your question: Cancer is a fungus, says Dr Simoncini

[Guest guest]

re: Cancer is a fungus, says Dr Simoncini

Your Question: Would it suit the large pharmaceutical companies to look towards

anything even resembling 'cure' when their very reason for existence is the

continued sale of their 'remedial' drug products?

Reply: The pharmaceutical companies have no regulatory authority to approve

interventions for cancers. The role of independent drug assessment is entrusted

to FDA (by Congress) in the US, and requires convincing evidence from

well-controlled studies with independent data monitoring.

The approval of Gleevec, just one example, was based on its ability to induce

remissions in previously fatal CML. If the system was rigged to favor

pharmaceutical companies, why would so many companies try to develop new

therapies for cancers? See for example, the very crowded lymphoma pipeline:

http://www.lymphomation.org/treatment-pipeline.htm

Cancer is well understood today. It's not one disease but perhaps hundreds. The

common denominator being a cell of a certain type develops defects (typically

genetic defects - deletions, translocations) that lead to uncontrolled growth

and survival advantages. In advanced stage, the abnormal cells can form tumors

that overwhelm the body system. See http://www.lymphomation.org/about-lay.htm

-- That all cancers, or any cancer, could be a fungal growth, or can be

reversed by treating a fungus is implausible at best. - noting that the

diagnostic process involves identification of the cell of origin in each case

and type of cancer (pancreatic, breast, prostate, basal cell ... and so on).

And the lymphomas, for example, have approximately 40 subtypes, depending on the

developmental stage (differentiation) of the blood cell of origin ...the name

for lymphoma is dervided from the cell type - a lymphocyte.

As noted, the supposition that a cure for cancer is being thwarted by the

industry wrongly assumes the industry controls the assessment process. True,

the sponsor profits if it can bring a more effectivetreatment to market, but it

most prove (in large randomized studies) that the therapy provides benefit for a

medical condition, relative to existing therapies and the disease untreated.

Noting also that placebo controls are not accepted as ethical in cancer studies.

Please note that most such endeavors fail ... most new compounds do not provide

clinical benefit. And these are very expensive failures - costing approximately

1 billion dollars. Licence exclusivity and patent protection are provided by

our society (when they succeeed) to give incentives for companies to keep

trying. Profit potential drives the science, but does not determine which are

approved.

Finally, a conspiracy by pharmaceutical companies would require the complicity

of its employees and scientists, the experts, all physicians, and regulators in

the field --- who also get cancers ... whose children and loved ones also get

cancers. Indeed, 3 in 5 Americans will develop a serious cancer in their life

time. If such a conspiracy existed, would not many experts relent and go public

when their children developed a cancer?

I hope you will consider amending your perspective, or to at least communicate

to your readers that (being a layperson) you have a need to gather more facts

before giving opinion in this area. Such misinformation or support for

implausible ideas can harm patients, who will be prone to hoping that a simple

fix exists - who may delay or avoid proven or truly promising investigational

therapies based on such myths.

Sincerely,

Karl Schwartz

President and co-founder, Patients Against Lymphoma

Patient Consultant to the FDA/Oncologic Drug Advisory Committee (ODAC)

Participant: NCI Progress Review Group for Blood Cancers (LMPRG)

Participant: Biospecimen Access and Ethical, Legal, and Policy Issues Workshop

(ELP)

Participant: Custodianship and Ownership Issues in Biospecimen Research

Symposium

Patients Against Lymphoma

www.lymphomation.org

Evidence-based information on lymphomas and treatments, independent of health

industry funding

3774 Buckwampum Road

Riegelsville, PA 18077

Phone: 610-346-8419

Fax: 801-409-5736

Email: KarlS@...

About Us: http://www.lymphomation.org/aboutus.pdf

How to Help: www.lymphomation.org/how-to-help.htm