Stem Cell Tourist Dies From Treatment In Thailand 451
An anonymous reader writes "Last week, news that Costa Rica was shutting down a large stem cell clinic sparked a debate here on Slashdot about whether patients should be allowed to take the risks that come with untested treatments. Now comes news of what can happen when patients go looking for a shortcut. A patient suffering from an autoimmune disease that was destroying her kidneys went to a Bangkok clinic, where doctors injected her own adult stem cells into her kidneys. Now she's dead, and a postmortem revealed that the sites of injection had weird growths — 'tangled mixtures of blood vessels and bone marrow cells.' Researchers say the treatment almost certainly killed her."
Could have been worse (Score:3, Funny)
She could have ended up like Kwai Chang Caine.
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Aim for the real problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
None of this would be happening if working with stem cells and bioengineering proper was legalized at large.
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It's not ignorance or stupidity. It's morality and ethics. And before you roll your eyes, please try to remember what happens when the medical profession tries to set these aside in the name of progress(ironically more often done by self proclaimed "moral societies", but I digress). The field does not have a good track record, and that's just on the research side. The commercial side is arguably worse.
This won't happen until you destroy statistics. (Score:4, Insightful)
When you have different groups advertising conflicting "scientific" results for their own interests, it is no wonder the layman doesn't believe in science anymore. Burn the businessmen!
Eggs have less cholesterol than previously thought! We both know the world is and isn't global warming. We are/aren't on the verge of running out of oil. We have conclusive evidence that cell phones do and don't cause cancer. Pluto is no longer a planet! This is the face of science to many people.
Re:Aim for the real problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
Hey now - thanks to her and a shady lab, we have some hard data on what happens when stem cells (prob extracted from her own bone marrow) are injected willy-nilly into organs. That's data that would be impossible to come by in a normal hospital with normal experimental procedures. She gave her life for science!
Warning. The preceding was 92% sarcasm and 8% honesty, with a 15% error margin. Read at your own risk.
Re:Aim for the real problem. (Score:4, Informative)
None of this would be happening if working with stem cells and bioengineering proper was legalized at large.
I hate to break it to you, but stem cell research is alive and well in the US, and has never ever been made illegal.
What did happen was public funding of embryonic stem cell research was stopped. This is an ethics decision, based on that administration's political values. Funding for non-embryonic stem cell research was actually significantly increased by the same administration that halted funding for embryonic stem cell research. If your still not getting it, it was the Bush administration. It was the same administration responsible for the most significant increase in funding for the sciences in the last 20+ years. Anti-science indeed!
A few truths about the state of stem cell research:
1.)Scientists think adult stem cells are limited to reproducing the tissues they originated from, whereas they know embryonic stem cells are not. Obviously this is not the case, since these adult stem cells produced many different types of tissues in the patient's kidneys
2.)Adult stem cells are much more difficult to culture than embryonic stem cells. Large numbers of cells are needed for stem cell therapy, so this is definitely an issue.
3.)Embryonic stem cells are much more likely to be rejected by the host than adult stem cells. In other words, even though they are easier to reproduce, they work less reliably.
Quit listening to anti-religion bullshit and open your own damn eyes and ears. Most of what you hear is total bigotry against religions, as though believing one thing makes you incapable of understanding anything. The fact is, anybody who does not follow a standard religion has a "religion replacement" that they follow just as fervently and dogmatically. Atheists are the epitome of this, and are really some of the most dogmatic people you'll ever come across (some of them right up there with street-corner evangelists). I generally prefer agnostics, as they tend to have a more open and reasonable outlook on things.
Re:Aim for the real problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
No bridge is necessary. The religious freaks are flat out fucking wrong. There is nothing wrong with using someones own stem cells to attempt to cure them, and only outrageous stupidity/subhumanism could make such a claim.
Re:Aim for the real problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Also, I believe the political hysteria created over the issue has led to this woman going the lengths she did to be "cured." Stem-cell research has been heralded for years as an answer to unlimited potential ailments. It could theoretically cure everything in the world. This allows one side to paint the other side religious nuts for wanting to stop this miracle-in-waiting.
Bush didn't ban fetal stem cell research, but only federal money to it. If there were any realistic thought that they could be used t
Re:Aim for the real problem. (Score:4, Informative)
In fact, whole new retinas are being created from ESCs [ocmetro.com], something impossible with ASCs. This isn't pie-in-the-sky. Regenerative medicine is real. i am very literally betting my life on it and I wish the ignorant and morally-hollow would get out of my way.
