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."

Comments

Cure?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no money in a cure....

Re:Cure?

[SomeJoel]

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.

Re:Cure?

[BitZtream]

Viagra is another example of treating the symptoms and not resolving the problem.

Thats what drug companies love the most, treating the symptoms only and not doing anything to resolve the actual problem.

There is no profit in cures, just treat the symptoms and make them dependent on you.

Re:Cure?

[Wyatt Earp]

Well, I've been cured of cancer twice. Three times if you count the relapse.

Here are the drugs I took

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asparaginase

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercaptopurine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methotrexate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincristine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prednisolone

So yea, the drug companies actually cured me.

Re:Cure?

[0100010001010011]

My dad ha(s|d) cancer.

ONE chemo bag is $18k. I think he gets 3 per month until it goes into remission.

I guarantee you there is no way in hell he'd ever spend that much on Viagra or any other drug that someone could possibly use if he lived.

Re:Cure?

[interkin3tic]

There is no money in a cure....

Skepticism is always warranted with an industry as large, corrupt, but ultimately essential as the pharmaceutical industry. Still, that goes into paranoia. No money in a cure? Perhaps you missed the very last line of TFA

[glioblastoma patient] average survival is 14 to 16 months with standard treatments.

This is not a disease that the industry is making money off stringing along patients rather than curing them. There's no stringing along. You die of it. You never become a continuous customer for the drug company. Hospitals might make a lot of money from them, and I don't know the standard treatment. I'd guess it's more surgical and pallative care with glioblastoma.

The second to last line also speaks against the idea that the cure is being suppressed: a quote by some professional suggesting that the drug would extend the lives of these patients. Not cure, extend. If you were right and they just want people to hang on to suck up more treatment, they'd be aggressively testing this, possibly in combination with a drug they -can- patent and make a bunch of money off of.

Anyway, any given research team has a huge interest in a bona-fide cure for cancer. That would probably be the quickest awarded nobel prize right there. Even if you were working for a company that had a financial interest in not actually curing cancer and you'd get fired, you wouldn't sit on it.

Re:Cure?

[BobMcD]

There is no profit in cures, just treat the symptoms and make them dependent on you.

You're missing the author's point. Your two combined statements would read as:

There is no profit in cures, except wherein the condition would result in the death of the patient.

Dead patient means no more profit. Yeah?

Re:Cure?

[Arthur Grumbine]

Yeah, well, you are Wyatt Earp. There's no way you're going lose out to cancer.
...

Oh...right...uhm...yeah. Sorry, dude, I didn't know.

Re:Cure?

[FatdogHaiku]

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.

For erections lasting longer than four hours, try new Woodbegone!!!
Available in "100mg", "200mg", and "Damn, where'd my dick go?" sizes.

Re:Cure?

[PopeRatzo]

Why?

Let's look at a case study.

There was a time when the most profitable drugs were anti-ulcer medicines. Surgeries for fixing ulcers were also big money-makers and they even developed rubber patches for peoples' stomachs to repair ulcers that didn't respond to the medicines.

Some (publicly-funded) research found that ulcers were actually caused by bacteria not stomach acid, and could be cured with an extremely cheap course of ant-biotics. The drug companies had done some basic research on this and did not publish. There was more than half a decade when drug companies knew that cheap antibiotics could cure ulcers but did nothing about it. It finally took government-funded researchers to publish and within half a year, the anti-ulcer drugs fell off the top ten, and even the top 100 of prescribed drugs.

During the time when it was known that ulcers could be cured with antibiotics, drug companies spent millions of dollars on marketing the anti-ulcer drugs to doctors, even convincing them that these drugs should be used to prevent ulcers in patients that had no symptoms. Since calcium phosphate was one of the ingredients of some of these drugs, they were pushed for osteoporosis therapy for women, even though simple calcium supplements cost pennies by comparison.

Do drug companies put profits ahead of patients? Undoubtedly. It's what happens when the ownership of a company is no longer the person who's name is on the sign, but equity owners who see their ownership in the company as a simple investment, and don't care at all about what the company does or how it does it, as long as the stock price rises. The desire for profit becomes a much stronger force than the desire to do the right thing, because corporations are not people, and will never care about the "right thing". This is the disconnect that gives the lie to any "free market" benefit to society.

