goes away once you have it, there is no '100% biological clear success rate' treatment. Don't be fooled and don't fool yourself. Cancel can be cleaned up and forced into hiding, but you will always have a cancer cell somewhere, waiting.
It was hard to find funding for testing, because no pharmaceutical company wanted to bother researching a generic non-patentable drug. ...Duh
I'd just like to thank Timothy for correctly saying "raises the question", rather than misusing "begs the question", in the summary.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Another very promising anti-cancer drug, that's probably being overlooked because it can be manufactured very cheaply, is bromopyruvic acid. The preliminary research was done by Dr. Young Ko at Johns Hopkins.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Goddamnitsomuch, I hate this meme... You're either a troll or supremely ignorant.
Doctors don't make ANY money from writing prescriptions. They never have, aside from the days of yore when doctors personally purchased the ingredients to mix up and sell*. Even then, it wasn't long before chemists/pharmacists took that over.
They can bill for exams, tests and procedures, but in the USA, Canada, UK and (AFAIK) all of Europe, they don't get anything for writing a prescription. NOTHING. They don't even get to bill for the paper it is written on (which has security features and can be surprisingly expensive).
There have been some rare (and I mean rare) cases of kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies to doctors. The only examples I know about are for chemotherapy drugs costing thousands of dollars per dose, e.g. an oncologist getting money for putting all his patients on drug A over competitor's drug B, which wasn't necessarily cheaper or more effective. The people involved were caught fairly quickly and punished severely.
This only happened because the base cost of the drug was very high (many chemo drugs are wickedly hard to make), the markup is high (to recoup massive development costs), AND the market is small (Only oncologists treating a specific subset of cancer patients, possibly only a few thousand people). The profit of a handful of additional sales was enough to tempt people into breaking the law. The odds of this happening with mass market drugs are practically nil. No doctor is going to take that kind of personal risk unless there is significant money involved, and a company is not likely to spend that money and take a huge legal risk to drive sales of XYZ antibiotic up from 500,000/year to 500,100/year.
Seriously, this meme needs to die. As for getting gifts and other non-money compensation, in the USA, drug companies aren't even giving out free pens and post-its anymore, and that wasn't done based on number of prescriptions written anyhow.
*Snake-oil salesman were/are sometimes doctors, and thus could have "prescribed" something to the scam victim, but it's not a traditional doctor/patient relationship.
"Cheeze it!" - Bender
But keeping the casket closed requires bolts or boom chains.
As with all non-profit "charities" that operate anywhere other than on a strictly local level the surpus of cash will find its way directly into the pockets of those heroic folk who give their time so cheaply to the cause of good.
I am of course talking about the directors and the embezzeling accountants. God bless them for making it all possible!
1) Eliminate the corporate veil - the board of directors, the executives and managers are now "on the hook" for anything the company does under their supervision. They can be imprisoned, fine or even executed for ill deeds, negligence or wilful misconduct. Unfortunately, this would probably lead to scapegoating on a large scale - the fellow calling the shots will pass the buck.
2) Eliminate the shareholder's "limited liability" - the shareholder is now not only "liable" to the extent of his paid-up capital, but for any other further liability that the company incurs - you'll suddenly have shareholders actually participating and holding the exec's feet to the fire over corporate policy and procedure. Unfortunately, that would destroy the "upper classes" grip over the proletariat and middle classes, so it's not going to happen either.
Corporations already have enough money to have laws changed and bribe politicians and judges regularly. The only PRACTICAL step is to remove corporations influence over politics, by outlawing all campaign contributions from non-physical persons - that won't entirely eliminate the lobbying, but is at least real step that could be taken - sadly, Campaign Finance Reform bills need to be approved by those who least want them... so they usually emerge toothless or stillborn.
no one cares. either are the proper usage. and even if it wasnt, the only people who care would be people who like correcting other people on piffiling self-percieved grammatical errors, and no one wants to interact with those sorts of people. those sorts of people are brittle and boring and unchanging, unlike the english language.
Just looking at the site briefly, it seems that most of those proposed symptoms could be attributed to ageing.
But if there are questions about withdrawal symptoms from long-term drugs such as Propecia, I agree that there should be a study. Perhaps a "withdrawal" study should be mandatory for certain types of long-term drugs. Such a mandate would have to come from the FDA, as drug companies would be unlikely to undergo such expensive testing voluntarily.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
"...donated to Canadian and other cancer societies, and especially the billions spent buying merchandise with little pink ribbons on it, if not to actual cancer research like this?"