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I am a religious freak. And I do not oppose adult stem cell research at all. Hey, my nephew probably owes his life to it. I do oppose embryonic stem cell research, because it creates a demand for dead babies, which I have a huge moral problem with.
Also, adult stem cell research has led to over seventy approved treatments being used today. The number from embryonic research? Zero. But for some reason all the noise is made about embryonic research. I really do not understand why.
Of course you do. There is a group that has a near monopoly on making babies dead. They need sustained demand, and a permanent cultural shift into thinking that unborn babies are just harvestable tissue.
Re:Aim for the real problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that religious ethics were a code of conduct developed for a world where no one knew how the life of a new human actually begins - and where the infinitesimal steps before the actual birth were unknowable and therefore for all intents and purposes irrelevant.
Example:
There is an empty room with a perfectly clean and smooth floor. If you came looking, you would say "that room is clean and empty".
In the classical example, we would put in sand, grain after grain, until you decide that there's not "some sand" but "a heap of sand". But that is insufficient, because it doesn't carry a lawful penalty of doing something with it.
So here's the modified example, which is ironically the exact opposite of producing a baby:
If I were to bring in a small piece of metal that I produced in the neighboring room with tools and raw materials there, you would attest "the room is not empty anymore".
Now I am constantly bringing small pieces of metal into the room, differently shaped, but somehow they fit or connect to each other. You come looking and could tell, that the room is not only filling up, but actually some coordinated production is going on. Maybe you even recognize what I am up to, maybe you don't
I toil day and night and produce even more metal pieces and assemble them according to the plan I made. You come into the room and now you clearly recognize it just by looking at its shape. Some levers and springs of this item already work as they are supposed to. It's clearly not yet complete, but every kid would recognize it by now.
Now as I continue to work, at what point would I become liable to "possessing an unlicensed firearm"?
At which point do the assembled items constitute fit the description and intent of the law? Do plans, raw materials, tools and intent suffice? Is possession of the disassembled parts enough? Is possessing all parts relevant or only the critical ones? At which point in time did the unmachined blank became a firearm part unlawful to possess?
Shorter example: owning an 120cm rod of hardened steel and a grinder is allowed, owning a 120cm sword is not. At what point in time does the steel rod become an illegal item if I set out to produce one?
Excuse me for taking all that destructive stuff, but that's a suitable comparison, since it is assembled in infinitesimal steps with legal repercussions beyond a certain point.
Now back to the embryo: is the fertilized ovum possessing "human" rights?
Do human rights start with the first cluster of cells? With a human shape? With the first heart beat or the first brain wave, the first breath, the first word?
Even if it was to start with the fertilized egg as most religious types contest, we could not ever hope to get around this demarcationg problem. There's a high chance the fertilized egg will not take hold, so it would mean that 70% of all "humans" are dying several hours after conception. And then there's the "components" of a fertilized egg:
Wasting semen, especially when using a condom for intercourse, would be a capital sin for men - it already is for some religions. No one seems to notice that all non-pregnant, menstruating females would then be killing "humans" every month - under the same law that men shouldn't "spill their seed", they would be required to take any opportunity to get pregnant.
That inconsistency is bothering enough, but it'd get worse: if a lawfully wedded couple would use a condom to not get the female pregnant, it would be a major sin. If the same couple refused to have sex, it is not. Coitus interruptus is a catholic sin as well, the phone ring that interrupts the Coitus is not.
I believe we cannot reliably tell when human rights begin and that we must learn to deal with it. We know that semen and eggs are not really different from fingernails in growing and re-growing. We know that the newborn baby has the full rights of all humans. When these rights start in between them will be up to eternal speculation.
Eggs that
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So assume for a while that having sex without the aim of reproducing is a sin. The sin of Onan and all that.
You said it was the intent to "not reproduce" that make it a sin:
"having sex without intent to reproduce is a sin"
When one knows that one lacks the means to reproduce, is temporarily or permanently infertile, any sex performed in spite of it is by definition not aimed at reproducing.
So we have another subset:
"having sex knowing full well that one is without the MEANS to reproduce"
Which means it is a s
Re:Aim for the real problem. (Score:5, Informative)
New ASC therapies are in trials using manipulation techniques learned from ESC research, but simply nothing can match the pluripotency of ESCs. Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (ipSCs) are fine for research but due to the induction methods and production efficiency issues are wholly unsuitable for therapies.
The "market for dead babies" line is just so much inflammatory ignorant bullshit. The lines are generated from surplus material which would otherwise be discarded.
Yes, you are flat out wrong.
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Re:Aim for the real problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
So you consider it to be 'morally superior' to flush the excess fertilized eggs down the drain, destroying them with absolutely no benefit, than donate them to scientists who will use them in an attempt to develop treatments for you, your children, and the rest of the human race?