If I'm the owner of the Pope Ratzo Cabinet Company, I care about the satisfaction of the customers who buy my cabinets. Along with the desire to profit is a natural desire to be known as the guy who makes the best cabinets. When I sell the company to a conglomerate, there is no longer a connection of reputation, or even the raw peer pressure I would feel if the lead paint on my cabinets were to harm someone. Now the investors are the owners, and they don't know squat about cabinets. They just know profits. Add "tort reform" and "liability limits" and suddenly there's no downside if people get hurt because the company does something wrong. It's just added to the cost of doing business.

Acquisition and consolidation creates fewer competitors. Globalization grows the scope of the remaining companies until the cost to get into the business to compete becomes so great that it's impossible for new competitors to come from anywhere but venture capital, where the "name on the sign" is pushed out of the way as quickly as possible. No responsibility, no accountability in the marketplace, since customers don't really have many options to find a competitor.

What was the last time a doctor prescribed or recommended aspirin, which is far superior to any of the more expensive "anti-inflammatory" medicines which are used for arthritis, pain, etc? I can buy aspirin, a wonderdrug, safe and effective (even perhaps beneficial) for $1.99 for a bottle of 500.

Re:Cure?

[Martin Blank]

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.

Re:Cure?

[oddTodd123]

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.

I'd start with leaving the basement.

Re:Cure?

[PopeRatzo]

[Citation needed]

This is the best I can do with short notice

Note especially the timeline at the bottom of the article.

By "medical establishment" they mean "the pharmaceutical industry".

Here is what happened in 1984:

A paper describing Marshall and Warren's results is accepted by the Gastroenterological Society of Australia for presentation.[37]
        Marshall and Goodwin attempt to infect pigs with H. pylori in an attempt to demonstrate that it causes PUD. The experiment fails.[37]
        Marshall and Warren's paper is accepted by The Lancet in May and published in June. Many reviewers dislike the paper.[37]
        McNulty and Watson are able to reproduce Marshall and Warren's results.[40]
        June 12 - Marshall intentionally consumes H. pylori and becomes ill. He takes antibiotics and is relieved of his symptoms.[37]
        The National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia fully funds Marshall's research into H. pylori.[37]
        A study is published in China about the effectiveness of treating PUD with an antibacterial agent.[30]

It was demonstrated that penicillin could cure ulcers as early as 1955, but it wasn't until 1994 when the patents ran out for the anti-ulcer drugs that "the medical establishment" started to pay attention to the fact that H. pylori infection was the cause of ulcers, not stress or spicy food.

Note that Warren and Marshall's research is fully funded by The National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia. In other words, "the government". Not the free market. Not the pharmaceutical industry. The Government.

In 2005, Warren and Marshall win the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Re:Cure?

[budgenator]

UC Davis team finds need for much higher RDAs
A UC Davis research team led by assistant professor Laura M. Hall, Ph.D., made two findings.

Both are sobering in terms of average vitamin D intakes in America and somewhat unsurprising to folks who follow vitamin D research:

        *
            Light-skinned people need at least 1300 International Units (IU) per day during the winter.
        *
            Dark-skinned people need 2100 to 3100 IU per day during the winter and throughout the rest of the year.

The recommendation for light-skinned people holds even if they get abundant sun exposure, so those who get little sun exposure need even more dietary vitamin D.

But the recommendation for dark-skinned people holds true even for those who get more sun exposure than average.Vitamin D RDAs Fall Far Short in Winter

I take 2000 IU a day and generally feel much better.

Re:Cure?

[sqldr]

There is no money in a cure....

That depends if you're trying to make money, or save money and more importantly fulfill your mandate to save lives, and this all depends on whether you're a drugs company or a national health service

This came up a couple of years ago in the UK when an American drugs company came up with a treatment (can't remember the name) for various types of cancers which had a 20% chance of prolonging the life or a patient for between 6 and 18 month for the paltry sum of £50000/year per patient, not to mention the rather unpleasant side-effects. They were denied the treatment on the NHS (except nobody was stopping them buying it privately except personal wealth, or digging into the inheritance funds).

The documentary cut to footage of crying relatives angrily talking about how their children missed out on another year of being able to see their grandparent because the NHS which they had paid for through national insurance all of their lives had denied them this drug ("if they'd just had the XYZ then they could have seen them for longer!"), etc.

It then cuts to an NHS funds manager talking about budget and how they have the highest level of pregnancy deaths in the country and the treatment for many of those incidents which could save the entire life of a child is much cheaper. The NHS budget is calculated according to its effect on quality of life, scored as "QUALS". These guys are the ones whom Sarah Palin refers to as the "death squads". Could have been worse.. under a private healthcare scheme, the insurance company death squads would probably have let the babies die for the sake of the 6 months of a bed-bound terminal cancer patient.

