OT: A Diabetes Researcher Forges Her Own Path to a Cure

[Guest guest]

Pretty amazing story..........

" But when Dr. Faustman, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, went

looking for money to finance the next stage of her research, testing the

ideas with diabetes patients, she could find no backers. Pharmaceutical

companies turned her down. So did the Juvenile Diabetes Research Association. "

" The reason for the resistance, Dr. Faustman and some colleagues believe,

was simple: her findings, which raise the possibility that an inexpensive,

readily available drug might effectively treat Type 1 or juvenile diabetes,

challenge widespread assumptions. Many diabetes researchers insist that a

cure lies instead in research on stem cells and islet cell transplants. "

>From: Binstock <binstock@...>

[Thou shalt not rock the boat!]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/09/health/09diab.html

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Jodi Hilton for The New York Times

Dr. Faustman has cured diabetes in mice. Humans are next on her agenda.

A Diabetes Researcher Forges Her Own Path to a Cure

By GINA KOLATA

Dr. Faustman thinks she has a shot at curing diabetes.

She has published one significant scientific paper after another on the

disease. She has succeeded in curing it in mice, something no one else has

accomplished.

But when Dr. Faustman, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, went

looking for money to finance the next stage of her research, testing the

ideas with diabetes patients, she could find no backers. Pharmaceutical

companies turned her down. So did the Juvenile Diabetes Research Association.

Her approach was criticized, even though in the past, said her boss, Dr.

ph Avruch, chief of the diabetes unit at the Massachusetts General

Hospital, " most of the things she found turned out to be true. "

Only the support of Lee A. Iacocca, the former chief of Chrysler, who said

he wanted to see diabetes cured in his lifetime, has allowed her to pursue

her goal. He mounted an $11 million fund-raising campaign and wrote a $1

million check to start the fund.

The reason for the resistance, Dr. Faustman and some colleagues believe,

was simple: her findings, which raise the possibility that an inexpensive,

readily available drug might effectively treat Type 1 or juvenile diabetes,

challenge widespread assumptions. Many diabetes researchers insist that a

cure lies instead in research on stem cells and islet cell transplants.

Dr. Faustman's story, scientists say, illustrates the difficulties that

creative scientists can have when their work questions conventional wisdom

and runs into entrenched interests. But if she is correct, scientists will

also have to reconsider many claims for embryonic stem cells as a cure for

diabetes, and perhaps for other diseases.

" I wish well, and I flat out hope she's right, " said Dr. Mark

Atkinson, a diabetes expert who directs the Center for Immunology and

Transplantation at the University of Florida College of Medicine. " But the

environment she's trying to move this forward in is so much like kids in a

sandbox, whipping sand around. It's hard to see with so much sand in the air. "

With many foundations and universities competing for research financing,

and with the heated politics of stem cell research, it is no surprise, Dr.

Atkinson said, that disputes can sometimes become vitriolic.

In addition, he said, the field has been whipsawed by false hopes.

" I've seen a lot of things in diabetes come and go, " Dr. Atkinson said.

" For decades we have been told that a cure is just around the corner.

That's part of the background, that's why it's emotionally heated. "

Dr. Faustman's research began when she came to Massachusetts General in

1985 to help start a program to cure diabetes with transplants of islet

cells, which come from hormone-producing regions of the pancreas. She had

learned to isolate human islet cells from the transplant technique's

developer, Dr. Lacey of Washington University, and she was confident

about her skill.

Other scientists had tried the transplants and failed - the islet cells

died despite immunosuppressant drugs - but Dr. Faustman thought she would

succeed.

" I thought the secret was that my islets were better than anyone else's, "

she said.

But when she and Dr. , the director of the diabetes center at

the hospital, tried using her islets, they also failed. So Dr. Faustman

decided to go back to the laboratory and study the phenomenon in mice.

Researchers had reported that islet transplants could cure diabetes in

mice, but they had been making them diabetic by destroying their islet

cells. Dr. Faustman decided to look at mice with a strong genetic

predisposition to develop diabetes on their own. When the islet cell

transplants failed in those animals, she asked why.

Diabetes occurs when a white blood cell, part of the body's immune system,

migrates to the pancreas and mistakenly sees islet cells as foreign tissue.