I can't help but see that donating them to scientific and medical research is a fundamentally good act on par with donating your organs when you die. You certainly shouldn't be compelled to do so but everyone ought to be encouraged to think of the good of our entire society.
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No evidence of souls have ever been found in zygotes.
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Well, your affinity for some clumps of undifferentiated cells may well have contributed to the continued suffering or death of countless real, living, breathing, actualized human beings with self awareness, names, and families who'll mourn them. Can you not see the imbalance in that decision?
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Also, adult stem cell research has led to over seventy approved treatments being used today. The number from embryonic research? Zero.
I dunno if your numbers are true, but your reasoning is terrible.
It's like the anti-drug guys saying basically the same thing when its been essentially impossible to get funding or even legal permission to do studies of potential beneficial uses of pot and lsd for the last 40 years. When it is practically impossible to do significant research on a topic it should be no surprise that there are no results. And no, those ~8 lines of stem cells that have been around for a billion generations now are inadequat
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I am a religious freak. And I do not oppose adult stem cell research at all. Hey, my nephew probably owes his life to it. I do oppose embryonic stem cell research, because it creates a demand for dead babies, which I have a huge moral problem with.
So you oppose fertility clinics, then? Cause they create a *lot* of extra embryos and stem cells [religioustolerance.org] (the random junk DNA that you call "dead babies") and most of them are either destroyed outright, or allowed to grow until they die on their own due to genetic defects and the like.
What gets me is instead of using these junk embryos that are literally thrown out with the wash, we have to allow years and immeasurable promises of medical miracles due to a bunch of people terrified of pissing off Santa Claus. Er,
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I'll take a shot at this.
The existing treatments utilizing adult stem cells are all for treatment of blood borne cancers (ie, leukemia). The treatment consists of harvesting (patient or someone else's) bone marrow, processing it in some way, and freezing it for later infusion. You then give the patient a most excellent collection of poisons which destroy the existing bone marrow. You then reinfuse the fr
Re:Aim for the real problem. (Score:5, Informative)
You have a moral issue with embryonic stem cell research because you have not clue what it entails.
Embryonic Stem Cell Basics [nih.gov]
"Most embryonic stem cells are derived from embryos that develop from eggs that have been fertilized in vitro--in an in vitro fertilization clinic--and then donated for research purposes with informed consent of the donors. They are not derived from eggs fertilized in a woman's body. The embryos from which human embryonic stem cells are derived are typically four or five days old and are a hollow microscopic ball of cells called the blastocyst."
A blastocyst [wikipedia.org] is the embryonic clump of cells, approximately 70 to 100 cells, that would have the potential to turn into a baby if it were in a womb. As noted in the basics these blastocysts are not in a womb, they will never develop a placenta or form into a human.
Using political power and social pressure to hold back embryonic stem cell research does not mean it has no potential uses, it means there has been limited research, that's all.
I'm glad you admitted that you do not understand because that truly is the root of the entire debate.
Embryonic Stem Cell Basics [nih.gov]
- Embryonic stem cells can become all cell types of the body because they are pluripotent. Adult stem cells are thought to be limited to differentiating into different cell types of their tissue of origin.
- Embryonic stem cells can be grown relatively easily in culture. Adult stem cells are rare in mature tissues, so isolating these cells from an adult tissue is challenging, and methods to expand their numbers in cell culture have not yet been worked out. This is an important distinction, as large numbers of cells are needed for stem cell replacement therapies.
In conclusion, there is no sane reason to be morally opposed to embryonic stem cell research due to a need for dead babies as no babies ever die for embryonic stem cell research.
Or perhaps you believe that virtually every man and woman on the planet are baby killers because they do not ensure that every single spermatozoa [wikipedia.org] and ovam [wikipedia.org] is given a chance to become a baby.
Perhaps you think that manufacturers of sanitary napkins [wikipedia.org] and condoms [wikipedia.org] are the enablers of baby killing.
You do see how irrational one can be when the probability of cells becoming a human becomes the basis for a moral standard, don't you? If you ever experience a nocturnal emission [wikipedia.org] or go through a menstrual cycle [wikipedia.org] without producing offspring then you are the same type of baby killer as the embryonic stem cell researchers. Obviously you did not kill any babies and neither did the researchers.
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Re:Aim for the real problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
How do you deal with the fact that nothing truly miraculous happens? How come every miracle has some other explanation?
Here's a real miracle:
The clouds grow wings and start raining jelly beans on the ground, while every plant on earth starts singing Weezer's "Buddy Holly" while 1,000,000 Elvis's appear floating 20 feet above the ground playing accordions made of bread.
