[Bored chemist]

I think there's a difference between "blinkered" and "suicidal".

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

The Naked Scientists do not endorse any of Andrew K Fletcher's Physical, Biological or Medical assertions or opinions, regardless of any impression he may give on his own website.

Why would they? Who asked them to? The impression I may give?

[Nizzle]

The question is why do we keep going down the same old tried & tested & lethal route when so many £billions have been invested in finding a different path? The answer is of course do the people who stand to gain the most money really want to shoot themselves in the foot and eliminate such a lucrative income by finding either a cause or a cure?

In january 2010, I'll start working for the EORTC (European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer). This is a non-profit organization, just like the NCI (National Cancer Institute) in the USA... How do you reconcile your quoted opinion with the existence of such npo's?

And Andrew, I sincerely hope you'll never get cancer, but if you would get it, would you ignore your physician's medical advice and self-medicate with huge doses of prescription-free Vitamin C?

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Who knows, I will let you know. But I would not have chemo therapy mega dose either. Mustard gas is not that appealing to me having watched what it did in the trenches.

However, in Frankfurt a doctor is catheterizing tiny amounts of cheomtherapy directly into the tumor. Now this appears logical rather than poisoning the whole body and inducing multiple organ failure.

This is a discussion forum, let us not conveniently forget this. My post in the "alternatives forum was to stimulate some interesting debate, not to stimulate some rather blinkered attacks.

I like the idea that alternatives such as ascorbic acid is being investigated by universities around the globe.

I do not like the rip off merchants mentioned by BC charging extortionate amounts of money for what is after all a very inexpensive vitamin.

Yet, Chemo therapy is another inexpensive group of chemicals, why is so much money made from it?

And what are the real costs to the people who receive it and their after care?

Frequency and Cost of Chemotherapy-Related Serious Adverse Effects in a Population Sample of Women With Breast Cancer
http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/98/16/1108
Chemotherapy recipients incurred large incremental expenditures for chemotherapy-related serious adverse effects ($1271 per person per year) and ambulatory encounters ($17 617 per person per year). Conclusions: Chemotherapy-related serious adverse effects among younger, commercially insured women with breast cancer may be more common than reported by large clinical trials and lead to more patient suffering and health care expenditures than previously estimated.

Michael J. Hassett, A. James O'Malley, Juliana R. Pakes, Joseph P. Newhouse, Craig C. Earle



I do not have to reconcile my opinion just follow the money.

Andrew

[Nizzle]

I do not have to reconcile my opinion just follow the money.

That'll be a short journey in a non-profit organization.

And for the big pharma companies: they have to recuperate their research costs. A patent on a medicine is valid for about 20 years. Pharma companies take patents on experimental drugs that show promise in the lab (in bacterial systems). After about 10 years, the experimental drugs would be ready to be sold on the market if all clinical trials prove that it's an improvement compared to current drugs on the market.
So the big pharma now has 10 years exclusiveness on the market to sell their drugs, before other pharmas can make the cheap generic version. However, the big pharma will have invested about 1 billion dollars in the research of this new drug that has to be recuperated, plus all costs for candidate experimental drugs that never reach the market (which most people tend to forget). So on average, to break even, a big pharma must earn about 100 million per year, because after 10 years, nobody will buy this medicine anymore and everyone will buy the cheaper generic medicine.
Now, if big pharma's would be forced by governments to lower their prices, the effect will be that after a few decades, there will be no more new drugs on the market, because no big pharma would take the risk to invest in experimental drugs without the guarantee that it would be approved to be distributed.

Disclaimer: the numbers I've used are realistic estimates, not exact.

[Bored chemist]

"Yet, Chemo therapy is another inexpensive group of chemicals, why is so much money made from it?
"
Actually, some of them are quite expensive to make but the real costs are due to the fact that they are relatively small volume products- there isn't the ecconomy of scale you get with aspirin (or, indeed, with vitamin C).
Another factor is that they are really quite toxic chemicals so the precautions needdd in the manufacturing plant are expensive.

Don't get me wrong- I know that the drugs companies make big profits (for reasons Nizzle explained) but you still need to answer the point I made earlier about the VP of a drug company dying rather than blowing the whistle and saying "Never mind the chemotherapy- get me some vitamin C".

There's no money involved here (just the price of an orange to a rich man).
You really do need to reconcile that if you want to be taken seriously.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

 Vitamin C is key to creating stem cells

Vitamin C could be used to overcome hurdles in creating stem cells for treating human diseases, scientists believe.

