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One Drug to Shrink All Tumors

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Re: One Drug to Shrink All Tumors

#31

Post by wwwtyro »

roc wrote: post #28
maxharris wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it OK to lump honest physicians, researchers and patients in with snake oil salesmen and their victims? Why is it morally acceptable to have laws intended to help the people that don't care to tell the difference? Those laws come at the expense of those who do care, who take the trouble to figure things out. Why shouldn't we live in a free society where the best within us can make a difference, and take humani…

> "Why shouldn't we live in a free society where the best within us can make a difference, and take humanity forward?" Our free society lived with the alternative . And they collectively decided "the right to be defrauded is a false liberty, this is no the way forward, let us try another way." And you know what? We've moved further forward, faster since these regulations were put into place. When people have trust th…

"We've moved further forward, faster since these regulations were put into place."

Or perhaps we've moved further forward, faster in spite of these regulations being put into place.

Honestly, your position sounds like so much FUD to me, and I ultimately reject it because it boils down to this: "The US government has more of a right to determine what Heather Cimino's husband can do with his own body than he does, even should he die."

No thanks.

Re: One Drug to Shrink All Tumors

#32

Post by pcrh »

jasallen wrote: post #10

My best friend was just put into hospice for metastasized melanoma. He's 35. Where is this stuff? Nothing more useful to add to this comment. Sorry

Sorry for your friend.

This is the original article: http://www.pnas.org/content/109/17/6662

You can actually get the antibody yourself, FTA: "The anti-hCD47 (B6H12) hybridoma was obtained from the ATCC" [http://www.lgcstandards-atcc.org/Products/All/HB-9771.aspx]

Purifying it is easy, if you have a lab.

However... you can't use that antibody directly in humans, since it is a mouse antibody, which the human immune system will recognize as foreign. So, even if this treatment were to work, it is necessary is to first "humanize" the antibody so it won't be rejected, and then you can see what effect you get in a clinical trial. I imagine this is what the $20mil funding is for.

You can find clinical trials for new drugs here:

http://clinicaltrials.gov/

Re: One Drug to Shrink All Tumors

#33

Post by DanBC »

maxharris wrote: post #8
wwwtyro wrote: post #3

Some heart-wrenching comments from the page: "Husband and father of 3, age 31, high grade spindle cell sarcoma, stage 4 with mets- help! nuclearcouple@hotmail.com or find me (spouse) on fb, Heather Cimino in Fort Myers, Fl, willing to travel anywhere, just save my husband!" "my wife has tumor that are killing her will you hurry up and get this sorted - is there anyway one can volunteer for a trial tim.parry@xtra.co.n…

There has got to be a way to address this need. Yes, there is. Fight for the right of each individual to follow his best judgement in regard to all matters pertaining to his own life. (If someone doesn't know enough to make the call, he knows enough to choose a physician who can.) Right now, timely experimental treatments are basically outlawed. What good is it to say that there's an FDA procedure to get around the c…

> If someone doesn't know enough to make the call, he knows enough to choose a physician who can.

Unfortunately that is demonstrably not the case. There are many qualified, experienced, doctors who are happy to peddle nonsense. Even limiting yourself to conventional medicine it's hard to tell the effective medication from the less effective medication.

> What right does anyone have to deprive anyone else of what might be their only shot at life?

What right does anyone have to manipulate desperate dying people out of vast amounts of money on unregulated, useless, gambling?

I'd agree if you're suggesting that people should be able to volunteer for trials - but double blinding means they may not be getting the experimental treatment.

Re: One Drug to Shrink All Tumors

#34

Post by klenwell »

Symmetry wrote: post #24
roc wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that lay people have essentially no ability to distinguish between potential 'last shots'. And exemptions will invite snake-oil salesmen. It can be frustrating, but the rules weren't created in some blind bureaucratic power-grab. They're responses to actual problems that existed in their absence. They aren't without their downsides, but they remain better than the alternative on balance.

Yet somehow countries that regulate drugs merely by safety tend to produce better health outcomes than countries that regulate for safety and efficacy like the US FDA does. You're just asserting that the upsides outweigh the downsides, but every study I've seen that tries to measure things quantitatively comes to the opposite conclusion. The gullible are already getting snake-oil in the form of herbal remedies and ho…

The point here is that this drug hasn't been tested for its safety, much less its efficacy. It is still at an early testing stage. The researchers seem to have a reasonable theory for why they believe it will be effective. But molecular biology is complicated and the risk for harmful effects in humans is not trivial.

Ben Goldacre's book Bad Pharma details the serious personal and social costs that come with poor drug trials. Everyone urging the abandonment of caution here seems to assume this new drug already works or, at the very least, the effects of its usage could not be worse than the grim prognosis patients already confront. But that's what proper trials are meant to establish. Snake oil can come in pill form, too. And even with the current precautions, we've ended up with a number of ineffective, expensive, and sometimes deadly drugs on the market.