According to Exodus, the Hebrew people followed a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire in the desert for forty years, but they got used to the sight fairly quickly. No sooner did they have miraculous freedom from slavery, they thought they could order whatever they wanted like at a drive-through: "Yeah, I'd like six thousand quail fajitas please." And once they got not just meat, but also manna, they started complaining "Is YHWH really with us? Where are we going? Moses is sure taking a long time on that mountain; maybe we should melt all our gold and make a statue to worship."
Your problem in a nutshell: you fucking religious freaks have no imagination whatsoever.
Maybe because less imagination was used than even you think? Religious folk tend to believe the people witnessing those miracles were reporting what they saw, not fabricating stories.
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According to Exodus
Of course there's no evidence [wikipedia.org] that even the non-miraculous statements of Exodus (i.e. Hebrews held as slaves in Egypt) are true. When even the most plausible parts are bupkis, there's no reason to believe in the least plausible parts.
Pretty sad when something can be shot down without even resorting to bringing up a completely incompatible "divine history."
Maybe because less imagination was used than even you think? Religious folk tend to believe the people witnessing those miracles were reporting what they saw, not fabricating stories.
Yeah, but the "miracles" today are quite lacking. I guess God used up all his good stuff 4000 years ago, and now is stuck trying to draw pictures with r
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For every man who was Madoff an example, there are a million other CEOs and other suited crooks working for the financial industry, with 30 million dollar bonuses. You'd kill your first-born son if it meant 50 million bucks and no
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You'd kill your first-born son if it meant 50 million bucks and nobody ever finding out about it.
Um, no. I wouldn't.
Has it occurred to you that you might be a sociopath?
The risks aren't bad for some of us. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The risks aren't bad for some of us. (Score:5, Interesting)
Mod parent up.
Autoimmune diseases tear the body apart. I didn't RTFA, but somebody in end-stage kidney failure would likely choose some risky options, maybe even unscientific ones. I am in no way endorsing the pseudoscience going on here with the stem cell treatments, but palliative care is the only option available with modern medicine in these circumstances. With all the stupid laws here in the United States outlawing effective pain-relieving drugs and assisted suicide, people are getting desperate.
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but somebody in end-stage kidney failure would likely choose some risky options, maybe even unscientific ones.
I actually left the tech industry in 2001 to work with kidney failure patients. Kidney failure is not the end of one's life. You can live plenty of decades with no kidney function. It is certainly a drastic change to go from someone with no medical issues to low kidney function, but it is quite manageable.
To go to the lengths of flying across the world for an experimental treatment that doesn't e
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I've often wondered what i'd do in the same position, but it's impossible to say without actually being there... afaik, with cancer treatments the sooner you start the better, and if you are feeling fine now and the treatment could save you or kill you tomorrow then I'm not so sure i would.
Fingers crossed for you that they do come up with a cure tomorrow.
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spontaneous remission does happen (Score:2)
Andrew Weil, M.D., wrote a book [google.com] on the subject. There are always options, whether or not your doctor is aware of them is another matter entirely.
What kind of cancer?
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That's really bad science. Medicine is about trying things that are proven safe, not believing in advance that something is the cure and doing it first. That's why we torture all those poor little animals.
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I'm sorry about your situation.
I'm going to do something a little distasteful, which is to bring political ideology into a thread where a man talks about his grim situation. But in your case, it is a matter of life and death, and it is for many people every year. It's not so often that we hear from them first hand.
You always hear politicans talk about shrinking the government in vague ways. If you listen long enough, you start to hear from libertarians that say _crazy_ sounding stuff.
One such occasion wa
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For example, I have terminal cancer, although for now I feel fine. The doctors know that none of the FDA approved treatments will stop the cancer, the best they can do is slow it down some. If I saw a treatment that had a high risk of killing me, but a decent chance it would cure me, I'd go for it, even knowing it might kill me.
That fucking sucks. My condolences. I completely agree with what you're saying. If the patient is making an informed consent decision, I don't see what the problem is. There could be some room for argument if a healthy, overweight person signs on for a potentially lethal weight loss procedure since that's getting into violating the whole "do no harm" territory. But if a person's already terminal, it's not like the experimental treatments could make things any worse. The whole informed consent thing would av
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Good point, and I sympathize with you, but in this case there was precisely ZERO chance that the "treatment" would cure her.
What do you base your ZERO chance on, a study of one person with an inherently awful confidence interval and p value?
my body, my choice. (Score:2)
I don't know how any country that calls itself free can prohibit this sort of thing.
