tell me this is fake...please!

[Archangel M]

http://hubpages.com/hub/Scientists_cure_cancer__but_no_one_takes_notice

Canadian researchers find a simple cure for cancer, but major pharmaceutical companies are not interested.

 

[Empty Hands]

Not fake, but also not entirely accurate. The drug is undergoing clinical trials in Canada, using money raised from a variety of public and private sources. The trials are small, so not too many conclusions can be made, but the effects on the patients tested haven't been too remarkable. Some showed a small improvement, some did not, although these were only a few late stage cancer patients.

Something to keep in mind is that it's much easier to "cure cancer" in mice and rats than humans. Many drugs and therapies look amazing in animals, then perform much less effectively in humans.

 

[MA-Caver]

Canadian researchers find a simple cure for cancer, but major pharmaceutical companies are not interested.

If it is the truth... then it is not surprising. Realize that the pharmaceutical industry is worth Billions if not Trillions of dollars annually. To eliminate cancer which give rise to very expensive drugs to treat (??) it.. (or is it prolong the disease?) is to put a major dent in their coffers. Same way that a hydrogen fueled combustion engine would dent the coffers of the oil industry. Where vast amounts of money is concerned there will always be some type of oppression. Just recently a boy had found a very promising cure for cystic fibrosis... http://www.checkorphan.org/grid/new...stic-fibrosis-wins-canadian-biotech-challenge Question is... will it actually be researched properly to see if his idea is correct?

 

[Carol]

Not fake. To call it a cure is a significant exaggeration....and not enough is known to tell if it can be an effective treatment in humans, but the concern about the lack of interest in research for compounds that are not patentable is a very real concern.

Cancer treatment is tough stuff. To use crude terms, finding a treatment means finding a way to posion off the cancer cells without poisoning off the patient (or their organs) in the process. Determining whether the dichloroacetates can be fashioned in to effective treatment will not be a trivial process.


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

Planned and ongoing clinical trials

DCA is non-patentable as a compound, though a patent has been filed for its use in cancer treatment.[35] Research by Dr. Evangelos Michelakis has received no support from the pharmaceutical industry. Concerns have been raised that without strong intellectual property protection, the financial incentive for drug development is reduced, and therefore clinical trials of DCA may not be funded.[15][16][17][36]

However, other sources of funding exist; previous studies of DCA have been funded by government organizations such as the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and by private charities (e.g. the Muscular Dystrophy Association). Recognizing anticipated funding challenges, Dr Michelakis's lab took the unorthodox step of directly soliciting online donations to fund the research.[37] After 6 months, his lab had raised over $800,000, enough to fund a small Clinical Phase 2 study. Dr. Michelakis and Dr. Archer have applied for a patent on the use of DCA in the treatment of cancer.[38][39]

On 24 September 2007, the Department of Medicine of Alberta University reported that after the trial funding was secured, both the Alberta local ethics committee and Health Canada approved the first DCA clinical trial for cancer.[40] This initial trial is relatively small with enrollment of up to 50 patients.
When faced with the high costs of bringing a new pharmaceutical to market, estimated by Tufts University to exceed one billion dollars,[41] private investment interest in non-patentable pharmaceuticals is low.This problem is highlighted in the 2007 New York Times article by Ralph Moss titled "Patents over Patients".[42]

 

[LuckyKBoxer]

its like I keep saying, they are not interested in finding cures, they are only looking to find ways for you to live longer with their medication with whatever disease you have.
Its a big problem, and the way public funding works now does nothing to fix this. Our public dollars now are wasted when it comes to funding research.

 

[Ken Morgan]

The research was from four years ago folks....

Also the person who wrote the article for "Hubpages", whoever they are, has zero clue about basic cell biology. I haven't taken bio since HS, but even i know to ask "huh"? when the author said "mitochondria cells". Mitochondria are part of a cell, not a cell unto themselves.

If it was an effective treatment, someone, somewhere would be using it.

 

[Empty Hands]

when the author said "mitochondria cells". Mitochondria are part of a cell, not a cell unto themselves.

To be fair, they likely were separate cells at least 2 billion years ago, maybe the author was just thinking in a different time scale.

 

[Empty Hands]

its like I keep saying, they are not interested in finding cures, they are only looking to find ways for you to live longer with their medication with whatever disease you have.
Its a big problem, and the way public funding works now does nothing to fix this. Our public dollars now are wasted when it comes to funding research.

Nonsense. I'm a part of this process, as is Nomad, and you are not even scientifically literate. You have no idea how research works, how drug discovery works, or how drugs are targeted to disease. There is enormous interest in cures, from both public and private research, because guess what? Besides being the right thing to do, cures will make people fabulously rich! And immensely famous! And the recipient of awards and worldwide adulation! It's not like cancer is going anywhere, is it, so the cures will always have new customers as people age.

 

[Dirty Dog]

Any time someone mentions a "cure for cancer" you can assume it's largely nonsense.

There are simply too many different types of cancer for there to be any one cure. Something that might help someone with an glioblastoma is certainly not going to do any good for someone with adenocarcinoma, for example.