Published: 5:00PM GMT 24 Dec 2009

The vitamin boosts the reprogramming of adult cells to give them the properties of embryonic stem cells.

Scientists who made the discovery believe it may help them overcome long-standing problems in creating the reprogrammed cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs).

IPSCs offer a solution to the ethical problems involved in producing embryonic stem cells with the potential to become any kind of human tissue, from bone to brain.

Embryonic stem cells have to be extracted by cannibalising early stage embryos obtained from fertility clinics. IPSCs, on the other hand, are made in the laboratory from ordinary adult cells by altering their genes.

Many experts believe iPSCs are the future of stem cell medicine, since they behave in a similar way to embryonic stem cells and are also capable of developing into a wide range of tissues.

The conversion of ordinary cells into iPSCs is highly inefficient and difficult to achieve. Often the cells age prematurely and stop dividing or may die, a process known as senescence.

more...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/he...tem-cells.html

[Bored chemist]

Interesting stuf, but not an answer to my question.
Why don't you answer?

[VitaminC]

Which is the question you want answered?

[Lor]

imho vitamin c is probably more of a preventive of getting certain types of cancer.in the olden days people believed cancer was contagious and that idea was scoffed at and/or forgotten until the last 20 years when lo and behold medical science has found correlation between certain types of cancer,genetic predispostion and viruses.Eat healthy,avoid fatty and fried foods etc is your best bet.My Dad, god bless his soul, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at age 74-one of the worst, most agressive cancers you can get.he lived and basically recovered from a major stroke at age 60;had heart disease and a bypass 6 months before he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.he had been on coumidin, a blood thinner since he had a stroke and had to avoid any vegetables and other foods with high ammounts of vitamin D. i heard recently that there was a correlation between vitamin D and pancreatic cancer and wonder if that had contributed to his getting cancer.

you can flame me, think I am an idiot whatever but in my opinion chemotherapy and radiation is a barbaric treatment-I'm not saying it is not without merit or cure some people diagnosed at early stages of cancer.I've seen the other side of it-it's not pretty. They are basically trying to kill the cancer without killing you. Mark my words -in the future it will be considered a barbaric practice much like medicine in the past.

[Bored chemist]

"imho vitamin c is probably more of a preventive of getting certain types of cancer."
Why?
Is there any actual science that shows this?
It might be true; I don't know but, since this is a science forum. just saying "I think..." won't do.

[Lor]

well it makes logical sense to me. its a known fact viruses trigger cancer onset. I'm sure you wont argue a diet rich in vitamins helps prevent or reduce effects of illnesses such as cold or flu. Its also a known fact your general diet can increase your risk of cancer among other illnesses. There is a correlatioj between diets rich in certain foods,culturally speaking and the certain cancers that are prevalent in certain countries.For example china/asian countries had high rates of stomach cancer. America, I believe(by 'I believe' I mean I am not sure which cancer was prevalent in North America 20 years ago but there was one prevalent type)had higher rates of lung cancer. At least 20 years ago they were-this might have changed since the times have changed. But you get my point-the fact that diet affects your health. Don't get me wrong-I in no way believe once you get cancer that any ammount of vitamins or change in a diet will rid your body of cancer. I do in fact believe it can prevent it in alot of types of cancer, I also believe it is foolhardy to discount the idea since it is logical and harmless to take care of your body with a balanced and healthy diet.
Yes this is a science forum but it is not a scientific journal.I don't see anhywhere in the rules regarding posting scientific study data only. I don't feel the need to defend my 'opinion' since they are based on facts and logical thought. I stand by my right to  post my thoughts ideas and responses as i see them. Theres no need to try to inflame me -it wont work.   []

[VitaminC]

There is virtually no chance that vitamin C can be a cure for all cancers. That being said, there is the possibility that vitamin C therapies can work against certain types of cancers. How this might work depends on the cancer and the system you are testing it in. For example, vitamin C has been shown to reduce inflammation, an important part of etiology of some cancers. Vitamin C may also affect the immune system, which may also have an effect in defense against cancer. Vitamin C has recently been used intravenously to produce levels of hydrogen peroxide that may be cytotoxic to cancer cells. Vitamin C also may work with existing therapies (such as chemo) to prevent damage to normal tissues.

I could go on. There's a lot of possibilities, but that's all they are: POSSIBLE answers. Not a lot of people are researching vitamin C and cancer right now. It's not an easy thing to do.