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The FDA could start a program named (yes really) "Snake Oil Salesman Licence". That way you're A) Registered with the FDA (papertrail) and B) the consumer is aware that the proprietor isn't selling medically acknowledged remedies, which could infact actually be Snake Oil. The media would have a field day with this; "Local Snake Oil Salesman promotes new weight loss drug", "Global Snake Oil Salesman Corporation X promotes new erectile dysfunction drug", "Snake Oil Salesmen promote dangerous new stem cell the
What is needed is 2 levels of FDA (Score:5, Interesting)
So, the solution should 2 different FDAs.
The first protects normal ppl. THat is it makes certain that we do not have more issues like we have with Tylenol, Ibuprofin, etc. Likewise, it says what procedures to risk, etc.
HOWEVER, once you have exhausted all avenues, and your life is on a thread, then you can step up to a different protocol. But ppl and companies in this arena, than have medical protection, etc., but have access to radical treatments. The idea is that FDA2 would make certain that it is not done DANGEROUSLY, at least without the patient having a good understanding.
If we are going to make advances, we NEED ppl to be allowed to take INFORMED risks, but safely.
Re:What is needed is 2 levels of FDA (Score:5, Informative)
This system already exist. Perhaps you should read up on Phase I clinical trials.
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Where what happened to her?
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Gee, I think she died of freedom of choice.
Re:What is needed is 2 levels of FDA (Score:5, Informative)
She tried some wild crap in Thailand. Not exactly a place known for it's cutting edge science. There are a number of countries doing a lot of really good biology work. Thailand isn't one of them.
Meanwhile, back in the States, where the NIH spends $28+ Billion a year on research, on clinialtrials.gov [clinicaltrials.gov] you can look up her condition, lupus nephritis, and see that there are *19* different clinical trials recruiting patients right now for that disease.
She died of freedom of choice alright. Just not a very good choice.
Re:What is needed is 2 levels of FDA (Score:4, Insightful)
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This system already exist. Perhaps you should read up on Phase I clinical trials.
Pharmaceutical companies test a lot of drugs in Europe or India/Asia before they ever get close to America's shores.
There are drugs that have been legal in Europe for years before the FDA even allowed trials.
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Re:What is needed is 2 levels of FDA (Score:5, Informative)
First, you have FDA-approved drugs, treatments, and devices. Then, you have clinical trials of drugs, treatments, and devices hoping to join the first category; but not yet there.
This latter category recruits trial subjects from either the public at large(for the safety/tolerability portion of the studies) or from the patient pool for whatever the condition is(for the efficacy portion). This means that, in practice, a fair number of patients(weighted toward those for whom the FDA-approved stuff isn't cutting it) are taking experimental, unapproved, therapies, with effort being made to minimize the danger; but with the recognition that this isn't without its risks. Now, it is true that not everyone who wants to can necessarily get into a given trial. Some are just size-limited. In other cases, the group running the trial might be cherry-picking patients to try to get the results they want(ie. if you drug kills a bunch of people, or fails to cure, your odds of FDA approval go down. This creates an incentive to keep the hopeless cases away.)
There is also the intermediate category of off-label use. Once something is FDA-approved, doctors are not required to use it only for whatever it was originally approved for(the manufacturer can't market it for any unapproved use; but doctors are free to prescribe it for pretty much whatever they deem suitable, subject only to the risk of this being declared "malpractice").
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Desperate people do desperate things. I have known a few in my condition resort to stem cell quacks and a couple have died from it. I am a big believer in stem cells, but only done the right way.
Uh... (Score:4, Funny)
FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a physician (I know, easy for an AC to say). There is nothing in the linked article to suggest that the treatment was directly linked to her death. It may or may not have contributed to her eventual renal failure but there are an untold number of people out there with nonfunctioning kidneys living for years on dialysis. Unusual tumors localized to the kidneys don't kill people. While I don't encourage patients to pursue treatments lacking in evidence of safety and efficacy, this article is just meant to spread FUD.
Re:FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? And you know this how?
I guess you missed the part where the AC said "I'm a physician". Now I don't know if that is true, nor can I verify the remark about kidney tumors not being fatal. But I suspect that you can't either, which is why you did the old FUD trick of questioning the poster in a way to belittle what was said without being able to come up with a counterpoint argument. That way nobody can claim that you were wrong because you never actually said anything.
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Yeah, I guess you are right. The first anonymous coward claims to be a doc, then said 'unusual tumors localized to the kidneys don't kill people'.
A doc would/should know, you don't know what genetically altered cells might be up to, or what their effects might be.
