Posted on 07/11/2013 11:38:50 AM PDT by GrandJediMasterYoda
Ping....
Do you happen to know the name of this drug? I may be able to find out what happened with it.
I take any kind of early hype on drugs with a grain of salt. Very often, the hyping is meant to get investors to invest in the research, and the reality is not nearly as exciting as the hype. Clinical trials may show side effects that make the drug nonviable.
On this one, I wouldn’t hold my breath. CD47 is found on all cells, and has a range of functions. Unless this antibody can be directed only to cancer cells, the effects of administering it to a human patient may be devastating. I am not sure I want to take a drug that puts a bullseye on every cell in my body, telling the immune system to attack it.
Just because something works in cells in a petri dish does not mean it can be used in an intact organism. Sometimes, the difference between action on cells and on an organism is drastic. For example, I can kill cancer cells with bleach in the lab, but I would not advise a cancer patient to drink bleach.
For this: wait and see.
Without the record keeping and databases maintained by the FDA, many drugs with long-term side effects would remain on the market. The free enterprise system has no way to track long term effects. It is questionable whether it would even effectively reveal short-term effects.
If your child took a drug to treat an acute condition several weeks ago, and got a concussion last week, what would *you* conclude is the reason she had a seizure today? Let's suppose that several other parents in your neighborhood have given their kids the same drug, and not one has had a seizure. Can the free enterprise system reveal that your kid is the one in twenty thousand who develop a seizure disorder after taking that drug?
Do not assume that all scientists, or even a majority of scientists are liberal. The way of thinking that we have to learn to become scientists--objective/dispassionate observation and logical deduction--is poison to liberals. As a scientist, I cannot afford to engage in emotion or fall in love with my ideas. I'm in the business of fact checking.
If anything, I see as much illogical emotion driven thinking on FR as I have ever seen in a liberal venue. All you have to do is mention big pharma or big agriculture, and many denizens of FR become as liberal as they come.
Thanks for the ping.
ApoA-Milano
“Do not assume that all scientists, or even a majority of scientists are liberal. “
Did I say that? I think I can even make a case that no liberal (as we currently define it) can be a scientist because they do not utilize the scientific method if inquiry - pose a hypotheses, and set out to test it, keeping a skeptical eye on one’s results. Liberals, OTOH, set out to prove a theory that fits their perceptions. When you set out to prove a theory, you will succeed 100% of the time. All you have to do is ignore all the evidence to the contrary, and perhaps even doctor your results.
A little known secret of cancer means that oncologists must practice “the rule of 3”.
This secret is that if you fight cancer with some technique, cancer will *adapt* to survive. It will actually change how it operates to protect itself, almost like an intelligent thing.
For this reason, when oncologists attack cancer, they try to do so with three different techniques, all at once, to overwhelm its defensive ability to adapt.
The adaptability of cancer should never be underestimated.
Whoa that’s an image I wouldn’t want to see, a drug that ends up directing anti-bodies to attack every cell in the body. I guess that’s why cancer is so hard to beat because you also have to deal with the collateral damage as well to treat it. From what I understand everybody gets cancer but the anti-bodies take out those defective cells, so the problem seems to be why they stop doing it and allow those cells to multiply. And call me paranoid but I have a sneaking suspicion that the government, especially this one under this administration, regulates the freakin’ hell out of the research and testing for the sheer amount of money involved in cancer treatments. For example if a cure was found tomorrow, that would be a multi-billion dollar industry wiped out overnight and considering the corrupt subhuman pieces of pig vomit in Congress, there is noooo way in hell they are going to allow that. You can’t even run a conservative group today without the government doing underhanded things to screw you over.
Of course. Milton Friedman and many others have discussed at length marketplace mechanisms that would arise to handle all these issues. It is too involved to discuss here at length.
The simplest analogy is Underwriter's Laboratories started in 1894. Insurance underwriters helped fund UL. They had an interest in products being safe. This was all done without government "regulations."
Because most people have lived their entire lives with government providing so called "regulation" for safety, they have no way to conceptualize how a free people in the marketplace could provide much better benefit at lower cost and a more timely manner.
If you have a chance search out Milton Friedman discussing the very negative aspect of the AMA (via government grant of power) licensing of Medical schools.
I can't not think of any serious problem areas of our society where the government is not dominant, not one.
Without the record keeping and databases maintained by the FDA, many drugs with long-term side effects would remain on the market. The free enterprise system has no way to track long term effects. It is questionable whether it would even effectively reveal short-term effects.
The FDA has caused more deaths than they ever have prevented. Even with the FDA, drug companies always maintain sophisticated databases of their drugs and long term effects. Let's suppose the FDA did not exist. Companies would have a vested interest in forming an equivalent UL type consortium to help standardize and lower testing costs. Products would get to market much more quickly and be just as safe.
The FDA arose because control freak politicians didn't allow a market solution to arise. The FDA is just another anti-market bureaucracy that does more harm than good.
Because of the FDAs ridiculous regulations there are many untold products that would come to market but do not because of the 100s of millions it takes now to jump thru the inefficient needless hoops (that have nothing to do with safety)
It has been documented that there are illnesses and diseases that affect a small number of people that could likely have a cure, but companies cannot bring them to market because of the cost floor the FDA imposes.
Remember, profit is a good thing and the main reason that companies develop products.
