Cheap, Safe, Patentless Cancer Drug Discovered 576
PyroMosh writes "The New Scientist is reporting that researchers working at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada have discovered that an existing drug called dichloroacetate (DCA) is effective in killing cancer cells, while leaving the host's healthy cells unharmed. DCA has already been used for years to treat metabolic disorders, and is known to be fairly safe. Sounds like great news, is it too good to be true? Why is the mainstream news media failing to report on this potential breakthrough? The University of Alberta and the Alberta Cancer Board have set up a site with more info, where you can also donate to support future clinical trials."
Patentless? (Score:4, Interesting)
Open Source Medicine?
How would you write the GPL of pharmacopeia?
Re:Patentless? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Patentless? (Score:5, Insightful)
One more link in the chain (Score:3, Insightful)
There's at least one more link in the chain that you're referring to... Don't forget the attorneys that launch frivolous lawsuits against the doctors and insurance companies to extract windfalls for clients and take 40%.
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Whew! You mentioned channeling and for a minute I thought you meant this guy [wikipedia.org]!
Re:Patentless? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I make decent income now. However, I did 8 years schooling (that I am still paying for) followed by 7 years of residency and fellowship training in which I made $50K for 80 hour weeks + overnight in hospital calls and every third weekend on call. I think I'm due a bit more than average U.S. income, thank-you-very-much.
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Oh, so you worked for EA while you attended medical school?
Re:Patentless? (Score:5, Insightful)
Doctors need longer schooling (Score:3, Insightful)
--
Part of it is pure hazing - the medical chiefs had to go through it so the new guys should too...
The other part, which is probably harder
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Isn't it ironic that a profession alleged to be dedicated to the good of mankind is completely unwilling to accept human limitations as a criteria for their management in the work place? Sorry if I am so crass but the medical profession has made a business out of this sort of cruel behavior. (No this isn't troll -- its a fact)
Actually this whole story and it's subsequent discussions illustrates the conflicts of interest that develop as you take a person and reduce them to a mere cog in the wheels of so
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This shows why you should never trust a corporation to make decisions about safety and the value of human life. They'll choose the bottom line over safety every time.
Re:Patentless? (Score:5, Insightful)
Some places have formally socialized medicine and we have informally socialized medicine
Re:Patentless? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Patentless? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Patentless? (Score:5, Insightful)
In the 1980's, there was no such thing as deployed pay for overseas duty, and we paid all federal and state taxes as well as Social Security. Hazardous Duty Pay today is still only about $150 a month.
Yes, we given "three hots and a cot", and our facilities were decent. However, when you are in the field, your living conditions can be a bit primitive, and you can be out there for quite a while. Yes, there were benefits, but the downside risks are very serious. You never forget the first time you are given mission load (the ammunition you will use) and told "this is not an exercise". Thankfully, I never faced combat, especially since a war in 1980's Europe would have gotten very ugly, very quickly.
In my original post, I just wanted to point out that we each have our cross to bear and we each chose it.
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I shouldn't have to keep telling you children this (Score:5, Interesting)
I sincerely believe what I posted above. If you want to have a reasoned debate about it, I'm game. But modding me down just makes you out to be the ignorant child you are.
Now, let me address something ShadowsHawk said [slashdot.org] in response to my comment.
That's right. People join the military to get job training, or to get money for college, or because they've been brainwashed into a military tradition by their family, or lastly and leastly, so they can serve their country. But what all of these people have in common is that, wittingly or not, they are doing just that.
Now, I would argue that any responsible adult should be able to consider the repercussions of their actions, and one of the things that results from joining the military is that it grows. I know this sounds like a very sophomoric point to actually address, but since some people (including your esteemed self) don't seem to be getting this point, I'm going to belabor it until the dead horse has been well-whipped. I can think of no other way to get the point across. When the military is larger, it is easier to apply it to various situations in which it is not warranted. For instance, http://adbusters.org/media/flash/hope_and_memory/t imeline.swf [adbusters.org] is one of my favorite little presentations on American military history. If you just glance through it you will see that the majority of American military actions were questionable to say the least. We forced Japan to trade with us by force, and of course we all know that we invaded Mexico repeatedly, and stole large portions of what is now the Estados Unidos Norteamericanos away from them, forcing them at gunpoint to sell the rest for a song. We were involved in the Opium wars. We annexed Hawaii in 1898. Especially check out Honduras in 1905; this is one of many American military conquests specifically supporting the United Fruit Company [wikipedia.org]. Look carefully at Nicaragua in 1910, Cuba in 1917, Guatemala in 1954, Haiti in 1959...