He'd also (should) know that sometimes folks do seemingly die of localized tumors.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17592276 [nih.gov]
"Among the 33 patients who died from seemingly localized RCC (localized renal cell carcinoma )..."
Oh, BTW. I'm a medical
Even more shocking... (Score:2, Funny)
When she first arrived in Bangkok, she was a man.
You can't avoid it... (Score:4, Insightful)
And, without treatment? Nature would have taken it's course... I'd say let people try what they want (assuming the treatment is not a total scam.)
Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing. - Redd Foxx
For those that didn't RTFA... (Score:5, Interesting)
It should be noted for those that didn't RTFA that this case was more of a cause of bad clinic than a bad procedure.
According to the article, patients with similar kidney issues in a clinical trial in which bone marrow stem cells were injected into the blood stream showed marked improvements.
This clinic, on the other hand, injected these cells directly into the kidney rather than into her blood stream, causing the adult stem cells to try to build blood vessels in her kidney when they should have injected the stem cells into her bloodstream.
So, in other words, had the clinic done what the had been at least moderately successful in previous trials rather than haphazardly throw their own spin onto it, the patient would likely have been fine.
News flash: people sometimes die (Score:3, Interesting)
even if they receive medical treatment. Not that I'm defending some clinic in Thailand, but we don't see a news report every time someone dies from medical treatment, even from "mainstream medicine". And that's because sometimes people die. We all know and accept it, doctors warn you about it. Some doctors even make a living out of it (oncology, any kind of non-trivial surgery, etc), there are industries based on it (if you can call insurance an "industry"). So experimental stem cell treatment is not 100% effective. What is?
Soooo... (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone with an otherwise certainly terminal illness took a chance on experimental treatment, that ended up killing them.
And WHAT is wrong with this?
It's bad enough when people want to be my mom when I prefer to volunteer on unnecessary risks, but in cases like this leave them alone. sheesh. Like you'd prefer to force them to sit at home and die. What's it to you, and what gives you the right?
The question is not... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
You assume she knew the risks, when it's very possible the scientists themselves didn't understand all of the risks. They also may not have disclosed the known risks.
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Hmm, Perhaps I should hold off on
Re:So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Thailand isn't exactly known for health and quality medicine
Hundreds of thousands of westerners go to Thailand for treatment every year. I was treated for a very serious lung infection at Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok back in 1995 and the treatment was better than any I've received in the US or Europe.
http://www.bumrungrad.com/ [bumrungrad.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_tourism#Thailand [wikipedia.org]
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"Dr. Nick Riviera would've done a better job than they did"
Personally, I would prefer to be under the care of Dr. Leo Spaceman. He's a damn good doctor. And a pretty good dentist.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
This has already been pointed out to you shouldn't let your preconceived notions of Thailand based on the sex trade jokes, protests and/or kickboxing movies run your mouth.
Thailand has some very good private hospitals that are the best in the region and are staffed by some very competent folks. Bangkok is a medevac destination for expat organizations in SE Asia. To give you an idea, when I was working for MSF in SE Asia, at one point we had 5-6 expats in Bangkok for various reasons we felt couldn't be treated with confidence in the country of their assigned project, three of whom were themselves physicians, two German, one Japanese. No complaints.
I won't comment on the Thai clinic that performed this procedure, because I don't know and wouldn't know much about it that side of the coin.
And to give you some more perspective, it's funny that you mention Johns Hopkins, because that's where I was trained in my medical specialty.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
You assume she knew the risks, when it's very possible the scientists themselves didn't understand all of the risks. They also may not have disclosed the known risks.
Welcome to the concept of 'experimental' treatment. It means they don't know exactly what it will do or all the possible risks. As TFA states the problem being 'A woman with kidney disease has died after receiving an experimental stem cell treatment... sparked lively debates around the Internet about whether patients should be able to willingly take on risks associated with experimental treatments.' I say let them if they know its experimental (and what experimental entails). If someone has something incurable that can either disable/cause death in the short term then they might be willing to try something experimental as it's at least a hope for something instead of just sitting there and either watching life pass them by/waiting to die. Best case they are part of finding out the cure, worst case they die and we learn why and they knew that death was a very possible answer.
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If you're dying, why shouldn't you be allowed to risk everything on a las-ditch effort to save yourself? If it fails, you're no deader than you'd been had you tried nothing.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
When one has a disease that one *knows* is going to kill you, and soon, where's the risk in trying unproven treatments? Whether the researchers knew or disclosed all of the risks is ultimately irrelevant in this case. If I were in her shoes and the researchers told me that the treatment had a 90% chance of killing me after it was applied, when I knew I was going to die in a matter of weeks or months anyway, I would make the same choice. Some chance is better than none at all.