Easy; it keeps the permanent institution of 'cancer research' going. If anyone ever did the unthinkable and actually published a cure, well, then all those cancer researchers in their pretty labs and all those administrators in their posh offices would have to go find another line of work.
They might even have to pay taxes.
];)
Regards;
But if you do raise a legitimate concern you're labeled a cynic. And friends wonder why I'm so cynical. Because when you ask good questions the answers usually drive a person right to cynicism. Big shocker. Just another example of the source of my cynicism. (sigh)
Just for reference, it seems most cancer can be prevented (and sometimes cured) by a healthy diet (heavy on the vegetables, and perhaps including occasional fasting), enough vitamin D3 from sunlight, moderate exercise (helps keep the lymph system working among other things), avoiding pollution (like in water), some positive thinking and positive relationships, and the ususal lifestyle choices (like avoiding smoking).
Joel Fuhrman is an MD who talks a lot about this sort of stuff:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/
"""
Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to live the rest of your life in pain or on medication.
You can reverse disease, reduce high blood pressure, lose unwanted weight, lower your cholesterol levels, prevent heart disease and cancer, and improve your health - all without relying on drugs and fad diets. The importance of good nutrition is emphasized in Dr. Fuhrman's dietary program, Eat To Live.
Reduce high blood pressure, reverse diabetes and dramatically lower cholesterol without drugs. Dr. Fuhrman offers advanced nutritional advice based on scientific research.
"""
On the right amount of vitamin D:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
"""
We predict that treatment with physiological doses of vitamin D3 (between 4,000-10,000 IU/day from all sources, including sun, food and supplements) along with periodic monitoring of blood calcidiol and calcium levels will become routine. [Zittermann A. Vitamin D in preventive medicine: are we ignoring the evidence? Br J of Nutr. 2003;89:552-572. Holick M. Vitamin D: A Millennium Perspective. J Cell Biochem. 2003;88:296-307.] Research indicates it will help several vitamin D deficiency-associated diseases such as: autism, autoimmune illness, cancer, chronic pain, depression, diabetes, heart disease, hyperparathyroidism, hypertension, influenza, myopathy (neuromuscular disorders), and osteoporosis.
"""
Bluezones is a community-wide effort that does similar things but at the community (not individual) level, as many things like having healthier menus in restaurants, building sidewalks, creating walking trails, making parks, and fostering a sense of community are more than any one individual can do alone.
http://www.bluezones.com/makeover-about
"""
The AARP/Blue Zones Vitality Project will focus on four areas that are crucial to health and longevity: Community Environment, Social Networks, Habitat and Individual Sense of Purpose.
"""
Anyway, these cheap things -- sunlight, clean water, fresh air, more vegetables (and fruits, pulses like beans, and nuts and seeds), avoiding processed foods, walking and swimming, healthy relationshiips and attitudes, and not smoking etc. -- are not going to be promoted by most of our profit-oriented industrial system (even if many individuals have written books on these or sell some related products like good blenders for making green smoothies).
Best wishes for staying well.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
You and everyone else on Slashdot need to read the Language Log's post, "Begging the question": we have answers.
I had but a simple dream, to destroy all humans.
i mean socialism is supposed to cure all ills right? without the evil profit making companies the canadian healthcare system should be able to produce and test drugs all with no taxes. this is classic socialist bs complaining that drug companies won't spend the hundreds of millions of dollars to test a drug they can make no profit on. how many failed countries will it take for people to realize that when there is no opportunity to succeed there is no motivation to produce anything. it's like in office space when he says he works just hard enough to not get fired.
My mother has a brain tumor. She has four months to live. Please hurry.
So, where's the Gates Foundation on this one? It seems a perfect avenue for them to do some good for humanity with only a small amount of money spent.
Getting money from the Gates Foundation is in many ways MORE difficult than getting a grant out of the government. The foundation still has limited amounts of money to give, you have to convince the Gates that your cause is worthy and doable.
With the limited, if large, amounts of money to give - there are plenty of worthy causes the Gates won't donate to because they're determined to donate in useful amounts.
A lot of places you donate to, 50% or more of your donation money goes towards soliciting more donations. It's a vicious circle. Bill was determined to avoid that.
So either the Gates have determined that this isn't quite worthy enough, that there's better projects to donate to, or they haven't applied to the Gates Foundation for money.
