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Scientists Find Vitamin C Kills Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis

Posted by Soulskill on from the if-only-we-could-get-vitamin-C-into-common-foods dept.

AndyKrish writes "A BBC story reports that scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University found Vitamin C kills drug resistant tuberculosis (abstract). Though results are preliminary — the lead investigator of the study said, 'We have only been able to demonstrate this in a test tube, and we don't know if it will work in humans and in animals' — this is an exciting development in the fight against drug-resistant TB."

1 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Vitamin C... by Bowling+Moses · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "Really, this will likely be quickly quashed by the Pharmas. Or they will patent a delivery transport - with the only FDA-approved administration protocol."

    Those actions are pretty much diametrically opposed. Option one, quash something that's already known presumably by managing to get a hold of the IP (good luck) and then sitting on it for years using a minimum of effort and cost. Option two, take something that works only on tuberculosis culture, do the R&D to make it work in humans, get it through clinical trials, then manufacture it and try to make a profit. Tuberculosis is a grand master at hide and go seek. It lives inside of human cells part of the time so delivering the vitamin C/vitamin C derivative is non-trivial. Even for a pathogen hanging out nekkid in the bloodstream the delivery of the drug to its target is non-trivial, 10 years and $1 billion of R&D is the rule of thumb to get to FDA approval from early stage research.