The list goes on and on but what all of these things have in common is that they were financially motivated. They weren't about helping people. They were about money and power. Yes, in the same list there are conflicts that are about protecting people from bad people. There's attacks on pirates (the real kind) and their institutions. There's WWI and WWII.
Today, we are seeing much the same thing. We have bombed the shit out of a middle eastern company yet again. And yet again, the bulk of the rebuilding will be carried out by American contractors. In fact, the sole contractor overseeing and profiting from the entire thing is, guess who, Halliburton. The government claimed that they were the only contractor that could be ready "in time" and so they got the contract. Gee, I wonder why they were the only ones to meet the lengthy, detailed, and frankly unnecessary requirements so suddenly. Could they have had, you know, advance warning? Given the connection between certain high-ranking officials in our government and Halliburton, not only is that highly likely, but it is a virtual certainty.
Are you getting the message yet? There are times when the American military has done good things. Most of these were minor conflicts. A couple of them were major. In the case of the minor conflicts, a large standing military was not necessary. In the case of the major ones, the draft was utilized to bring up the numbers of people sent off to combat the menace. In neither case is a large standing military requir
Re:Patentless? (Score:4, Informative)
If you're in a hostile fire zone, you get (depending on your rank) around $100-200 extra per month, and tax-free income (Which is pointless at the lower ranks, because you're barely paying taxes in the first place).
If you're premenantly in a foreign country (Germany, UK, Japan, etc.) - you get a Cost of Living allowance that supposedly normalizes your pay to account for the dollar's shitty exchange rate. If you buy all your stuff on base, or over the internet, this is huge (~400 a month here in Germany, higher in the UK or Japan)
Military chow halls are, by and large, disgusting places to eat at. People who absolutely have to save money (heavy debts, etc.) - will eat there religiously. The rest of us buy food.
Housing is indeed paid for, it's adjusted to the local area's housing prices.
Overall with my allowances and base pay, I'm getting paid somewhere around $40K a year, total, as an E-3.
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Re:Patentless? (Score:5, Interesting)
You think you're the only type of business that has overhead? Virtually every business pays an office staff, has to be insured, needs a building, etc. Why don't they charge outrageous fees? It comes back to the arrogant sense of entitlement that you exhibit. My plumber is more professional and friendly than any doctor I have ever seen. He comes to my home, does his job and courteously thanks me. He charges less than my doctor. If he can do it, why can't you?
I will never trust you. You are a doctor. It is in your best interest to keep me just well enough to survive, but sick enough to keep returning. You are exceptionally greedy, and you wouldn't hesitate to prolong, rather than cure, any illness. I will only go to doctors if I need to, and I will second guess EVERYTHING you say. It is for the best, because you wouldn't hesitate to kill me by making me take medications that are dangerous, but which you get kickbacks for prescribing.
A tad hostile in your approach but.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I get to pay a docto
Re:Patentless? (Score:4, Insightful)
You do realize how little your doctor will ever see of that $800 right?
If your plumber fucks up the pipes, he has to come back out and fix the leak. If your doctor fucks up *your* pipes you're dead.
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You're wrong about the error rate. According to the FDA [fda.gov] medical errors in hospitals kill 50k-100k Americans per year, and are the 8th largest cau
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Where did you do your residency? ;)
As someone who spent twenty years writing software professionally at startups before taking on my current career, I'm callin' BS, there's no equivalent of residency in my old career.
I will never trust you. You are a doctor...
Wow, you sound very angry. Perhaps you, like I, have had some very bad doctors in the past. If that's the case,
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Caltech. Only we call it a post-doc.
