I Survived Leukemia Because of a Clinical Trial. Will Future Patients Be So Lucky?

MEDPAGE TODAY ^ | April 15, 2025 | Robert L. Dilley, MD, PhD

[nickcarraway]

True. But remember, it didn't have more victims in the United States, because of one woman, Frances Oldham Kelsey. She refused to authorize it in the U.S. because of concerns about the lack of evidence of safety.

But if you read about it, current employees in the 2000s in the FDA are steamrolled by their bosses to approve drugs anyway.

[HollyB]

I did not know that about Frances Kelsey.
We need more like her these days. But, they’d probably fire them.

While undergoing a donor stem cell transplant for AML, I agreed to take part in a clinical trial for a CMV vaccine. It was testing that particular cmv vax on bone marrow/stem cell transplant patients.
This was before COVID and I trusted my dr and figured I was so sick anyway, so what the hell. I actually completed the series of shots.

It never got released. Too many side effects and a couple people died. It may have been due to the transplant. I don’t know if how I felt was due to the shots or just because of what I was going thru.

I also took part in another trial. It was a maintenance chemo I took for 3 additional years post transplant. It had not yet been officially approved for my situation, but was being prescribed via the trial. I’m sure it’s been approved since then as I’ve heard of others taking it.

[b4me]

why is the “research” neglecting food, lifestyle choices, non invasive or made up drugs with their usually harmful side effects?

oh because that might put a bunch of them out of business.

most disease is a lack of some thing the body needs to be balanced and fight it off. I know the body isn’t lacking chemo drugs and such.

so long as our medical community focuses on a body part or specific disease and not treat the body as a whole, many more people will die needlessly like so many already have.

[norwaypinesavage]

The good doctor is conflating conducting effective research, with simply spending lots of money. Most of the government agencies along with the NGOs have become money pits where little effective research is conducted, and much of the money is distributed among cronies, relatives, and friends. A government bureaucracy is simply not an effective way of spending money wisely.

When a government agency is given a budget, and then that budget is increased significantly each year without any meaningful reviews of effectiveness, at some point most of the money gets wasted.