Pharmaceutical companies prefer money to your life.
posted by Liberal Beagle at 9:17 PM
Yes, great shocker, I'm sure. But what else can you make of this article from the New Scientist?
Cheap, safe drug kills most cancers.
Hmm, sounds interesting, doesn't it? So I looked up on "the Google" what this dichloroacetate was all about. I found an interesting bit of information.
Dean's World:
And why couldn't such research get broader traction? Perhaps the same reason as now:
Pharmaceutical companies are unlikely to pay. Heck, I'll go a step further: they're not likely to want to acknowledge its existence. And as for governments, we can probably forget about ours. In fact, if more research proves DCAs to be effective in cancer treatment, we can probably expect a bigger exodus to Canada than ever thought possible. We know what our governments lick-your-boots stance is towards pharmaceutical companies. Fox, CNN, and the AP can be expected to toe the line and ignore this story for as long as possible.
Years of giving money to cancer research has provided us with a wash of complexities and barriers. For those of us who fear it and have seen more people die from it than from terrorist attacks, we have had to take researchers at their word. But now, in our country, we know that money has truly and utterly won out over the values that the Republicans have pretended were in their hearts. Even if DCAs are untested by FDA standards, shouldn't the victims and their families know about it? Shouldn't it be brought to the table of mainstream discussion, right up there with stem cell research, which is just as embryonic?
Continued research and clinical tests may come to nothing, but this is clearly something that should be considered. This isn't quack medicine from the nineteenth century. This is a possibility that should at least laid out in the open, positives and demerits included, given the potential doors it could open up. Still, it seems that if it is indeed a solution, the only way it will be allowed to save lives is if the poor seven-digit earners scrape a huge profit margin out of it. Welcome to America, where we don't really care if you live or die.
Cheap, safe drug kills most cancers.
It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their "immortality". The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe.
It also has no patent, meaning it could be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of newly developed drugs.
Hmm, sounds interesting, doesn't it? So I looked up on "the Google" what this dichloroacetate was all about. I found an interesting bit of information.
Dean's World:
We've actually known for decades now that vitamin C in megadose quantities kills cancer cells. How many clinical trials have been conducted on that? A tiny handful, decades ago, and they only used oral dosages. A couple of years ago one very small study was done using vitamin C on cancer patients intravenously and showed some signs of success, but the study was too small to be definitive.
And why couldn't such research get broader traction? Perhaps the same reason as now:
The next step is to run clinical trials of DCA in people with cancer. These may have to be funded by charities, universities and governments: pharmaceutical companies are unlikely to pay because they can’t make money on unpatented medicines.
Pharmaceutical companies are unlikely to pay. Heck, I'll go a step further: they're not likely to want to acknowledge its existence. And as for governments, we can probably forget about ours. In fact, if more research proves DCAs to be effective in cancer treatment, we can probably expect a bigger exodus to Canada than ever thought possible. We know what our governments lick-your-boots stance is towards pharmaceutical companies. Fox, CNN, and the AP can be expected to toe the line and ignore this story for as long as possible.
Years of giving money to cancer research has provided us with a wash of complexities and barriers. For those of us who fear it and have seen more people die from it than from terrorist attacks, we have had to take researchers at their word. But now, in our country, we know that money has truly and utterly won out over the values that the Republicans have pretended were in their hearts. Even if DCAs are untested by FDA standards, shouldn't the victims and their families know about it? Shouldn't it be brought to the table of mainstream discussion, right up there with stem cell research, which is just as embryonic?
Continued research and clinical tests may come to nothing, but this is clearly something that should be considered. This isn't quack medicine from the nineteenth century. This is a possibility that should at least laid out in the open, positives and demerits included, given the potential doors it could open up. Still, it seems that if it is indeed a solution, the only way it will be allowed to save lives is if the poor seven-digit earners scrape a huge profit margin out of it. Welcome to America, where we don't really care if you live or die.
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