I used to work in medical physics (after a relatively short 13 years of undergrad, graduate school, and post-doc'ing in pure physics) and it was very clear that MD's had it made financially over PhD's, despite the fact that we had at least as much opportunity to kill people with our mistakes.
MD's are highly paid for exactly one reason. As Adam Smith once said, "Never do two or three men of the same trade sit down together over a pint o
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I should start off by saying that I thought your post was utter bullshit times ten.
I'll try to address your points briefly.
No. I am a professional programmer, and I can attest that the average programmer/engineer has a bachelor's degree. We do
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Of course, doctors aren't quite the worst offenders here. You do know why orthodontists charge so much, don't you?
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I disagree. There's everything wrong with becoming a doctor to make money. Without the passion for helping people, the training means nothing; like any profession, you have to give a damn about what you're working on. I'm not saying you shouldn't get into medicine without the expectation of making money; it's a profession, you have to expect returns on it. I'm just saying that the AMOUNT of money you make is peripheral to a good doctor: It s
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For instance, in the state of Pennsylvania, recently there was an exodus of practicing high-risk obstetricians due to the increase in malpractice insurance for the specialty. It's a part
Socialized medicine (Score:2)
Public health care systems still relies on patents to finance private medical research, so no difference there.
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Dogma shoots the US in the foot...again (Score:5, Informative)
If you are just interested in your health then use the "free" (1.5% of taxable income) universal health cover, even millionaires are not forced to pay more than $1200yr for prescriptions. The doctors are well paid, nurses are well trained and the PUBLIC hospitals measure up to anything offered overseas. What's more I recently visited the UK and got a chest infection, went to casualty twice and got antibiotics "free". The doctor laughed when I ask "should I pay at reception", seems our governments have a recipricol arrangement to look after each other tourists.
A company must make a profit, that is it's sole reason for existance, if the government can't do it to a higher standard with less money then they are doing something wrong. No Australian politician would dare dismantle the public scheme and go back to the early 70's privatised "pay or die" scheme, the voting public would tie them to an ambulance and drag them through the streets. This situation is also boosted by a "balance of power/share the blame" component, the fed's collect the money and the various states spend it. If you are seriously ill in this country there is absolutely no fucking around, especially with admin, accountants and lawyers, because guess what - prevention and early treatment is much cheaper than "the machine that goes ping". Oh and guess what - a healthier population is less profitable for private hostpitals and more productive in
Having said that I will also point out Godel has proven no system is complete, some doctors are butchers and that is when the lawyers, accountants and admin come out of the woodwork. However all I ever hear from American's when asked "why not have UHC like just about every other wealthy country", is a ranting reply about their pathological fear of "socialisim" and vacuous examples of "higher costs". Some will listen and are surprised by the reality they find, others are like the people who talk about global warming on Mars to deny it on Earth, there is no possible reply to that level of brainwashed dogma other than sarcasam and abuse.
And before some free market zealot starts waving the WSJ to point out the painfully obvious: yes UHC is a form of "socialisim", some things just work better that way, New York's central park for example or does Disney sell tickets to walk your dog now?
Re:Dogma shoots the US in the foot...again (Score:4, Insightful)
So why would I be better off under socialized medicine? I'd pay more, and if managed the way the government manages everything else they touch I'd get less. You all in the rest of the world like to point out how incompetent the US government is (and often with good reason), why do you think they'd be any better at running health care than they are at other things?
Re:Dogma shoots the US in the foot...again (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not going to claim a direct causal relationship, but you might consider that the United States, with its vaunted privatized healthcare system, ranks 42nd [os-connect.com] in life expectancy among the countries of the world. When I did research on this a few years ago, 80% of the countries that came in with longer life expectancies than the US had some form of universal health care coverage.
On a more anecdotal note, I've waited hours in an emergency room in the US to get broken bones taken care of, so I call bullshit on claims of how the US medical system is oh-so-efficient and effective and superior to socialized systems. On top of that, since we have organizations (insurance companies, HMOs) actively working to penalize for and dissuade you from spending money on health care, I also call bullshit on any claim that you're getting the best care money can buy in the US.
--- SER
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Maybe for the same reason that you are better off with socialized highways and socialized airports and socialized fire departments, etc. Why is it that health care is the only pay as you go item that makes people through up the socialism flag?
