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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."
what about the magical free market fairies!!!
There is no money in a cure....
That's a common misconception. While there isn't much direct money involved in a cure, the drug companies still come out way ahead. If people don't die (and aren't even sick really) from cancer, they are more likely to buy other products, such as Viagra, that the drug companies are pushing.
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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.
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.
Right. Because the selfless, benevolent government officials will be happy about losing their funding (and risk their cushy government jobs), when the cure is found — unlike those evil corporate drones, out to perpetuate our ills for, dare I say it, profit...
Back to the question at hand, the money, obviously, goes to raising awareness. Gee, the easiest question in a week!
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Lack of awareness leads people to assume he's retarded, or a brat, or both.
Autism often goes hand in hand with mental retardation, and it can cause the sufferer to act like a brat. Either way, autism is a mental fault and someone who is autistic or who has an autistic family member cannot expect the autistic person to be treated as if he is any more *special* than someone who just happens to be born, say, with a low-to-average IQ. In other words, "retardation" is also something you are usually born with, and it's no worse to be "assumed" retarded than it is to be "assumed" autistic.
My nephew has Downs and I frequently envy his parents on the simple fact that they don't really need to spend a lot of time explaining how their child is different.
Why does it bother you so much what strangers think? Perhaps you should take a lesson from your son.
A small medical software startup I once worked at had some extra office space we weren't using, which we donated to a local non-profit doing research to help support policy making on health-related issues.
We were working on folding tables with the cheapest office equipment we could get; they had beautiful wood desks, a huge high-speed copier/fax/scanner, bought (excellent) SNOM VoIP phones compared to the cheapo Grandstreams we were using, and otherwise clearly paid far, far less attention to minimizing their expenses.
Basically this is a problem with corporations. They have no morals. The law treats them as pseudo-humans, but they are not.
In fact, by most definitions, they are psychotic.
They are incredibly paranoid (with trained attack lawyers), delusional (almost any management meeting), appalling bullies (Microsoft et al), manipulative (marketing, more lawyers), small-minded (the next quarter is the only thing).
Do I need to go on? And yes, drug companies are among the worst - but think of tobacco companies, oil companies ...
Company law needs to change in some way to make incorporated entities be more responsible.
But how?
"Cats like plain crisps"
That depends very much on your doctor. I was recently found to be very deficient in Vitamin D. The traditional course of therapy is 50,000IU per week for a month. He could have written out a prescription, but instead wrote out a lab request and attached a Post-It with the words "50K units Vit D/wk." I asked if there was anything special I should look for, and he said, "Just make sure it says 'Vitamin D' on the front of the label." For $8, I got two months' regimen. I need to go back in for testing to make sure that it's recovered, and will be taking 5000 units per week until I can find a better way to get direct sunlight on a regular basis, but that's really it.
One of his colleagues on call a couple of months earlier when I got severe overnight upper-abdominal pains suggested that I could either go to the ER (in case it was appendicitis) or he could write out a prescription for something to tend to the symptoms (in case it was just a really bad gastrointestinal virus or food poisoning). I chose the latter, since the pains were upper abdominal and there was no firmness anywhere in my abdominal area. I had to have someone else get the prescription, as I couldn't drive to the pharmacy, but $60 got 100 tablets of each of the two generic medicines. It took a couple of days to pass, and I lost a good deal of weight, but I didn't have to shell out for the ER plus whatever other charges might have come along with a day or two in the hospital.
Interview your doctors, people. Ask them how they feel about pharmaceutical marketing, and their preferred approaches. Find one that makes you comfortable. Mine is old-school, and would rather his patients tend to themselves than rely on pills, and that's how I prefer to approach it as well.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
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.
There is no money in a cure....
That's a common misconception
You've mis-concepted the concept; there's a LOT more money for University medical centers in researching cures than there is in actually finding a cure.
The money for merchandise with pink ribbons should go in a bounty pool. Bounties, rather than never ending research grants, are the way to find hard solutions.
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".
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
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.
I take 2000 IU a day and generally feel much better.
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