I don't read AC A human right
Don't throw a holistic infomercial into this.
"Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to live the rest of your life in pain or on medication."
Here is a heads up, when you've had 14 major surgeries under general, tons of radiation and are missing three organs, you'l have pain.
I do have to live the rest of my life on medication if I want to live normally, D, sunlight and eating well won't replace testosterone.
Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia can't be cured with a healthy diet and exercise, nor will that keep it from occurring and to think those things will have an effect is ignorance.
Just for reference, ALL is caused by mutation, radiation and/or exposure to chemicals. Me, I have the Cryptic T(12;21) Cytogenetic translocation and possibly exposure to radiation in the form of Radon gas.
The Canadian Cancer Society posted this in August 2008:
"In early 2007, University of Alberta researchers published results of a study about DCA (dichloroacetate) stating that the agent showed promise in shrinking tumours in laboratory rats and human cell lines (human cells grown in a petri dish).
While the results were hopeful, the research was in its earliest stages and had been done on animals only.
The Society has concerns about Canadians with cancer seeking DCA before any clinical trials had been done on humans to test its effectiveness on cancer patients. DCA has been shown to have potentially dangerous side effects when used for non cancer-related conditions.
The Canadian Cancer Society welcomed the news in September 2007 of Health Canada's approval for the first human clinical trial about DCA. This is an important first step in testing this agent for use in cancer patients. We look forward to the results of the trial, which is being led by researchers at the University of Alberta .
Until these clinical trials are finished, we can't advise cancer patients in the general population to use the agent.
Key issues that need to be determined through a clinical trial include:
Is it effective in shrinking tumours?
Can DCA be used safely in cancer patients at doses needed for effectiveness.
Are there critical doses or methods of administration to achieve anti-cancer effects.
The Canadian Cancer Society is currently funding hundreds of other encouraging cancer-fighting research projects."
According to the Wikipedia article:
In a 2005 audit by KPMG, the Canadian Cancer Society reported a revenue of $150,718,000 CAD. A breakdown of disbursements shows 28% of the Society's revenues going to fund research, 17% to provide support for people living with cancer, 7% to pay for information campaigns, 6% to fund prevention, and 2% to provide advocacy. Fundraising consumes 27% of the Society's revenue, and 6% is given over to management costs.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
Within limits, the human body can repair itself, and even repair DNA damage to some extent. Sorry to hear you have been exposed to environmental mutagens like excessive radon; that would certainly challenge anyone's body, on top of genetic issues. So, while certainly what happens to people in life is in good part chance, for many people with cancer (not saying yours), either they exceeded the body's ability to repair itself by exposure to mutagens, or the body's capacity to repair itself was diminished somehow by lack of vital nutrients or other issues (including, as you suggest, underlying genetic issues from conception). For example, all people are continually having cells go rogue but normally the immune system destroys such cells before they can proliferate, but it takes good nutrition including vitamin D for the immune system to do that -- which is why the dermatological profession may have caused 30 internal cancers for every external skin cancer they prevented by the advice to fear the sun without suggesting adequate vitamin D replacement).
By the way, because you mentioned a specific cancer, Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, a quick Google on that and diet produces:
"Maternal Diet and Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia in Young Children"
http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/14/8/1935.abstract
"""
Because leukemia clone-specific chromosomal abnormalities are present at birth in children who later develop leukemia, it has been hypothesized that maternal factors, including nutrition during pregnancy, might affect the risk of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) among young children. We have evaluated this hypothesis in a nationwide case-control study of ALL among children ages 12 to 59 months in Greece. Children (n = 131) with ALL were gender and age matched to control children (n = 131) hospitalized for minor conditions between 1999 and 2003. The mothers of the children were interviewed in person by trained interviewers who used an extensive food frequency questionnaire addressing diet during the index pregnancy. The analysis was done by modeling the data through conditional logistic regression, also controlling for total energy intake and possible confounding factors. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were expressed per quintile increase of maternal intake during pregnancy of the specified food group. The risk of ALL in the offspring was lower with increased maternal intake of fruits (OR, 0.72; 95% CI, 0.57-0.91), vegetables (OR, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.60-0.95), and fish and seafood (OR, 0.72; 95% CI, 0.59-0.89) and higher with increased maternal intake of sugars and syrups (OR, 1.32; 95% CI, 1.05-1.67) and meat and meat products (OR, 1.25; 95% CI, 1.00-1.57). Children of women who tend to consume during their pregnancies what is currently considered to be a healthy diet maybe at lower risk of ALL.