SB
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The problem seems to be that these clinics where presenting people not qualified to make truly informed decisions (ie folks like you or I who are not doctors or scientists) an authoritive sounding advice that says "This will cure you!", when in fact it was bunkum, and dangerous bunkum at that.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd guess risk is a easier thing to shrug off if you're knocking on deaths door and nobody in your home country is allowed to try anything to stop it for another 43 years of review and trials.
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Re:This will be interesting.... (Score:4, Informative)
As long as an individual is adequately informed of the risks that individual has a right to take that risk. The Geneva convention is about the state using humans as test subjects. That is a whole different can of worms.
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Re:This will be interesting.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe you don't understand how desperate a person can get when they're faced with something "incurable". Back in the 90's, I had lymphoma and thought my goose was cooked. I was lucky enough to be part of a drug trial for a medicine that is routinely used to treat the disease. Of course, it was an excellent university hospital that was doing the trial, and they gave me the very best care, not some third-world biopirate lab. I guess it was caught early enough and I was very very lucky because it's been 13 years now without a recurrence and now I'm healthy as Secretariat on his best day. I've come to believe that it wasn't as dire as I thought it was when I was diagnosed, but I was sure I was a goner at the time. Once the doc said "cancer" I couldn't hear a word and just saw my own death. The chemo was a fucking nightmare and it's taken a decade of tai chi to undo some of the neurotoxicity. Looking back I sort of sleepwalked through the ordeal, but if I'd been faced with early death or some crazy bio-soup from Thailand, I'm not sure I wouldn't roll the dice, even against big odds. I remember "helpful" family members talking to me about faith healers and shit and thank god it didn't come to me making that kind of decision.
Re:This will be interesting.... (Score:5, Funny)
>> thank god it didn't come to me making that kind of decision
I don't get it, which side are you on?
Re:This will be interesting.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Not as a form of detox, friend, but as a way to help me get my balance back. I had gotten to the point where I couldn't put a pair of socks on or tie my shoes without sitting down. I'd get dizzy walking up a flight of stairs.
The chemo made me weak, damaged my immune system, my stamina. Tai Chi has helped out a lot. As a form of exercise, tai chi, like other martial arts, is terrific. It's not about healing disease, it's about feeling better. There's a growing amount of research showing the benefits of Tai Chi, including over a thousand years of human trials with tens of millions of Chinese as subjects. That may not be enough "data" to satisfy you, but I've got an 85 year old instructor, Grandmaster Hsu Fun Yuen, who could kick your ass, and certainly mine, around the room right now without raising his heartrate. He says it's the tai chi that gives him longevity, vitality enough to have a 7 year old daughter, and I ain't gonna argue with him. When you see an 85 year old man execute a perfect flying kick while swinging a 3 pound broadsword (Dao) in the tai chi sword form, it's convincing as hell.
It's also fun, which makes the health benefits icing on the cake.
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As long as someone says it, it must be true!
If they say it, and they've obviously done it, then it just might be true.
Then that makes it, almost by definition, faith.
It's not faith when you've got a very strong piece of evidence staring you in the face.
but the reasons you cite are not really valid scientific evidence.
That means absolutely nothing. Evidence, by itself, is never scientific. It's the repetition and measurement that are scientific.
His reasons are based on observation that his instructor is extremely fit at an age where most men are very feeble, and his own recovery has been excellent. There is no faith there, it's based on observation. According
Re:This will be interesting.... (Score:4, Insightful)
What's interesting is how you extol the virtues of tai chi as a form of detox, and then go on to talk about "crazy biopirates" in the same breath.
What's interesting is how you are devious enough in trying to find a logical flaw where there is none. Tai chi, Yoga and other form of slow-mo exercises are good for dealing with impaired motor skills. That you assumed he was talking about esoteric hocus pocus says more about yourself than the poster.
Re:This will be interesting.... (Score:4, Interesting)
As long as an individual is adequately informed of the risks that individual has a right to take that risk.
That's a meaningless platitude when it comes to something like this.
Many individuals with these diseases or conditions considering these treatments have no sense of risk left at all. They will do *anything* whether it has the slightest basis in science, or relies entirely on magic, astrology, mysticism, the power of crystals, aliens, jesus, snake oil... anything.
It is morally wrong to exploit someone in that position financially (or otherwise). Claiming that you disclosed the risks and they signed the waiver doesn't make it ok. In a sense they do have a gun pointed at their head... whats a raft of fine print and a 2nd mortgage when your life is on the line.
And they're promising the solution* to all your problems!!