It used to be that belonging to a society meant that we all sacrificed a little for the common good of the society. No one individual pays enough to cover the cost of the roads they travel or the cost of building
You don't get a damned thing, eh? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Now watch some idiot ignore the bold-fonts in the above and try to make some bogus counte
DCA is completely useless: it harms profits (Score:5, Insightful)
on DCA, in fact it even harms industry profits. Think of all the
chemotherapy, surgery and radiation therapy that doesn't get done
because of it.
A cancer patient usually brings in more or less a cool $100,000 in
profit, a breast cancer patient slightly less, a prostate cancer
slightly more.
Perfect example of why patents are good (Score:4, Insightful)
One could bring this to market through a socialized medicine scheme of course. Or one could let third world countries implicitly test it for us for safety and efficacy.
It's a really good example of why patents and intellectual property are good things. They encourage private investment in the public interest by creating a profit incentive.
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Actually more of it goes into marketing patented drugs than into research [pietersz.co.uk].
Re:DCA is completely useless: it harms profits (Score:5, Informative)
health and well-being of people and a single-minded focus on profit -
whatever the human cost."
Here's a fourth one: AZT as an AIDS treatment. The drug was initially produced in the early 1960s under a NIH grant as a cancer treatment, but wasn't particularly efficacious and had nasty side effects, so it fell out of usage. Then, in the mid 1980s, three scientists from the National Cancer Institute who were working with a couple of others from Burroughs-Welcome (now GlaxoSmithKline) discovered that it was effective against the AIDS virus, and after a small trial that cost very little (the initial Welcome scientists were working at the National Cancer Institute and using their facilities, so Welcome's initial investment amounted to two peoples' wages), Burroughs-Welcome were given a usage patent by the FDA on this previously public domain medication, and proceeded to charge the _highest price of any treatment in prior history_ for something that was extremely cheap and easy to produce. Furthermore, this patent was upheld by the US Supreme Profit Ensurers (those people who decided that "eminent domain" lets local governments take your property and sell it to someone else whenever they feel like it) against challenges by AIDS organisations two separate occasions.
Dupe (Score:3, Informative)
Thanks for playing.
Re:Dupe (Score:5, Insightful)
Rock and a... (Score:2)
I mean, even if I want to pay for it? Man, talk about a rock and a not-so-hard place...
Even this announcement is a little late... (Score:4, Interesting)
And the reason it won't get any funding to study whether or not it's a real cure for cancer is because there's no money in it! If it's a cheap solution and it magically cures cancer... where's the profit in that?
So people will continue to die from cancer, who could have been cured by this cheap drug, because it would offset the bottom line. Nice world we life in, huh? Up next: Other things about this world you didn't know! Wal*Mart sells toys made by third-world children in order to sell them cheap in the United States!
Re:Even this announcement is a little late... (Score:5, Insightful)
As to funding studies, there are plenty of rich people, or simply the giving types, that would donate towards this. Again, with the drug already in existence, it's not a question of production, simply a question of supply and testing expenses. I've heard the same argument about Linux (why use it? It'll never be updated because there's no money in it...) but it keeps a lot of people pretty happy. Besides, this is a college, they can apply for more grants or funding than anybody would care to count.
The part I'm worried about...while pharmacological companies can mass-produce cheaply and without patent overhead, the bigger concern is that this drug shows some shred of a chance to cure some types/cases of cancer. The problem is, as the old saying goes "There's more money in treating the disease than there is in curing it". Just because there's profit to be made, and real potential here, there's a real chance that it won't happen because it won't induce continual and regular profit.
Re:Even this announcement is a little late... (Score:5, Insightful)
Cancer is very costly disease which costs the government, and as a result Canadian citizens a lot of money. If there was something that could cure cancer at a very minimal cost, it could save the government millions (possibly billions) in health care dollars every year. Not only that, many other countries which also have socialized medicine, such as all of the EU, would benefit from something like this in a similar way. I can see government funding filling the role that pharmeceutical companies normally play in this simply because it could save them billions.