Despite the paranoid "you're not looking for cures" nonsense, the medical community as a whole is actually very interested in cures, not just treatments. But the sad reality is that the things that can be cured easily have been. What we're left with is diseases that are going to require long term treatment and/or major advances in technology and our understanding of the pathophysiology involved.

Finding a drug to kill a particular kind of cancer is easy. Doing so without killing the patient is a bit more complicated....

 

[Nomad]

Despite the paranoid "you're not looking for cures" nonsense, the medical community as a whole is actually very interested in cures, not just treatments. But the sad reality is that the things that can be cured easily have been.

Even here, we're seeing new strains of drug-resistant diseases that were long thought cured, such as tuberculosis.

Finding a drug to kill a particular kind of cancer is easy. Doing so without killing the patient is a bit more complicated....

And again, even when extremely promising new drugs come out that can have a major impact on different cancer cell types, it usually isn't too long until the cancer cells adapt and start developing drug resistance. We've already seen Gleevec resistant cell lines developing, for example. A large focus or research in many pharmaceutical companies is then finding compounds that negate this type of developing resistance.

Cancer cells come in a huge number of different types, with different critical pathways (eg. cellular pathways that are necessary for the cancers to continue to survive and multiply). Figuring out which pathways promote the growth of cancers but are not critical to normal cell function (a drug which affects both is necessarily quite toxic) can be tricky. Many of these pathways are still being worked out, and these can often lead to new drug candidates. Successful cancer drugs can slow the reproduction of the cancer cells, cause remission (in which case a tumor stops growing), or regression (where the tumor actually shrinks).

The problem is that just as their are many cancer cell types with different growth mechanisms and critical pathways; the cancer cells themselves are highly adaptive and can often reduce or nullify the effect of a drug that used to work against them, by modifying their proteins so the drug no longer works against it's designed target. This is how drug resistance develops.

One reason that modern cancer treatments are often given as a cocktail of different drugs is to come at the cancer cells from a variety of different targets, which makes it much more difficult for them to develop resistance; the downside of this is you get more and more severe side effects from this cocktail approach.

Those who claim that pharmaceutical companies aren't interested in cures quite simply have no idea what they're talking about, and it shows great ignorance of the complexity of the science actually being done.

 

[Nomad]

Very often, the media will report on a new drug candidate (or even drug target) as a potential "cure" for cancer based on very early studies on mouse xenograft models. These are mice in which a single, selected cancer cell type has been implanted and allowed to grow, and which are then treated with a compound which has been designed specifically to have the greatest impact on that cell type. Many mice have been cured of cancer by this method.

Unfortunately, they are greatly simplified models compared to real developing human tumors and carcinomas, and results don't always (or even all that often) translate from the models to real patients in a clinical setting.

Against particularly aggressive cancers, a successful cancer drug is one which can statistically extend the life of the patient by a few months. Against less aggressive cancers, a great cancer drug may cure the cancer in some patients and cause long-term remission in others.

 

[Nomad]

Just re-read the article in the OP. Aside from having a large number of scientific fallacies, such as the "mitochondrial cells" parts as pointed out by Ken, and the fact that I have no idea what they're talking about with the "glycolysis method" of fighting cancer, I am made more suspicious by the fact that the author can't get basic grammatical sentence structure right in the article.

Apoptosis is the result of natural pathways in healthy cells that lead to cell death, and this is often "turned off" in cancer cells. Some anti-cancer therapeutics do act by re-activating the apoptosis pathways in cancer cells.

BTW, The concept that a compound used to treat one disorder can be used to treat something completely unrelated without worrying about side effects is patently false; it all depends on relative doses required. Keep in mind that even water can be toxic in high enough doses.

 

[Nomad]

Just re-read the article in the OP. Aside from having a large number of scientific fallacies, such as the "mitochondrial cells" parts as pointed out by Ken, and the fact that I have no idea what they're talking about with the "glycolysis method" of fighting cancer, I am made more suspicious by the fact that the author can't get basic grammatical sentence structure right in the article.

Apoptosis is the result of natural pathways in healthy cells that lead to cell death, and this is often "turned off" in cancer cells. Some anti-cancer therapeutics do act by re-activating the apoptosis pathways in cancer cells.

BTW, The concept that a compound used to treat one disorder can be used to treat something completely unrelated without worrying about side effects is patently false; it all depends on relative doses required. Keep in mind that even water can be toxic in high enough doses.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

How to prove that medical research is not aimed at prolonging illnesses...

http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...854,3233963&dq=ulcer+caused+by+bacteria&hl=en

Most ulcers are caused by bacteria. The treatment is fairly simple, inexpensive, and efficacious. Result? You hardly ever hear of people suffering with long-term ulcers anymore.

Wonder how that happened if it's all a big conspiracy aimed at keeping us sick as long as possible?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4951336

 

[Empty Hands]

How to prove that medical research is not aimed at prolonging illnesses...

