Cancer Cured. Cheap.

[digitaldiscipline]

... and why isn't this the top headline everywhere?

Because the drug, DCA, isn't covered by a patent, which means that is would be "dirt cheap" (the actual phrase used in another article) to produce. Clinical trials will need to be funded by charities, because pharmaceutical companies won't foot the bill for something they won't profit from.

The cool science behind DCA is that it activates the mitochondria in the mutated cancer cells, which makes them die off, instead of being relatively immortal. Money shot image from New Scientist:

How's that for a big whack of good news / bad news?

Further reading and counterpoint: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/01/in_which_my_words_will_be_misinterpreted.php

Comments

[angledge.livejournal.com]

Actually, I thought the counterpoint was a much better read. Thanks for posting both.

[mistressbellona.livejournal.com]

I haven't yet read the full counterpoint or the paper quoted in it, but I would imagine that the problem with using something like this is that it might switch on the "self-destruct" feature of cells you actually need. If you ingest something like this, it dissipates as it will through your system and you aren't exactly holding a remote control to direct it. I guess that's what testing is for though.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

It's my (admittedly cursory) understanding of how DCA works in this instance that it simply activates the mitochondria in cells where they have been disabled - as such, it would have no effect on healthy cells where the mito's were already operating normally.

[gooddamon.livejournal.com]

That's my understanding, too, and I've been doing a lot of reading on this.

The thing is, I think we've got a cure for cancer. ALL cancer, since all cancer has the same weakness. You're absolutely right, this should be major headline news all over the freakin' world.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Commie pinko!

[izzy23.livejournal.com]

Never fear, if this is for real, and worth the side effect trade-offs to the point the FDA would approve it, the big pharma companies will develop a drug just different enough to be patentable and run clinical trials on that, using their standard marketing techniques to see that it gets prescribed way more frequently than the unpatentable version (whether it's any better or not).