It then cuts to the manufacturers of this drug, in their massive marble-sided Chicago skyscraper, having a massive champagne-fueled banquet, handing out awards to eachother for their "life-saving" work in creating this rather ineffectual drug.

One might wonder what the first family would have thought if the reason for their children not seeing their grandparent was because it was the CHILDREN who were ill, who couldn't get treatment because the NHS had just spaffed £50000 on a drug which just made someone ill for an extra 6 months. And what about the 70 year old who is going to live for another 15 years and would love to spend those 15 years being able to walk properly after receiving an expensive hip-replacement operation? Nah.. cancer is like the poster boy of illnesses. The old "why aren't you curing cancer?" poke at the ignoble awards is getting tiresome.

So from where I stand, I've not got cancer, or MS, or Parkinsons (dementia is VERY badly funded.. all the charity money goes to breast cancer these days), or anything else.. YET, but I'm hedging my bets by saying that I hope that my national insurance money is going towards what is most likely to save me the most grief, rather than paying for more champagne and marble skyscrapers. In that respect, a CHEAP cure for cancer sounds bloody brilliant, and I hope the NHS invest heavily in it. In the long run, that will free up more money to research all the other horrible diseases we might get.

There is huge incentive for the NHS to invest in cheap drugs, because that's their job. Private healthcare doesn't really have this moral obligation.

Where the money goes

[BitZtream]

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.

Re:Where the money goes

[BitZtream]

It would also put the drug companies produce the cure in a really crappy spot.

This is why medical research should be publicly funded and public property.

Re:Where the money goes

[pluther]

Notice, though, that the March of Dimes didn't try to block the Polio vaccine, or lobby against it in any way.

Instead, they switched to other things to wipe out, and have apparently made great progress on all sorts of various birth defects now...

Re:Where the money goes

[Chris Burke]

More like curing cancer would put the charities out of business. It's like the March of Dimes. They're goal was to wipe out Polio. When that happen, they didn't exactly fold the tents and go home.

So... you mean it's like the opposite of the March of Dimes.

Great example.

Re:Where the money goes

[SimonInOz]

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?

Re:Where the money goes

[aminorex]

Very simple: Apply penalties for crimes. Apply the death penalty liberally, where death is understood to mean a revokation of the corporate charter, and the return of funds to shareholders after outstanding liabilities are acquitted.

The problem with corporations is not so much that they are treated as persons, but that they are treated as persons who are above the law. As a society, we fear the creative destruction which is actually beneficial to all.

couldn't patent?

[Lord Ender]

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.

Penn and Teller talked about this on "Bullsh*t"

[fusiongyro]

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.

Re:Penn and Teller talked about this on "Bullsh*t"

[pz]

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.

Also, the amount of money for awareness isn't very large compared to the amount of money required to do human-based research. My small research lab has a relatively modest budget of USD 250k per year (*thank* *you*, NIH, and *thank* *you* to all you taxpayers out there). The total cost my institution will bill the government for my lab over the five years of the grant I have is about $2.25 million, including overhead. Now a couple of million dollars is a gob-smacking amount of money by most individual people's scales, but it's just one small biology lab. We're working with test-tubes, not humans ... at least not yet.

A hoo-ha-break-out-the-champagne fund raiser would net $1 million. That's a fantastically successful fund raiser. But it would only run my lab for about two years. If I wanted to do a Phase-I clinical trial, it would take two-to-three times that amount of money. Phase-II would be about ten times that. Phase-III is not something that could be done at my home institution alone.

So public-based fund raising for breast cancer, autism, kidney disease, coronary disease, glaucoma, what-have-you, is wonderful. But it's on the wrong scale to fund research or human drug testing. I'm deeply impressed that anyone was able to raise enough money for an independent drug trial.

where does it go?

[JustNiz]

>> 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

Re:where does it go?

[MobyDisk]

That article is a bit sketchy, and way out of date. Take a look at this instead: Charity Navigator on the American Cancer Society

I trust Charity Navigator a lot more than thus guy. His site looks like a non-profit organization, but it seems to be just one guy looking for a way to sell his own books. All the publications on the site are written by this one guy, Samuel Epstein. He criticizes the ACS, but his nonprofit isn't even listed on Charity Navigator.

in 1988 the ACS held a fund balance of over $400 million...Of that money, the ACS spent only $90 million— 26 percent of its budget— on medical research and programs

That was 22 years ago! Based on Charity Navigator, they spent 6.9% on administrative expenses, and 72.8% on programs. The names he mentions in his article aren't current.