Re: One Drug to Shrink All Tumors

#35

Post by Retric »

maxharris wrote: post #29
Retric wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it OK to lump honest physicians, researchers and patients in with snake oil salesmen and their victims? The best snake oil salesmen believe in their products. There are already exceptions for allowing people to take highly experimental procedures when there likely to die without them. However, there are plenty of cases where highly trained well meaning doctors caused massive suffering without benefit to their…

So we should treat every physician, researcher and patient as guilty, incorrect or foolish until proven innocent, correct or wise? However, there are plenty of cases where highly trained well meaning doctors caused massive suffering without benefit to their direct patents. No one is omniscient. The ideal in medicine can't be something impossible (i.e., medicine that cures all ills and everyone, and never has any risk…

So we should treat ... researcher... as guilty, incorrect or foolish until proven innocent, correct or wise?

Yes, that's the point of peer review.

Re: One Drug to Shrink All Tumors

#36

Post by wwwtyro »

pcrh wrote: post #32
jasallen wrote: post #10

My best friend was just put into hospice for metastasized melanoma. He's 35. Where is this stuff? Nothing more useful to add to this comment. Sorry

Sorry for your friend. This is the original article: http://www.pnas.org/content/109/17/6662 You can actually get the antibody yourself, FTA: "The anti-hCD47 (B6H12) hybridoma was obtained from the ATCC" [ http://www.lgcstandards-atcc.org/Products/All/HB-9771.aspx ] Purifying it is easy, if you have a lab. However... you can't use that antibody directly in humans, since it is a mouse antibody, which the human immune…

Can you use this one directly in humans? Both humans and mice are mentioned, and I do not know how to interpret the nomenclature: http://www.biolegend.com/biotin-anti-human-cd47-antibody-370...

Re: One Drug to Shrink All Tumors

#37

Post by maxharris »

roc wrote: post #28
maxharris wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it OK to lump honest physicians, researchers and patients in with snake oil salesmen and their victims? Why is it morally acceptable to have laws intended to help the people that don't care to tell the difference? Those laws come at the expense of those who do care, who take the trouble to figure things out. Why shouldn't we live in a free society where the best within us can make a difference, and take humani…

> "Why shouldn't we live in a free society where the best within us can make a difference, and take humanity forward?" Our free society lived with the alternative . And they collectively decided "the right to be defrauded is a false liberty, this is no the way forward, let us try another way." And you know what? We've moved further forward, faster since these regulations were put into place. When people have trust th…

Straw man.

I'm not arguing for the "right to be defrauded."

(Aside: fraud is a violation of an individual's rights, by definition. Your phrase steals the concept of "rights" - it uses "rights" while simultaneously attempting to deny or undermine the very same concept of "rights.")

We need a government, and strong laws to ensure that fraud and other instances of force [including theft, murder, etc.] are identified objectively adjudicated justly, after it has been shown that someone's rights have been violated.

We shouldn't treat anyone - physicians, patients, businesses, etc. - as guilty before they've acted. That's what regulations do: they are based on the assumption that people are guilty, and that need to be stopped before they act.

I'm for treating everyone as innocent until specifically proven guilty. Why aren't you?

Re: One Drug to Shrink All Tumors

#38

Post by pcrh »

wwwtyro wrote: post #36
pcrh wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry for your friend. This is the original article: http://www.pnas.org/content/109/17/6662 You can actually get the antibody yourself, FTA: "The anti-hCD47 (B6H12) hybridoma was obtained from the ATCC" [ http://www.lgcstandards-atcc.org/Products/All/HB-9771.aspx ] Purifying it is easy, if you have a lab. However... you can't use that antibody directly in humans, since it is a mouse antibody, which the human immune…

Can you use this one directly in humans? Both humans and mice are mentioned, and I do not know how to interpret the nomenclature: http://www.biolegend.com/biotin-anti-human-cd47-antibody-370...

That is a mouse antibody (viz, Isotype: Mouse IgG1, κ) targeted to the human CD47 protein, the same problem exists as for the one mentioned in the above article.

Re: One Drug to Shrink All Tumors

#39

Post by learc83 »

DanBC wrote: post #33
maxharris wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has got to be a way to address this need. Yes, there is. Fight for the right of each individual to follow his best judgement in regard to all matters pertaining to his own life. (If someone doesn't know enough to make the call, he knows enough to choose a physician who can.) Right now, timely experimental treatments are basically outlawed. What good is it to say that there's an FDA procedure to get around the c…

> If someone doesn't know enough to make the call, he knows enough to choose a physician who can. Unfortunately that is demonstrably not the case. There are many qualified, experienced, doctors who are happy to peddle nonsense. Even limiting yourself to conventional medicine it's hard to tell the effective medication from the less effective medication. > What right does anyone have to deprive anyone else of what migh…

>What right does anyone have to manipulate desperate dying people out of vast amounts of money on unregulated, useless, gambling?

This already happens. I don't really see how allowing dying people to access experimental procedures is any worse than allowing dying people to pay for crystals, and "charged" water.

Re: One Drug to Shrink All Tumors

#40

Post by johntb86 »

I would expect that human tissue put in mice would normally be rejected by the mouse's immune system, so this treatment would just allow that to happen in the special case of cancer tissue (which has mechanisms to prevent that). I'm worried that the human immune system wouldn't be as interested in attacking its own cells that became cancerous, even with this treatment.
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