(in 2pt font: * solution not guaranteed to solve your problems, and may actually make them worse, but there's a nother treatment we can try that will solve* that, but its a bit riskier and more expensive...)
The Geneva convention is about the state using humans as test subjects. That is a whole different can of worms.
Agreed.
Re:This will be interesting.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Our health care choices are already far too restricted -- ever notice how the word "prescription", which actually means "recommendation" is used as if it means "license"? If you need a substance but the witch doctors who represent Big Pharma say you don't you can be imprisoned for posessing it -- now that's real insanity!
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Who better to experiment on than a terminally patient with nothing to lose who is willing to give it a shot?
For only $160,000 I can will inject you with a solution containing the power of crystals dissolved in a heterogenous suspension while you receive a photon bath. It may cure terminal cancers of the liver, pancreas, or in some cases lungs.
So if I find a terminally ill patient with "nothing to lose who is willing to give it a shot", that's ok.
Even if I just inject him with salted milk while I wave a flas
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Tell me again why "big pharma" wants their experimental drugs restricted from use again?
Re:This will be interesting.... (Score:5, Funny)
I think he's talking about weed. Weed makes Big Pharma paranoid.
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It has nothing to do with experimental.
When a drug is prescription, it costs a lot more. It's just a rule in the drug market.
Drug companies fight HARD to make sure that while the drug is patented (first 7 years) that it is prescription so they can sell it for a higher price while they have a monopoly on the product.
When the 7 years is running out and generics are about to come out, they fight HARD to make sure it is over-the-counter, because they have a better chance of beating out generics when they don't
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Drug companies fight HARD to make sure that while the drug is patented...
Was that a veiled viagra reference?
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You appear to be advocating "protecting terminally ill patients from themselves". Seeing as how they are already terminally ill that seems just a bit silly. Who better to experiment on than a terminally patient with nothing to lose who is willing to give it a shot?
Why is it silly? Even if someone is terminally ill, there's a duty to try to extended a quality life for them. Even terminally ill patients that opt for medical trials are given state of the art care. They're not given placebo or Formula-409. They're given best-treatment-plus-placebo or best-treatment-plus-Forumula-409. What you're arguing for is the recklessness and effectiveness of snake oil salesmen, homeopathy, and herbal supplements. ("If Extenze didn't do something amazing could we afford to giv
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Noted, thank you. I'll make sure to pay closer attention to the wording, as I'm only marginally familiar with the convention. Though I wouldn't be surprised if the doctors were somehow connected to the state.
For future reference, whenever somebody tells you that "the Geneva Convention says you can/can't do X", that should immediately set off your bullshit detector. The conventions have become a kind of layperson shorthand for "international regulations", so everybody and their dog has some pretty weird notions about what they cover. People see these references to the GCs, assume the person making the reference knows better than they do, and the cycle continues.
The Geneva Conventions cover the treatment, in wa
Convincingly stated. (Score:3, Insightful)
*cough* [wikipedia.org]
"The full title is Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects and it
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*cough* *cough* [wikipedia.org]:
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Any "Hungry" tumor will create a "vasculoma". (A tangled mass of thick veins) This is because the tumor produces "stress" hormones when it is "undernourished", which stimulates the production of these veins, which form in and around the site of the tumor, in order to feed said tumor.
This is one of the issues surrounding tumor removal, and why some tumors are unsafe to be removed.
Also, some totally benign tumors (slow growth, small if any risk of cancer) can develop vasculoma tissues inside and surrounding i
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Scientists and doctors are often trained not to overstate conclusions, since things are never certain. Which is partially why creationists can say "It's just a theory" and rather than just say "You're wrong and an idiot" scientists usually start explaining how they're mostly wrong, and by the third paragraph, anyone undecided lost interest and decided evolution was just a theory.
In this case, you could hypothesize that she may have been the first known victim of an extremely rare disease, independant from
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Extra not in there...
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The term "macroevolution" frequently arises within the context of the evolution/creation debate, usually used by creationists alleging a significant difference between the evolutionary changes observed in field and laboratory studies and the larger scale macroevolutionary changes that scientists believe to have taken thousands or millions of years to occur. They may accept that evolutionary change is possible within species ("microevolution"), but deny that one species can evolve into another ("macroevolution"). Contrary to this belief among the anti-evolution movement proponents, evolution of life forms beyond the species level ("macroevolution", i.e. speciation in a specific case) has indeed been observed multiple times under both controlled laboratory conditions and in nature.
Creationism and Intelligent Design are not science. By your logic gravity is also "only a theory". I invite you to step off the roof, because being only a theory, gravity might not affect you.