Posted on 11/16/2016 9:15:11 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Former president Jimmy Carter announced Sunday that he’s stopping treatment for his brain cancer at the ripe age of 91. Inspiring as his story is, it’s hard not to wonder: how’d he do it? Turns out Carter was being treated with Keytruda, a new and highly promising immunotherapy drug that was approved not long after Carter was diagnosed.
In August 2015, Carter announced that his aggressive melanoma — a deadly form of skin cancer — had spread to his brain, and it seemed pretty clear that he had only a few weeks left to live. Still, he underwent treatment at Emory University’s Winship Cancer Institute, where traditional tumor-killing strategies like surgery and radiation were used to kill cancerous cells in his brain, together with doses of Keytruda, which he received every three weeks.
Since Carter announced that he was cancer-free back in December 2015, American cancer patients have been clamoring for the drug. Keytruda, which was approved by the FDA for treating advanced melanoma in 2014 after being sped along by the agency’s accelerated approval program, works by helping the body’s immune system carry out its normal function of killing off cancer cells.
This isn’t easy for the body to do when it’s wracked with cancer. Using a protein called PD-1, cancer cells evade the immune system’s surveillance — allowing them to spread and proliferate undetected. Keytruda blocks the PD-1 pathway, preventing the cancer cells from hiding and thus letting the immune system do its thing.
What’s especially promising about Keytruda is what seems to be the general mildness of its side effects. Carter reportedly experienced only a few of its effects, which include the usual fatigue, cough, and nausea and, on the more severe end, immune-mediated effects on healthy organs like the lung and colon.
Still, it’s far from perfect. One clinical trial showed that it is only effective in a quarter of patients, and it’s currently at the center of a heated debate in New Zealand over whether or not it’s worth government funding, given its limited effects.
The drug, considered to be pharmaceutical giant Merck and Co.’s most recent blockbuster product, is only approved to be used for certain advanced kinds of cancers; in addition to advanced melanoma cases like Carter’s, it’s also used to treat non-small cell lung cancer that resist chemotherapy involving platinum. Its limited applications didn’t stop it from making roughly $566 million for Merck last year worldwide.
Not all physicians are sold on its efficacy — it’s possible, of course, that Carter’s radiation treatment was enough to do the trick — but there’s little doubt that Carter’s highly successful — and highly public — treatment will continue to drive up America’s demand for the drug.
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Yasmin is a writer and former biologist living in New York. A Toronto girl at heart, her writing also appears in The Last Magazine and SciArt in America. You might recognize her as a past host of Scientific American's YouTube series.
"State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress. [emphases added]" - Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
"Inspection laws, quarantine laws, health laws of every description [emphasis added], as well as laws for regulating the internal commerce of a state and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c., are component parts of this mass." -Justice Barbour, New York v. Miln., 1837.
"Direct control of medical practice in the states is obviously [emphases added] beyond the power of Congress." - Linder v. United States, 1925.
"From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added]. ...” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
So unconstitutional federal government interference in INTRAstate medical practice by constitutionally questionable agencies like the FDA is basically another example of the warnings by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson for patriots to be on guard against the corrupt federal government unconstitutionally expanding its powers in subtle ways.
”I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” —James Madison, Speech at the Virginia Convention to ratify the Federal Constitution (1788-06-06)
”To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.” —Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson's Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank : 1791
”The system of the General Government is to seize all doubtful ground. We must join in the scramble, or get nothing. Where first occupancy is to give right, he who lies still loses all.” —Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1797.
Although the FDA is providing a safety net for citizen concerning medical drugs, it remains that the FDA is arguably another constitutionally undefined agency like the EPA, corrupt Congress wrongly letting the non-elected bureacurats running these agencies get away with stealing and exercising state powers.
Patriots need to work with Trump to not only put a stop to the stealing and exercising of state powers by the feds, but also make the elected members of Congress start taking responsibility for all constitutionally justifiable laws and regulations coming out of DC.
I think more ought to be presented regarding hollistic and diet approaches to cancer.
One thing wrong about this article is that Carter never had Brain Cancer. He had Skin Cancer that spread to his brain. If he really had Brain Cancer (which does not spread to other parts of the body) he would be most certainly dead.
Every cancer is different and drugs for one type of cancer don’t work on cancers of another type. For example the drugs they used on my wife’s breast cancer 10 years back wouldn’t work on leukemia (bone) or melanoma (skin) cancers.
Has to do with the difference cellular structure between tissue types and how they function.
