Posted on 08/23/2013 1:27:06 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd
Things have to be bad if you are prepared to allow someone to put feces in your brain. This was the case for three brain cancer patients at the University of California-Davis Medical Center, who consented to the highly experimental procedure. But the doctors who performed the implants were fined by the state’s Department of Public Health anyway.
The three patients all had end stage glioblastoma multiforme, which is a fast growing type of brain tumor. They had not responded to conventional treatments, including removal of the tumors, so doctors suggested the new, untested treatment, which involved placing bacteria from the bowels in the patients’ brains. The idea was to create infections that would kill the remaining tumor cells.
Sadly, according to the state’s report, the fecal bacteria created infections, but not with the intended results. The patients went into seizures and developed symptoms of septic infection, or bacteria in the blood. The first patient died soon after the treatment and experienced several other bacterial infections and never regained breathing or feeding functions.
The third patient also died after displaying severe symptoms of blood infection.
The state report said although the patients we informed that the fecal bacteria treatments were experimental and untested on humans, doctors had no plan for what to do if the experiments went wrong. They treated some of the resulting infections with antibiotics, but not others and could not explain the reasons for that inconsistency to investigators.
In interviews with the state investigators, hospital officials acknowledged that introducing fecal bacteria into the brain was “not a standard treatment for brain tumors.” In fact, they said this form of therapy “had not been proven to be effective” and contained a “high risk for harm” with “no clear benefit” defined for the patients.
Studies have found that transplanting fecal matter into a patient’s intestines can be an effective treatment for some gastrointestinal ailments.
SOURCES: Health Leaders Media, California Department of Public Health, New York Times
You need a plan for what goes wrong in an experimental procedure on stage four glio?
That’s like finding yourself in an elevator plummeting down an elevator shaft, its cable having severed at the 90th floor, and figuring you need a back up plan in case jumping as high as you can at around the 6th floor fails.
Hey they were just following the motto: “When all else fails try doody.”
Oh, here we go- Incoming!....
(Jokes about California begin in five....four.....three...two....)
“The three patients all had end stage glioblastoma multiforme, which is a fast growing type of brain tumor.”
GBM is all but a death sentence. I lost a good friend to a Class V GBM. In a case like that, you hope that the treatment gives you a little more time, and lets you retain a certain quality of life in the time that you gain. The lucky ones get that. My friend didn’t.
if he would have examined someone in congress he would have already known this doesnt work
That's my opinion, too. Fortunately, Obamacare will save us from making those types of stupid decisions and just let us die under traditional care.
If people are terminally ill, with almost zero chance for survival, and they agree to any theoretical treatment, there should be no repercussions. If nothing else, like in this case, it establishes this one technique does not work.
But in this case it did even more. It actually makes sense that an infection *might* result in the immune system “seeing through” a tumor’s defenses, and thus realizing it should be attacked.
Tumors go to elaborate lengths to conceal themselves, and just recently it was discovered that they use a large amount of a particular protein (?) to do so. Block that protein, and the tumor might be exposed, or so goes the theory.
So in truth, it is not just a technique that has been disproven, but an entire concept, so similar techniques are also less likely to work.
What they really needed to do is place a tube to the site of the tumor and then spray a little Windex on it.
SFB bump
Fecal material certainly didn’t kill my cancer.
Bowel cancer survivor.
And Thalidomide babies
Like it or not, that's why we have govt. regulations that result in years of R & D and cost Big Pharma billions in bringing successful drugs to market...........
I think the idea was a massive infection might open the cancer up to attack. Intestinal flora would guarantee a whopper of an infection, but this showed that the numerous strains of bacteria were not recognized by the immune system when in the brain.
This halfway makes sense. For example, E. coli is often the dominant bacteria in the lower bowels, but anywhere else in the body can make you very sick. With the 300-1000 different kinds of bacteria found in the flora, there is going to be one heck of an infection.
What a s—thead.
Funniest coda to the story - this guy went to some kind of ‘clinic’ just outside of Houston. Paid like 20k out of his own pocket. A few years later the FDA or AMA or some government agency shut the place down. I'm not sure what the reason was although it was apparently something to do with the contention that the people running it were quacks.
My question is this: does the guy I know have to give his life back?
I have to say it, “DID THESE DOCTORS HAVE SH#T FOR BRAINS”.
Nah. His estate just has to pay an income tax penalty.
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