A cheap safe cure for cancer... or how not to understand science

[Jorghnassen]

Ain't self medication fun? (http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=1966dab6-3d79-4b78-965b-3eb1d226d1ce&k=88390) It's not tested or proven effective on humans yet, but hey, they talked about it in the newspapers, so let's ignore the warnings and just try it anyway...

[robinson]

The link didn't work, (the canada.com network is temporarily unavailable due to some scheduled system maintenance).

[clarsct]

Is it the same story as here? (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=77176)

[Jorghnassen]

The link should be working again. It's not about AIDS, but that DCA compound that appeared in one study to reduce size of tumors in rats by half. Since that made headlines and DCA is cheap and easy to synthesize, some desperate (and misinformed) cancer patients actually sought some and self-medicated.

[robinson]

The link should be working again. It's not about AIDS, but that DCA compound that appeared in one study to reduce size of tumors in rats by half. Since that made headlines and DCA is cheap and easy to synthesize, some desperate (and misinformed) cancer patients actually sought some and self-medicated.

OK the link works now, but you would do better to include some information rather than just a link. Stories vanish from web pages, links break, and based on my experience here, a lot of people will not follow them.

Like this-



Possibly fatal at $2 a pop
Cancer patients using compound that has only been tested on rats
Jodie Sinnema, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Friday, March 16, 2007

EDMONTON - Desperate cancer patients are self-medicating with an inexpensive compound that has yet to be tested in humans, despite warnings of toxic poisonings and and even death from researchers at the University of Alberta, who used the chemical to shrink tumours in rats
....

"We absolutely do not support the use of this drug to patients with cancer any way out of a clinical trial. There are a number of risks associated with it, and unfortunately patients and physicians are exposing each other to these risks."
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=1966dab6-3d79-4b78-965b-3eb1d226d1ce&k=88390

This was predicted, almost inevitable actually, a while back, in a thread about this.

[robinson]

"Where to buy dichloroacetate" is still the number one search on Google. You can just see the future here, sites selling it, the money, the profit, the deaths...

Linky linky.

[Burner]

Ain't self medication fun? (http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=1966dab6-3d79-4b78-965b-3eb1d226d1ce&k=88390) It's not tested or proven effective on humans yet, but hey, they talked about it in the newspapers, so let's ignore the warnings and just try it anyway...

"He said it can cause low blood sugar, a drop in cholesterol and changes in cell metabolism."

Wow, horrifying prospect for someone who has few months to live and nothing to lose. You dork.

[sophia8]

"He said it can cause low blood sugar, a drop in cholesterol and changes in cell metabolism."

Wow, horrifying prospect for someone who has few months to live and nothing to lose. You dork.Not all cases of cancer are terminal. A woman with breast cancer, or a man with testicular cancer, might try DCA instead of having those bits of their bodies sliced away. And even terminally ill patients would like to live comfortably for as long as possible - something that may be denied them if they take this stuff.
in any case, DCA is not a cancer cure, even in mice. All that the mice experiments showed was that it slowed down the growth of certain tumours. The tumours still continued to grow.

[robinson]

Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and his colleagues tested DCA on human cells cultured outside the body and found that it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells, but not healthy cells. Tumours in rats deliberately infected with human cancer also shrank drastically when they were fed DCA-laced water for several weeks.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10971-cheap-safe-drug-kills-most-cancers.html

[robinson]

Well, the first hand reports of people trying DCA are starting to build up. Yes, yes, I know, it is only people who actually have cancer who are doing the reporting, so of course they are suspect. After all, you can't expect someone who is going to die, and takes an experimental drug, to tell the truth about what happens.

Desperate cancer patients sent home to die for lack of any further FDA-approved treatment for their advanced cancers have started reporting miraculous improvements. One man with bladder cancer who couldn’t even walk and whose weight was plummeting as his body was shutting down stopped losing weight after 2 weeks on DCA and after 4 weeks has gained 11 pounds and is not only walking again, he’s exercising and his bladder spasms have subsided. Another woman with a tumor on her spine, unable to walk because of it and told by her doctor she’d probably never walk again, is back on her feet after 5 days on DCA. And there’s one report of a cat rapidly using up the last bit of its ninth life from a huge abdominal tumor is now on the mend and feisty enough to shove the other cats aside to get to the food dish.

Now now, calm down. I'm sure the Feds will find these people soon enough, and stop them from taking DCA. After all, reports like this are only going to encourage people to keep trying this treatment.

The interesting thing is, people are giving it to their pets who have cancer. I guess nobody told them that it isn't safe. Dumb people with cancer, trying to save their lives with an untested drug. Don't they know that isn't how science works? They need to wait until the testing is done, and the marketing is all set, and a price has been agreed upon, and then go to a proper Oncologist, and do this right.

Making a cheap safe drug yourself, and trying it out on people who are going to die, no matter what, how dumb is that?