Another whole aspect not discussed is the evil Trial lawyer lobby allowed to unfairly rape many companies in an unjust manner. Sorry to go all over the place, but I am doing other things as I respond. Have a nice day..
Yeah, it did sound like you were saying that all scientists are liberal. Thanks for clarifying yourself.
True - I read about that drug...
Why can’t it make it to market?
Thank you.
Now I can tell what happened with this drug. The problem is cost and technology. The candidate drug is a protein. Some proteins are extremely difficult to work with or make, and trying to make them synthetically is impossible. With such a protein, it is possible to study it biochemically, but trying to extract it from tissues or make it using genetically engineered microorganisms is impossible.
In graduate school, I worked with such a protein. I could make it in yeast or monkey cells, but the moment I would start to extract the protein, it would disintegrate.
Another problem is that some proteins are toxic to the microorganisms or cells used to produce them. If this is the case, it may be impossible to ever produce enough to be commercially viable.
It may be possible to use some of the new gene therapy techniques to get patients' bodies to make the ApoA-Milano variant protein. This technology is still being developed.
The bottom line is that making enough of this protein to be able to run a proper clinical trial is not possible with current technology. And the cost would be astronomical.
Don't forget that the people in government and industry are just as susceptible to deadly cancer as anyone else. They don't want to quash a cure for something that might kill them.
Cancer is not just one disease--there are over 100 diseases called "cancer." We have made huge advances in treating a number of different cancers.
I love how an economist with no understanding of exactly how difficult it is to definitively establish that a specific cause has a specific, but extremely rare, result has so much faith in "market mechanisms" to handle these issues.
I purposely gave an example where other factors complicate the relationship between the cause and effect. Real life situations are actually more complicated than my example. You did not give a specific mechanism by which the market would uncover the fact that my hypothetical drug has a minute chance of causing seizures. If making this discovery were up to the market, the drug would continue to be sold and no one would probably ever know about its side effect. With the FDA, however, a team of experts will look at the adverse reports data, crunch the numbers to determine if the seizures are caused by the drug, discuss their findings, and decide whether the benefits of the drug outweigh the risks. If they judge the risks too great, they will stop sale of the drug.
I just don't think that a UL type consortium for pharmaceuticals would arise spontaneously. Testing household appliances and so forth is easy; trying to figure out a drug's effect on the human body, and whether it is safe is incredibly complicated. A drug like my hypothetical, that has a 1/10,000 chance of causing a seizure disorder manifesting several weeks after use, will be found to be perfectly safe during clinical trials. It takes post-marketing surveillance to reveal a problem this small.
The FDA arose because the market allowed for all kinds of quackery and abuse. The particular naivety of libertarians is that they seem to have fundamental beliefs that no one would ever commit fraud and that "the market" is omnisciently aware of every bad product. There is no evidence to support either belief.
Even with the FDA, drug companies always maintain sophisticated databases of their drugs and long term effects.
They do this because the FDA requires it.
Utter B.S.
You will never have the intellectually ability to understand what true Liberty provides a civilization.
exDem? You sound like a "stillDem" Go ahead a put your trust in State Power.
Remember, the most destructive of all institutions created by man is government.
I stand by my position that the FDA had caused many more deaths than they professed to have saved.
I will always side with Liberty against State power. It's sad that so many people are blinded by the trickery of government.
What an arrogant and stupid thing to say. What a pathetic assumption. Companies who commit fraud would be punished legally. I never said any of the bullc*ap you wrote. You made irrational assumptions based on your belief that I am some idealistic libertarian.
I am not. I am a Conservative who believes that government is a necessary evil, not a force for good.
I recall how frustratingly difficult it was for bacteriologists to culture and identify the bacteria in Legionnaire's Disease. It required a rather complex host of symbiotic environmental factors to grow. Numerous attempts to isolate Legionella resulted in failure to culture the bug.
In other words, you cannot refute a single thing I said, nor can you provide any evidence to show that any of your assertions are correct. Thank you for conceding my point.
The particular naivety of libertarians is that they seem to have fundamental beliefs that no one would ever commit fraud and that "the market" is omnisciently aware of every bad product.
What an arrogant and stupid thing to say. What a pathetic assumption. Companies who commit fraud would be punished legally. I never said any of the bullc*ap you wrote. You made irrational assumptions based on your belief that I am some idealistic libertarian.
I am not. I am a Conservative who believes that government is a necessary evil, not a force for good.
What I said before, quoted here in blue, was referring to Milton Friedman. That should have been clear, since that particular post starts by quoting you talking about Milton Friedman. You sure jumped quickly to take it personally.
FYI, blanket anti-government views are Libertarian, not Conservative. Conservatives understand that government has certain functions, spelled out by the Constitution. I am a strong proponent of the constitutional functions of government.
BTW, who, in a government-free utopia, is going to punish people legally for fraud--since government runs the legal system? If "the market" is the only control for product safety, what's to prevent companies from simply repackaging and reselling their products?
I suggest you study the history of the FDA, and the horrors that happened before the FDA was instituted. The idea that companies would keep extensive records without the FDA requiring it is rather naive.
I also suggest you try using logic and facts instead of emotion. Emotion makes for a very weak argument. Furthermore, when you have to resort to insulting someone's intelligence in emotional tirades, it is a clear admission that you cannot support your opinion.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.