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Cancer is very costly disease which costs the government, and as a result Canadian citizens a lot of money. If there was something that could cure cancer at a very minimal cost, it could save the government millions (possibly billions) in health care dollars every year. Not only that, many other countries which also have socialized medicine, such as all of the EU, would benefit from something like this in a similar way. I can see government funding filling the role that pharmeceutical companies normally play in this simply because it could save them billions.
Substitute 'HMO' for 'government' in the above paragraph. All it demonstrates is that making someone responsible lowers costs. It does not demonstrate that government does it better.
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touchy touchy.
PS: Canada does cover everyone for less per capita than the US covers the old and the poor. ; )
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Re:Even this announcement is a little late... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Even this announcement is a little late... (Score:5, Funny)
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SPOOOOOOOOOOOON !!!!!!
Sorry about that. I guess this whole story has got me a little Tick-ed off.
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So the cost should be minimal compared to other clinical trials. Does this mean we can smoke again?
Not all the world is the US (Score:2)
Non-profit research (Score:2)
I'm sure there must be similar organizations in other countries, so funding for a promising treatment should be possible even without a profit motive.
Not what it seems (Score:5, Interesting)
But many, many things kill cancer in mice but don't in humans-- mice have significantly different molecular machinery than we do re: cancer prevention (just look at the cancer rates of control lab rats!). This is promising, but it's no breakthrough until it proves itself in humans.
I feel there's a lot of politicking going on behind the scenes on this issue.
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Re:Not what it seems (Score:5, Informative)
DCA and a related chemical TCE were both found to play a prominent role in creating liver cancers with DCA accelerating the growth rate of liver cancer [osti.gov]
Later research found that DCA and its metabolites may have different roles in the cancer process and that dose-response is very non-linear because DCA inhibits its own metabolism. [inist.fr]
DCA has such serious side effects on the human nervous system that in a recent study 15 out of 15 test patients had to be taken off experimental DCA treatment because of toxic neuropathy and the study was terminated early. [neurology.org]
DCA has been found to prevent and reverses pulmonary high blood pressure [ahajournals.org]
Re:Not what it seems- some science background (Score:5, Informative)
Those are interesting links and it's always good to keep the downsides in mind. But, on the scientific merit I did want to add:
The first link refers to a summary about trichloroethylene environmental cleanup, and the effects of DCA as a metabolic breakdown product of TCE. This is rather different from controlled dosage in a medical application. Every cancer drug known is a violent poison whose effects at uncontrolled dosage are not pretty.
The second link is a scientific article talking, again, about the medical effects of TCE in the environment.
The third link discusses the use of DCA in a similar context to the cancer study, ie to lower metabolic rate of mitochondria. However, they were trying to lower the rate of all the patient's mitochondria, not cancerous ones, because they were trying to treat a metabolic disease. The dosage rate was 25 mg/kg/day. For a 70kg person (154 lbs), that's 1750 mg per day, which is on the order of two teaspoons-worth of pure drug. That is an enormous dose. The whole point with the cancer cells is their metabolism is so revved up that they're susceptible to much lower doses than normal cells. I don't know what the dosage in the Alberta study was, but I'd expect it to be a lot lower.
The fourth link discusses research that showed DCA-induced cell death (=apoptosis) in the smooth muscle cells of pulmonary arteries. Again, these are not cancerous cells, but they are over-active, I gather from the article, in pulmonary hypertension.
Any time there's a difference in mitochondrial activity between normal cells and targeted cells, there's the possibility that DCA could be used to selectively target the abnormal cells without harming the others. That said, anything that targets mitochondria is a vicious drug that does need to be treated with lots of caution.
a little early (Score:3, Insightful)
while the revelation of the compound is somewhat novel, research around diseases has supposed "breakthroughs" like this quite often. the quest for funding outright on the web seems awkward, since there's more than enough foundations that fund cancer research and medicine. but i'm not in academia, so maybe this is the norm?
i'm not a big believer in conspiracies, and if cancer folks will travel to the backwaters of the earth to get voodoo remedies, shark parts and holy men to pray over them, they will surely fund anything with even a glimmer of promise. if this works, i expect it to float to the top once the news catches on (and it works).