"""
So, clearly this is suggestive of a dietary link to some extent.
If you have had 14 surgeries and lots of radiation, obviously the medical system has failed you in the sense of helping you treat the underlying issues causing cancers to recur. They may have treated the symptoms, but what about addressing the underlying causes, whatever they are? Sure you may need some forms of medication given everything you said, but still, why not try to get the rest of your body to work as well as it can and have the most energy you can have?
I have no connection with Dr. Joel Fuhrman other than buying a few of his books and a DVD and liking what I've seen and trying to put his advice into practice in my own family (and he says little that many others have not said for decades, although he synthesizes it well). To me, he makes a lot of sense. Even now, you might find your health may benefit from following his dietary advice (after discussion with your doctors); he is a bona-fide MD; you might even want to just give him a call if he does consultations (and if your insurance covers it and ca
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
No, actually the 14 surgeries and radiation is what's saved my life and fixed what's gone on.
Without the chemo and radiation, with ALL in 1980, I would have lived 2-9 months. When I relapsed my prognosis was 4-12 months.
Instead I've lived 10802 days.
ALL free since 1982, of the NIH/Mayo cohort I was tracked with, n=8351, there is one alive. Me.
"Phage Therapy: Where Communism Succeeded and Capitalism Failed"
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL9910/S00096.htm
"""
While there are some genuine reasons why phage treatments of bacterial diseases were overlooked in the 1930s and 1940s, the failure to develop a western research program into bacteriophage treatment in the 1980s and 1990s represents an inexcusable failure of western capitalism. By the 1980s, there could be no denial that antibiotic resistance was going to be a major problem in (if not before) the twenty-first century. Yet, we just didn't want to know about what will probably turn out to be the most important medical breakthrough in the twentieth century; a breakthrough made in communist Georgia, in Stalin's Soviet Union.
It is embarrassing when western science is out-trumped, especially by the "communists". Usually, when out-trumped, we don't tell anyone. That's what happened here. Not only did we not have the nous to start a western programme in bacteriophage research; we looked the other way when the files of phials threatened to be destroyed following the breakup of the Soviet Union, and during the little reported civil war that engulfed Georgia a few years ago. So much for the knowledge economies of the west. How can such valuable knowledge be so cheap?
It's not too late for western medicine to enter the post-antibiotic bacteriophage era. Our grandchildren will hardly thank us if we persevere with our corporate-profit-motivated conservatism.
The Soviets were able, eventually, to admit that they were wrong to follow Lysenko. Will we in the west be equally able to admit that we were wrong to put all our medical eggs into the one antibiotic basket, in the process ignoring the most basic tenets of the theory of evolution?
"""
So, with this as an example, what else has capitalism ignored as it relates to cancer?
Nutrition?
http://www.drfuhrman.com/
Vitamin D?
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
Fasting?
http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/shelton.bio.bidwell.htm
http://www.healingcancernaturally.com/fasting-cure-for-health.html
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Firstly, this is exactly the same problem that occurred in Australia. Two doctors discovering bacteria in the stomach, swimming around in all that acid, a place where it was believed no bacteria could live, and they discovered that a cheap antibiotic and a bit of lithium could safely kill them. No more stomach cancer, no more stomach ulcers. Finally a solution. And for the drug companies, no profit. So no funding for research. The cheap antibiotic was already generic. The privately fund raised, and now the world has a solution to stomach cancer and stomach ulcers. Here, a fund raising effort led by a man who's sister suffered and died of brain cancer (I think its called neural blastoma) raised about $360,000 for a short study of 6 patients. That's $60,000 per patient. Still some little part of the currently unemployed me still wants to donate a few bucks directly to this cause. It can't be worse that donating for a cure for MS (the drug companies are looking for a drug for that too, even though Paulo Zamboni's treatment is offering excellent relief to many many people, yet governments and big science (pharma) are unwilling to accept the treatment because its 'untested', yet there is no testing going on. Why? Because 95% of all funding to MS gets diverted to something else, and MS funding is massive. Let people die if you have to, but keep big Pharma shareholders happy.
"+1, Doesn't Beg The Question"?
(And I'm aware that ranting at an AC also puts me in running for that failure, but I'm comfortable with that)
Good, because you're right, you lose.