Lars Mars
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1/13/2016 7:03:41 PM
It's safe to say that two lawyers won't find a cure for anything more important than their own financial futures.
As politicians, what they can do is get out of the way. They do have the ability to fast track approvals by streamlining the approval process for new therapies. In fact, these two have had that ability for seven years next week.
Here is a very promising treatment that uses chlorophyll (yes, the stuff that makes photosynthesis possible) activated by light administered via optic fiber to destroy the blood vessels feeding a tumor. One twenty minute, minimally invasive treatment has been demonstrated to completely kill a 4cm tumor inside of twenty four hours. The unactivated medication is harmless and passes out of the system in a day. No side effects, no weeks of the horrors of chemo, radiation or surgeries.
While they began their studies on prostate cancer, the scientists (not politicians) believe that the method can be used on many different cancers. This therapy has been floundering in red tape for over a decade. One mistake they made is that the co-discoverers are not American. They are Israeli. Their second mistake was that they teamed up with a pharma company from Luxembourg, not America. Sadly, this is the state of international pharma-politics.
In engineering circles, this is known as the 'Not Invented Here' syndrome. Any coincidence that the National Institutes of Health share those initials?
My guess is that it will be approved about an hour before their patent runs out and it will be snatched up by an American pharma giant. They (and as many politicians as can jam themselves in front of cameras) will declare victory and take the credit (and profits).
Fifty years from now they will shake their heads at the brutality of our 'state of the art' cancer treatments in the same way that we look at medieval 'surgeons'.
Progress is being made, no doubt and some cancers are being beaten. But many other promising therapies are just entering the long and winding maze that is the approval process.
We all want safe, effective medications and procedures, but the FDA needs a kick in the ass.
The article I linked to was published in 2004. Here is the abstract of a European phase 3 trial. It was a 24 month study. Note the dates. Study start: February, 2011. Completion: August, 2015.
Politicians (regardless of political affiliation) don't solve problems... they make careers out of them.
Glenn
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