:wackywink:

[Jorghnassen]

Well, the first hand reports of people trying DCA are starting to build up. Yes, yes, I know, it is only people who actually have cancer who are doing the reporting, so of course they are suspect. After all, you can't expect someone who is going to die, and takes an experimental drug, to tell the truth about what happens.


That's not the problem. So who is recording the failures? Or are there really only successes?

/Vioxx anyone?

[robinson]

And who is taking the placebo? Where is the double blind? We have to have proper science here. You can't just take something and see if your cancer goes away, or reduces in size and pain level. Especially with pets! People are giving their pets a drug that is untested! They are using animals to test a drug!!

Can't somebody stop this? How dare people take matters into their own hands. They are supposed to wait until they are told what to do.

Stupid cancer people. Always looking for a cure.

[Asolepius]

And who is taking the placebo? Where is the double blind? We have to have proper science here. You can't just take something and see if your cancer goes away, or reduces in size and pain level. Especially with pets! People are giving their pets a drug that is untested! They are using animals to test a drug!!

Can't somebody stop this? How dare people take matters into their own hands. They are supposed to wait until they are told what to do.

Stupid cancer people. Always looking for a cure.OK, so henceforth this is how we will develop life saving drugs. As soon as there's the slightest suggestion of efficacy from a single unreplicated laboratory study, we'll dish it out to as many desperate people as we can find. We'll wait for them to report how they got on with it, and of course we won't hear about the ones who do badly because they'll be dead. Think of the money we can save by abolishing the drug regulatory authorities.

[Taffer]

What annoys me is that there isn't a "cure" for cancer in the traditional sense. Once cells are cancerous, they are cancerous for ever. You can't stop them from being so without either a) changing their genomes or b) killing them. The problem with b) is that it usually ends up killing a bunch of normal cells too, and the problem with a) is that it's really, really, hard to do.

[EHocking]

OK, so henceforth this is how we will develop life saving drugs. As soon as there's the slightest suggestion of efficacy from a single unreplicated laboratory study, we'll dish it out to as many desperate people as we can find. We'll wait for them to report how they got on with it, and of course we won't hear about the ones who do badly because they'll be dead. Think of the money we can save by abolishing the drug regulatory authorities.
Bu..... that's the way complementary and alternative "medicine" has been marketed for years.

Oh, except for the "develop life saving drugs" part....

[sophia8]

Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and his colleagues tested DCA on human cells cultured outside the body and found that it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells, but not healthy cells. Tumours in rats deliberately infected with human cancer also shrank drastically when they were fed DCA-laced water for several weeks.
The bolded words are the important bit. Any medical researcher will tell you that what works in a petri dish won't necessarily work inside a live body. That's proven here by the very next sentence in the quote - the tumours weren't killed off, but only shrank.

[sophia8]

Bu..... that's the way complementary and alternative "medicine" has been marketed for years.

Oh, except for the "develop life saving drugs" part....
And the "dish it out" part. You'll sell it to desperate, ill people.

[robinson]

Once cells are cancerous, they are cancerous for ever. You can't stop them from being so without either a) changing their genomes or b) killing them. The problem with b) is that it usually ends up killing a bunch of normal cells too, and the problem with a) is that it's really, really, hard to do.

I think everyone involved with cancer knows this. That might be why a drug that doesn't kill, or even effect, normal healthy cells, was such a huge discovery. That it activates Mitochondria, increases oxygen metabolism, and doesn't attack anything, is amazing. If this drug really does work, even if it just reduces cancer, it is a huge discovery.

OK, so henceforth this is how we will develop life saving drugs.

Let us hope not! A Phase III clinical trial would be a lot more scientific. You might think one of them, you know, medical trials, you might think if they had an application form for one of them, people would sign up real quick. Since there isn't any of them, can you really blame people for trying? If you are going to die, you got little to lose.

As soon as there's the slightest suggestion of efficacy from a single unreplicated laboratory study, we'll dish it out to as many desperate people as we can find.

Heh. That hardly describes what is happening in this case, but yeah, how dumb would that be?

We'll wait for them to report how they got on with it, and of course we won't hear about the ones who do badly because they'll be dead. Think of the money we can save by abolishing the drug regulatory authorities.

I know you are being sarcastic, but that really is how some people think. The last time something like this happened was with AIDS, when people started taking AZT before it was tested, approved, or validated.

Bu..... that's the way complementary and alternative "medicine" has been marketed for years.

You got that right. Some test shows something, and the next thing you know, it is on the shelves.

It is for sure, not how to do science. Why in the world would nobody be offering a clinical trial on DCA yet? How long will this bad science go on?

I said it before, the more people who report their cancer being reduced by taking DCA, the more desperate people are going to try it. At this point, I doubt even a clinical trial that shows DCA is worthless, will stop people from taking it.