Oddly enough, presidents seem not to die from cancer. Grant is the only one and he would have most likely been cured with ENT surgery.
The article states that he has skin cancer which has spread to his brain - hence the basis for my joke.
Not true. Every person researching any type of cancer has had some one close to them die of the scourge. I was in cancer detection for 40+ years....if there was a magic bullet cure, we oiled know. How nice for Carter that he is one of the elites who can afford and are considered important enough to get the treatment necessary to cure him.
Thank you for your comment.
HI- Do you have any basis for your belief on the cures you mention? I am actually asking seriously, since I suspect you may be correct, but maybe not in the way it sounds?
Just to update—10 years ago my wife was stage 4 brain cancer when detected. I was paying 900 a day for an experimental drug for a few weeks at my request. Luckily, the drug companies had a program to assist those making less than 75000. That helped but she shortly was switched to a more conventional regime.
It was not to be, but what was learned from her situation was said to be helpful, and that brave charitable fact gave her great comfort at the end.
[HI- Do you have any basis for your belief on the cures you mention? I am actually asking seriously, since I suspect you may be correct, but maybe not in the way it sounds?]
No I don’t have basis, but I would not be surprised.
For example, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has/had pancreatic cancer, which is pretty much a death sentence. She is still alive and kicking.
The example of Carter and brain cancer.
The “cure” may be given to high profile patients, but everyone else needs to shell out and suffer through “treatment”.
Again, just my own conspiracy theory.
“Carter reportedly experienced only a few of its effects, which include the usual fatigue, cough, and nausea and, on the more severe end, immune-mediated effects on healthy organs like the lung and colon.”
Yeah, because who couldn’t use a few of the usual side effects?
As a lifestyle nutritionist who actually understands both science and nature, I am not a fan of Big Pharma or the FDA.
(Think what you like. I will, too.)
It helps if you understand that the FDA is here to prevent competition with and among the large pharmaceutical companies. Then everything starts to make sense.
Otto Warburg, an associate of Albert Einstein who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Chemistry for 1931, said,
“But nobody today can say that one does not know what cancer and its prime cause [may] be.”
His prize-winning work showed that cancer cells are anaerobic, and thrive off sugar for their energy production.
Cells tend to shift to anaerobic energy production when tissue pH goes down toward a more acidic state; higher acidity means lower oxygen, which is needed for aerobic respiration on a cellular level to produce energy.
Increasing tissue oxygen levels and/or increasing the alkalinity of the tissues - the two go hand in hand - may tend to promote apoptosis: cancer cell death.
Joanna Budwig, herself nominated six times for the Nobel Prize, studied Warburg’s research, and developed a natural protocol for reversing degenerative conditions, including cancer: The Oil-Protein diet. It features a source of the highly active Omega-3 Essential Fatty Acid [EFA], Alpha-Linolenic Acid [ALA], plus a source of sulfur-containing amino acids. She used flax oil and cottage cheese. (As a nutritionist, I now recommend chia oil and/or hemp oil in place of flax oil for the combination.)
Udo Erasmus, PhD., in turn studied Budwig’s research, elaborated upon it, and revolutioned modern nutrtion with his book, Fats and Oils (republished as, Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill).
The Western Diet has become increasingly acid-forming (and, simultaneously, more toxic) since boxed foods, such as John Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, have become staples of human consumption.
The primary alkalizing foods are fresh greens and fresh fruits. Deep breathing exercises work well to augment this by oxygenating the body.
I do not donate to and cancer research, because the cause - and, in my personal opinion, the cure - for cancer has been established. There is no monetary incentive for pharmaceutical companies to promote natural remedies that cannot be patented.
The truth is, a drug generally does not cure. At best, it mitigates the condition, at the cost of side effects; at worst, it kills the patient along with the condition.
That is why a patient will be kept on a drug, or its replacement, indefinitely. The cause is not addressed, and so the problem persists.
As Erasmus wrote, “No one ever died of an aspirin deficiency.”
I’m glad they were able to test this drug on someone expendable.
Would you be available to have a chat by Freepmail or phone to talk about your experience? We are developing a novel compound from a plant that has shown pretty amazing in vitro and in vivo results. News is probably going to come out in a few months
the commercials about it are frightening and they encourage all of we boomers to get tested right away because its such a dangerous disease to have...
they are creating a crisis...
they're good at it...
because they know that you can be "cured" of Hep C thru a extremely expensive drug for Hep C....at least $80,000 for a 12 week course, probably more now...
its always always about the money...
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