It was probably a good criticism in it's time, and it appears that the ACS has reformed -- perhaps as a result of the article.

Re:Where all charitable funds go

[SomeJoel]

Some rich asshole who runs the fucking things new beach house

Why do rich people that embezzle from charities always have to be called "assholes"? I mean, seriously, it's equally likely that he's an asshat, asswad, or assclown. Stop jumping to conclusions, assface.

A much better page on Science Daily...

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Where else

[eln]

A lot of the big charities these days seem to be focused on "awareness" rather than "finding a cure". This basically sounds like giving money to these people so they can run more ads to get more money. At what point do we decide people are "aware" enough and start actually trying to cure these diseases? I don't care how many people are aware of breast cancer, I care how fast it takes to come up with a cure for breast cancer.

The big offenders I've seen are breast cancer awareness and autism awareness. Why do we need to give money to make people more aware of these conditions? Everyone is already as aware as they need to be! Stop spending money on awareness and start spending it on research!

Of course, once a charity reaches a certain size, its primary goal becomes self-preservation, and finding a cure for these things would threaten that goal.

Re:Where else

[BobMcD]

The big offenders I've seen are breast cancer awareness and autism awareness. Why do we need to give money to make people more aware of these conditions? Everyone is already as aware as they need to be! Stop spending money on awareness and start spending it on research!

I can't speak for breast cancer, but my youngest son is autistic. Lack of awareness leads people to assume he's retarded, or a brat, or both. 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. My own son gets a mixed result of surprise and disgust when he doesn't live up to the standards his appearance would dictate.

Thankfully he's not really all that aware of how people treat him...

But awareness isn't all bad...

Re:Where else

[Anonymous Coward]

My baby brother has autism, he's 18 and operates at a 12 year old level. He's not stupid, but he is definitely developmentally retarded.

Seriously, if you don't think that autism is a retardation then there is something really wrong with your world view.

Heck, just look up the words.

Autism == a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior.

Impair == make worse or less effective
Restrict == restrain within bounds; to limit; to confine;

Restrain == to close within bounds, limit or hold back from movement;

Retard == cause to move more slowly or operate at a slower rate

Quit trying to convince yourself that it's not as bad as it is. Accept that it's bad, and then fix it.
Denial on your part just limits the possible solutions that you will aloow him to enjoy.

Re:Where else

[FuckingNickName]

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.

Biochemist Zheng Cui’s funding was cut

[transporter_ii]

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!

Re:Biochemist Zheng Cui’s funding was cut

[yamfry]

The stem cell transplants currently used for leukemias and lymphomas involves completely eradicating the host immune system through chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy. Then a donor stem cell is implanted and is used to replace the host immune system (which will hopefully be completely eradicated and not pumping out cancer cells). Dr Cui's research is a little different. He is keeping the host immune system intact, but is taking sample immune cells from donors with cancer resistance and injecting them into the host. The goal is that the donor cells will kill the cancer but not the rest of the host's cells which leads to GVHD. This seems to work for solid tumours in rats. A good summary of is research is here.
In the US, the usual FDA process for drug approval is to go through 3 phases of human trials (then a mandatory phase 4 during which adverse event data from the wild is gathered and analyzed). There is a Fast Track program at the FDA for serious diseases where there is a need for treatment options. This allows drugs to get approved faster by skipping steps and using surrogate end points instead of proving complete efficacy and safety.
I'd be interested to hear the reasons that grants were not given to continue this research. It might have something to do with there not being a specific mechanism of action identifiable in his experiments. In his interview he admits that he has no idea why it works, but it seems to work. Sciency people don't like things like that. They probably have a better reason than "it seems a little hokey", though.

Re:Viagara is an indicator for CAD

[moosesocks]

Coincidentally, this is the same exact disease that Viagra was designed to treat.

It wasn't designed to treat ED -- it just turned out to have one really noticeable side-effect. It also wasn't expected to be the blockbuster that it is, as estimates for the prevalence of ED at the time were way off, as few men were willing to admit to having it, while no practical treatment options existed.

(There's also a growing body of work suggesting that men who have sex frequently are less likely to get prostate cancer, so there's that... )

So... yeah. Shame on them for accidentally creating a successful product.

DCA worked for me

[abushga]

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.

Re:Where else

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent is correct: I've got a "retarded" (learning/developmental disorder) child and there's nothing more frustrating than meeting a parent whose kid has a different disability coming out with the equivalent of "at least my kid's not a retard".