[DRBUZZ0]

What annoys me is that there isn't a "cure" for cancer in the traditional sense. Once cells are cancerous, they are cancerous for ever. You can't stop them from being so without either a) changing their genomes or b) killing them. The problem with b) is that it usually ends up killing a bunch of normal cells too, and the problem with a) is that it's really, really, hard to do.

Yes that's true. Cancer is strange in how horribly difficult it is to treat in many cases and how very easy it is to eliminate in others. A small skin cancer or a tumor in early development, which is not near any vital structures can be removed in a very simple procedure. Early detection is so often the key though.

In most cases, it is not actually the original cancer that is fatal. Breast cancer, prostate cancer, skin cancer, ovarian cancer and many others do not effect organs which are critical for life. However, once wide spread metastasis begins it can be very difficult to fight, as the cancer spreads. At best, it's often only possible to slow the progress.


As far as really promising concepts for "curing" cancer or coming close to it, I had heard of the hypothysis that an agressive cell-destroying virus or microbe could be engineered to selectively target cancer cells and lack the ability to reproduce in non-cancerous cells. But a working implimentation of such an idea could be decades away. Other concepts involve attacking the metastasization process.


But if there were ever a highly effective, quick, non damaging treatment for cancers of many types, it will almost certainly not be as simple as a rather common chemical compound.

[robinson]

But if there were ever a highly effective, quick, non damaging treatment for cancers of many types, it will almost certainly not be as simple as a rather common chemical compound.

Why not? Many diseases are cured or prevented by a very simple chemical compound.

http://www.filecabi.net/video/file-166524224.html

[robinson]

Now now, calm down. I'm sure the Feds will find these people soon enough, and stop them from taking DCA. After all, reports like this are only going to encourage people to keep trying this treatment.


Didn't take them long either.

"Is DCA worth trying? We absolutely think so," proclaimed a website promoting the laboratory chemical sodium dichloroacetate (DCA) as a treatment for cancer earlier this year.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearly did not agree. Last week it visited the site's owners and told them to stop making and selling DCA from a sister website, or face criminal prosecution.

Jim Tassano of Sonora, California, claims to have sold DCA to more than 2000 people, with no reports of serious side effects, via his website www.buydca.com.

However, on the 17 July he posted the following message on the site. "Two agents from the FDA visited us today and ordered that we stop making and selling DCA. Unfortunately, the site www.buydca.com will be shut down. It is against US government law to sell substances with the suggestion that they are cancer treatments unless they are approved by the FDA. DCA can still be obtained from pharmacies with a prescription and from chemical companies."

The FDA confirmed that agents from their Office of Criminal Investigations had visited Tassano, but declined to comment further.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12369-illegal-cancer-drug-website-shut-down.html

News blackout still in effect
Google News - Cancer Results - 65,918
Google News - sodium dichloroacetate DCA Results - 1
Google News - dichloroacetate Results - 10

[robinson]

Biotech companies focus on converting research in biology, chemistry and other biosciences into viable commercial products. Such companies can run the gamut from pharmaceutical firms to equipment companies to research labs.

Newell’s research is centered on cancer treatment. She found that dichloroacetate, a chemical compound, robs cancerous tumors of the energy they need to grow. She said Agada has 25 patents awarded or in various stages of approval covering the compound and its use to treat cancer.
http://www.gazette.com/articles/newell_25091___article.html/company_research.html

Wow. While a Canadian University is begging for money for trials, (which may start in three years), seems like Business smells a money maker. Interesting times, interesting times.

[robinson]

Cancer drug trial approved
Experimental cancer drug called dichloroacetate, or DCA, is used for people with aggressive brain cancer.
Sep 28, 2007 04:30 AM
Shannon Montgomery
THE CANADIAN PRESS

Health Canada has approved the first human trial of an experimental cancer drug called dichloroacetate, or DCA, in people with an advanced form of an aggressive brain cancer.

The molecule has drawn international attention after the University of Alberta's Dr. Evangelos Michelakis published promising results in January showing it significantly shrank tumours in rats. This new trial will give doctors a clue as to whether the research's impressive results will make the jump into human subjects.

"Typically from the time you report results in animals to the point that you test in a human being takes about three years, even with the support of the pharmaceutical industry," Michelakis said this week. "For us to have completed it in eight months is remarkable."

DCA is being prescribed in Toronto as an "off-label" drug at Medicor Cancer Centres, the Star's Stuart Laidlaw reported earlier this week. That means it's a legal drug, but is not being used the way it was intended. "We're pretty comfortable saying the drug does work for some patients," says Dr. Akbar Khan, the clinic's medical director. About 40 of his patients are taking the drug.

The Alberta researchers hope to try the drug on up to 50 people with glioblastomas over the next 18 months. The first subjects could begin within a few weeks.

The research is being funded entirely by grants and donations. DCA, which has been used to treat certain rare metabolic disorders in humans, is cheap and can't be patented, which is why pharmaceutical companies aren't interested in helping develop it as a cancer therapy, Michelakis says.
http://www.thestar.com/living/Health/article/261310