Please, not another breakthrough (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Please, not another breakthrough (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Please, not another breakthrough (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a repeat (Score:3, Informative)
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For real this time (Score:4, Funny)
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Why isn't it reported?? (Score:3, Funny)
The questionable veracity of the story would certainly not scare the 24 hour news cycle away. The subject matter is certainly important enough to everyone. But does it scare you? No, a non-poisonous cure for cancer doesn't keep you glued to TV in fear to watch the 55 minutes of speculation, filler, and opinion to follow, and is therefore not news.
The news day has to be really slow to get more than a passing mention of good news on any major media network.
Then again, I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed.
why no press? No $$$$!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, if it was brand new, and cured an imaginary illness, then we'd be inundated with advertising on its behalf, as the plutocrats running the drug industry would be spending every dime they could to make as much money as fast as they could to recoup the losses of development and to line their own greedy pockets.
I don't see why this is even a question.
RS
Discovered.. as in just.... or..... recently? (Score:2)
It may be the case in North America and in some other Industrialized countries, but this would not be the case in Africa, India, an
Cheap does not make some people happy (Score:3, Insightful)
Reason, low amount of money.
I have personally seen this happening in case of another drug.
Once after a culture report we found that the only drug which would deactivate this bacteria was the cheapest antibiotic available in the market (1rs/tablet in India, or 1p in US$ amount).
But very few chemists stock it.
Why? doctors don't recommend it. It also can take care of many bacteria for which there are much more expensive antibiotics available and only those get prescribed.
Had to literally scout the whole city to get the medicine.
Low profit margins? Nobody is interested, this is the state of the drug industry today, and it is a sad state. So if somebody developed a cheap "open source" drug which will take of most bacterial infections, nobody will be interested, however, if the same drug is so expensive that you can't afford it without insurance, it will get backing, no matter how lousy it is.
Disinfection byproduct (Score:5, Informative)
The regulated concentration of DBPs is several orders of magnitude below the doses of DCA that are listed in the linked articles, so don't count on getting (or killing) cancer from your drinking water.
List of common Drinking Water Contaminants [epa.gov]
Canadian Health Care System (Score:4, Interesting)
Keeping all the people who would have died of cancer in your economy would also keep it nice and healthy.
DCA is not safe (neurotoxicity) (Score:4, Interesting)
see "Dichloroacetate causes toxic neuropathy in MELAS, A randomized, controlled clinical trial "
P. Kaufmann, MD, MSc, et al, NEUROLOGY 2006;66:324-330
[see http://www.neurology.org/cgi/content/abstract/66/
[excerpts:-]
"Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of dichloroacetate (DCA) in the treatment of mitochondrial myopathy, encephalopathy, lactic acidosis and stroke-like episodes (MELAS)."
[...snip...]
"Conclusion: DCA at 25 mg/kg/day is associated with peripheral nerve toxicity resulting in a high rate of medication discontinuation and early study termination. Under these experimental conditions, the authors were unable to detect any beneficial effect. The findings show that DCA-associated neuropathy overshadows the assessment of any potential benefit in MELAS."
It seems that the researchers at Alberta have not put DCA into any patients yet, and so we can't know how the effective human dose (if there even is one) for discouraging the growth of cancer cells relates to the toxic doses (which unfortunately do exist) seen in the reported clinical trial for another potential medical indication.
This begins to smell to me of hype.
-wb-
Inaccurate (Score:3, Informative)
The premise of the article is flawed. First, using DCA to treat cancer IS patentable -- it would be a new indication for the compound. Also, it's known to be moderately toxic in humans, causing organ damage and exacerbating certain cancers (esp. hepatic). Also, there's not any evidence that it may have the sames effect in humans as in mice. Further, the safety work for the drug, production, and formulation have been worked out long ago. Right now, one would only need to do a study to show efficacy and that'd likely cost less than $1 million; which is an amount for which grants are still widely available.
So, the article is a little misleading. Nobody (other than the article author) feels that this drug would cure cancer, or that it's even less toxic than current treatments. There's also most assuredly profit to be had from it.
Re:Patentless (Score:5, Insightful)
It's only hope is to be prescribed as an "off-label" treatment, or for a University to foot the bill for the betterment of mankind.