Like most conspiracy theories, this one requires the collaboration and silence of thousands (in this case hundreds of thousands as well as companies) when it would be in the interests of any single one of those individuals to break that silence for their own benefit. Let's say all the big pharmas collaborate in the manner suggested. Now let's say I'm a small pharma (I hope to be soon, in real life) trying to break into the field. I just discovered a cure. Am I going to sit on that cure, and struggle on risking failure? Or do I push my cure as hard as I can, knowing I will make billions and become a big pharma myself? It isn't in my interest to maintain the conspiracy for the benefit of others.

It is true that big pharma will buy promising new compounds and then sit on them to avoid competition with their own similar drugs. That isn't what is being proposed however, and if the new drug is a true blockbuster, most big pharmas will go with that instead. It's all about the bottom line, and huge cures will bring fame and fortune.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Like most conspiracy theories, this one requires the collaboration and silence of thousands (in this case hundreds of thousands as well as companies) when it would be in the interests of any single one of those individuals to break that silence for their own benefit. Let's say all the big pharmas collaborate in the manner suggested. Now let's say I'm a small pharma (I hope to be soon, in real life) trying to break into the field. I just discovered a cure. Am I going to sit on that cure, and struggle on risking failure? Or do I push my cure as hard as I can, knowing I will make billions and become a big pharma myself? It isn't in my interest to maintain the conspiracy for the benefit of others.

It is true that big pharma will buy promising new compounds and then sit on them to avoid competition with their own similar drugs. That isn't what is being proposed however, and if the new drug is a true blockbuster, most big pharmas will go with that instead. It's all about the bottom line, and huge cures will bring fame and fortune.

There is plenty wrong with how research is done now by the private sector drug companies. Like movie studios, they can no longer count on a string of 'pretty good return' drugs (movies); each drug (movie) is almost literally betting the entire company. It's a roulette game each time they decide to invest the millions or billions it may take to bring a drug through R&D and testing into final production. And by the time the drug gets approval, the patent clock is ticking away - they have a limited time to make as much money as they can on the drug before the patents expire and others begin making generics. Even their good producers run the continual risk of side-effects or other problems being discovered after the fact and requiring recall or removal from sale, or of a competitor developing an alternative that works so much better it makes their big seller useless. Every hit must be a home run, every drug must be a blockbuster. They have no choice but to swing for the fences with every drug. And it must be for an ailment that is common and has no efficacious low-cost treatment; ailments that few have are not attractive to the biggest drug companies - they can't make money on them.

Drug companies are also moving into the role of advocate directly to the public. Ask your doctor about thus and so. Perhaps you have XYZ disease and don't know it; better ask your doctor about our drug ABC.

It's getting kind of scary out there. But it's cutthroat competition, not a big conspiracy, IMHO.

 

[Nomad]

There is plenty wrong with how research is done now by the private sector drug companies. Like movie studios, they can no longer count on a string of 'pretty good return' drugs (movies); each drug (movie) is almost literally betting the entire company. It's a roulette game each time they decide to invest the millions or billions it may take to bring a drug through R&D and testing into final production. And by the time the drug gets approval, the patent clock is ticking away - they have a limited time to make as much money as they can on the drug before the patents expire and others begin making generics. Even their good producers run the continual risk of side-effects or other problems being discovered after the fact and requiring recall or removal from sale, or of a competitor developing an alternative that works so much better it makes their big seller useless. Every hit must be a home run, every drug must be a blockbuster. They have no choice but to swing for the fences with every drug. And it must be for an ailment that is common and has no efficacious low-cost treatment; ailments that few have are not attractive to the biggest drug companies - they can't make money on them.

Drug companies are also moving into the role of advocate directly to the public. Ask your doctor about thus and so. Perhaps you have XYZ disease and don't know it; better ask your doctor about our drug ABC.

It's getting kind of scary out there. But it's cutthroat competition, not a big conspiracy, IMHO.

As I mentioned on another thread; this idea of only aiming for blockbuster drugs has been status quo for awhile, but is changing now with more pharmaceutical companies investing in so-called "orphaned" diseases (often serious diseases that are very rare) and diseases of the developing world like malaria, chagas disease, etc. (which have traditionally not been seen as big money-makers and have been largely ignored after a few initial successes).

A large part of the reason comes from a better understanding of the disease processes and pathways in question. This makes intervention in the disease easier to accomplish and easier to understand exactly what's going on. In some cases, it can be (relatively) easy to target a rare disease with well-understood biology and clear end-points for a successful clinical trial, and then try to expand the drug to other related indications later (which has been accomplished with some of the current list of blockbuster drugs).

Obviously, if we can intervene in a serious but rare disease, it's also simply the right thing to do, and in spite of many peoples' belief, the vast majority of the scientists involved in a project want to have a positive impact on the health of sick people.

To a very large extent, the decisions at a big pharma company follow the science rather than the dollar, although the latter definitely continues to play a role.

 

[Cryozombie]

http://www.myweathertech.com/2011/0...r-that-the-fda-tried-their-best-to-shut-down/

This is almost 2 hours long, but a worthwhile watch.