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Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

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Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#111

Post by gregshap »

sjg007 wrote: post #89
voxic11 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, cancer does not have standardized treatments. The remission rates vary greatly depending on the hospital and even on the doctor.

Huh...? There are standard treatment protocols.

Speaking from very recent experience, some things are obviously standard, like "take these pills twice a day" but cancer often comes with lots of ancillary issues, and most treatments come with side effects.

There was a lot of variance in how doctors and nurses treated the side effects, how they spoke to the patient, what other resources they provided, the quality of bedside manner, their attentiveness to lab results and patient health over time, whether they consistently washed their hands, etc.

People don't really die "of cancer" they die of things like blood loss, toxic build up from renal failure, blood clots, or infections acquired in the hospital that attack a weakened immune system, to name a few.

Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#112

Post by omegaworks »

gozur88 wrote: post #101
omegaworks wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CHS and NHS are able to negotiate drug prices even though they can't coerce US companies with force.

"You give us this price or we don't use your drug" isn't coercion?

The drug company can walk away from the negotiation. Either party can say no. That's the difference between coercion and negotiation.

Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#113

Post by gregshap »

jackweirdy wrote: post #3

> Although the cases drew wide media attention in Britain, some researchers said that because the London team also gave the children standard chemotherapy, they failed to show the cell treatment actually cured the kids. Could someone explain what the process for proving it would be in this case? I presume some kind of animal testing? Seems pretty immoral to give someone a wildcard treatment and not back it up with so…

Animal testing is used for some initial toxicology and indicators that a treatment is worth testing in humans but you can't use animals to "prove" a treatment is effective for people.

Once a treatment is through animal safety trials, they will give it to patients with very advanced stages of cancer, who are considered unlikely to survive very long. This is both to minimize harm, and make it easier and cheaper to tell whether a treatment worked.

Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#114

Post by r00fus »

earthly10x wrote: post #72
lisper wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is author serious with this statement? Whether or not this author is serious, there are many people who are deadly serious about this sort of thing. It's one of the main reasons that, for example, marijuana has been kept illegal despite the overwhelming evidence that it is less dangerous than either alcohol or cigarettes: legalizing pot is bad for established business interests. It's the reason that credit card tra…

Farther back in the history of the demonization of marijuana you'll find it's connected to an argument used by fundamental Christians, Evangelical Christians, related to demons, spirits and the spirit world. Now combine that with fundamental republican right.

Don't forget racism - reefer madness was invented to further joint stigmatize minorities and MJ (pun intended).

Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#116

Post by omegaworks »

refurb wrote: post #100
omegaworks wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please offer an alternative rationale for why they aren't as effective. I'm trying to understand why US healthcare is so broken.

It's easy. The UK can say "no" to paying for certain drugs. They take some political flak for it, but overall they've been able to keep spending down. Even mention not paying for something in the US and holy hell happens. Even Medicare and Medicaid can't say no for the most part. If American's want cheaper healthcare they are going to have to get used to having less of it and not get all the fancy new technology righ…

>It's easy.

No, clearly it's not.

I work for a startup that's delivering health services. Insurance companies have a very high bar for what they cover.

They are very conservative about covering new therapies. There's a lot of snake oil in medicine (acupuncture, homeopathy) and they don't want to pay for what doesn't keep their members healthy.

Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#117

Post by gozur88 »

omegaworks wrote: post #112
gozur88 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You give us this price or we don't use your drug" isn't coercion?

The drug company can walk away from the negotiation. Either party can say no. That's the difference between coercion and negotiation.

The difference is governments don't have competition. If you play hardball with a drug company in the US, one of the reasons they can walk away is there are other insurance companys to which they can sell their drugs.

And insurance companies can't throw drug company officers in jail.

Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#118

Post by tracker1 »

woofyman wrote: post #103
refurb wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but sales and marketing has a positive ROI. If you spend $100M on sales and marketing, you'll get $150M back (for example). Otherwise, why would you do it? So if pharma companies cut out all of their sales and marketing, they'd have even less revenue than they do today. And that would lower R&D spend.

Why do drugs need marketing?

This... I feel that we (US) should go back a bit on this, and restrict all advertising not in specific magazines/journals that target doctors, and restrict office visits of pharma reps to dr offices.

Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#119

Post by sjg007 »

gregshap wrote: post #111
sjg007 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh...? There are standard treatment protocols.

Speaking from very recent experience, some things are obviously standard, like "take these pills twice a day" but cancer often comes with lots of ancillary issues, and most treatments come with side effects. There was a lot of variance in how doctors and nurses treated the side effects, how they spoke to the patient, what other resources they provided, the quality of bedside manner, their attentiveness to lab results…

Sure. Anyone with cancer should go to a high volume academic and designated cancer center. The hospital should also rate high in us news and reports and score top marks in nurses, safety and cleanliness. But you can't deviate from FDA guidelines except in very exceptional cases.

Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#120

Post by ZeroFries »

woofyman wrote: post #103
refurb wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but sales and marketing has a positive ROI. If you spend $100M on sales and marketing, you'll get $150M back (for example). Otherwise, why would you do it? So if pharma companies cut out all of their sales and marketing, they'd have even less revenue than they do today. And that would lower R&D spend.

Why do drugs need marketing?

Why does anything need marketing?
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