Re:Patentless (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Patentless (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Patentless (Score:4, Insightful)
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I pity thee.
While not religious myself I do believe in the vague notion of karma (I say vague as not to insult the religious as I only really take the superficial qualities of it).
While I'm all for having money to buy toys and what not, helping people for no other reason than they need the help and I can provide it, is often more than enough reason for me to move to action. And you know wh
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, and the rest of us label people like that (you?) "leeches", or just "assholes" - people who benefit greatly from the advantages of civilization, rule of law, and a modern infrastructure, then turn around and say "That's mine!! How dare you tax me!" when asked to contribute to that. Generally, that's the sort of behavior which encourages societies to eventually entr
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FDA approves the drug as manufactured BY THAT MANUFACTURER. The reason is that the manufacturing facility itself is part of the approval process. It must meet FDA standards in order to be approved. If a manufacturer builds a new facility, even if it will make currently approved drugs, it must still be newly inspected and approved for each drug it will make.
So the reason FDA requires each manufacturer to seek separate approval for each drug isn't Brand
Re:Patentless (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a lot of people out their with cancer. A lot of them have money. I am sure that given sufficient evidence and a means to provide that money to the proper source, (as the original article linked to) the money will be fourth coming.
Big-Pharma is a dinosaur that deserves whats coming to them.
The future is of this kind of funding is in better organization of charitable donations and social lending.
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Re:Peer review? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Peer review? (Score:5, Informative)
The original article apparently was published in Cell. I am not subscribed to it so I cannot verify that right away, but I am assuming this to be true. If the stuff passed peer review it would have been published in something at that level.
There is an ongoing joke in molecular biology (for the last 10 years). "If you publish once in Cell you can happily retire". Compared to Cell, Science or Nature are yellow corner newshop rags. Also, if it was published in Cell, they are going to be getting money regardless of the patents. All major foundations follow it. There is another joke amidst the molecular biology crowd: "If you publish once in Cell you will never have to ask for funding till you retire, it will come to you". So I would not worry about lack of sponsorship by major pharmaceuticals either.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
The long winter evenings must simply fly by.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.cancercell.org/content/article/abstract ?uid=PIIS1535610806003722&highlight=A%20Mitochondr ia-K+%20Channel%20Axis%20Is%20Suppressed%20%20in%2 0Cancer%20and%20Its%20Normalization%20%20Promotes% 20Apoptosis%20and%20Inhibits%20Cancer%20Growth [cancercell.org]
Slashcode will most likely screw that link, so just go to cancercell.org , and search for the title
A Mitochondria-K+ Channel Axis Is Suppressed
in Cancer and Its Normalization
Promotes Apoptosis and Inhibit
Re:Peer review? Here's the peer reviewed version (Score:3, Informative)
The unique metabolic profile of cancer (aerobic glycolysis) might confer apoptosis resistance and be
therapeutically targeted. Compared to normal cells, several human cancers have high mitochondrial
membrane potential (DJm) and low expression of the K+ channel Kv1.5, both contributing to apoptosis
resistance. Dichloroacetate (DCA) inhibits mitochondrial pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase (PDK),
shifts metabolism from glycolysis to glucose oxidation, decreases DJm, increases mito
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I don't need no instructions to know how to roc (Score:2)
I believe this is what he's referring to:
http://www.dyewell.com/saveboston/ [dyewell.com]
Though all that screen tells me to do is update my flash player...
This time it ain't the drug companies... (Score:3, Interesting)
If this treatment or some other new treatment did in fact cure many cancers inexpensively, it would be a nightmare come true for the chemotherapy industry. How big is that industry, something like $40 billion a year? Wow...
The vast majority of chemotherapy costs are *not* drug costs.
Case in point: My spousal unit has Stage IV breast cancer and has had for almost eight years. She's currently on her sixth course (not round, course) of chemotherapy and is doing pretty well, thankyouverymuch ;-)
Let's talk about drug costs. Doxorubicin (trade name Adriamycin) is generally accepted first line chemotherapy for breast cancer in combination with another drug, Cytoxan. In some parts of the world they use Epirubicin instead,