It then multiplies and destroys the islets. But, Dr. Faustman learned, she

could block the white cells by supplying them with a piece of protein that

signaled that the islet cells were normal cells, rather than foreign

invaders.

She also had to stop the attack that was under way in the pancreas. That

required killing the white cells that were doing the attacking. Her

solution was to give an off-patent drug, BCG, that is inexpensive, $11 a

vial, and approved for use as an immune system stimulant. It elicits the

release of an immune system hormone, tumor necrosis factor, that kills

activated white cells.

After Dr. Faustman gave the mice the two types of treatment, the attack on

the islets stopped.

Then, to her astonishment, something else happened: the islet cells grew

back, a development that went against everything known by scientists.

The implications, Dr. said, were enormous. The diabetic mice, he

said, had had extremely high blood sugar levels for weeks and would die

without insulin. Researchers had successfully intervened earlier in the

disease with these animals but not once diabetes was so firmly established.

" No one had cured them, " he said. " Here was this treatment that we thought

would get them ready for a transplant but - eureka! - the diabetes was cured. "

If Dr. Faustman's findings could be applied to humans, there would be no

need for islet cell transplants. Embryonic stem cells, which many

researchers believed might be turned into islet cells, eliminating the need

to get islets for transplants from cadavers, would also be unnecessary.

In fact, the work meant that unless the underlying immune system attack on

the pancreas was stopped, these replacement cells would eventually be

destroyed anyway, so such treatments would never be a cure.

Dr. Faustman published the work in The Journal of Clinical Investigation in

2001.

" We weren't allowed to use the word 'regenerate,' " she said. " People

didn't believe that an organ could regenerate. " Instead, she had to say

" restoration of insulin secretion by return of blood sugar to normal. "

Even though the islet cells were growing back, it was still unclear where

the new cells were coming from. Before long, Dr. Faustman had a surprising

answer. They were from the spleen, a fist-size organ on the left side of

the diaphragm whose pulpy interior is filled with blood.

In a paper last year in Science, Dr. Faustman reported that she had cured

female mice of diabetes and transplanted them with spleens from male mice.

The islet cells that grew back were male, and they had come from the male

spleens.

The findings raised the question of what happens to people who have their

spleens removed. Dr. Faustman went to the medical literature and discovered

that most spleens were removed in emergency rooms and that few patients

were followed afterward, with two exceptions.

One was a group of patients in England with pancreatitis. To treat them,

doctors had removed half of the pancreas. When they removed the right half

of the organ, the patients were fine. But when they removed the left half,

along with the attached spleen, patients often developed diabetes about

five years later.

The other case involved children with beta thalassemia, a genetic disease

involving iron storage. Often, they developed enlarged spleens, which were

removed. Five years or so later, many got diabetes.

The stories about patients who had their spleens removed are not proof that

Dr. Faustman's work applies to humans as well as mice.

" 's work is remarkable in animals, " Dr. said. " But does it

apply to humans? As a clinical investigator, I have to remain skeptical.

Scientifically, is it a long shot? I don't know. "

Mr. Iacocca's check, and the money he wants to raise, will pay for the

initial phase of a clinical trial, the first step for finding out. Dr.

, who will direct the trial, will ask whether BCG kills the

islet-destroying white blood cells of patients in the same way it does in

mice and, if so, at what dose. Dr. Faustman is working on a blood test that

will immediately assess the effects of BCG by determining whether the

dangerous white cells are being destroyed.

In the meantime, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation is financing an

independent effort to replicate Dr. Faustman's work. The researcher, Dr.

Anita Chong of the University of Chicago, said her studies were still under

way. But, she added, " so far, what we have done replicates what she has done. "

For his part, Mr. Iacocca was confident from the start that Dr. Faustman's

work was correct. His foundation's scientific advisers strongly endorsed

it, and Mr. Iacocca, whose wife, , died of diabetes complications, has

a personal interest.

" I can't wait for the pharmaceutical companies or even government tax money

to fund what looks promising, " Mr. Iacocca said. " They are not known for

high risk and they are also slow to react. We are trying to get a cure. "

*

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--------------------------------------------------------

Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA, Classical Homeopath

http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/vaccine.htm

[Guest guest]

><< " I've seen a lot of things in diabetes come and go, " Dr. Atkinson

>said. " For decades we have been told that a cure is just around the

>corner. That's part of the background, that's why it's emotionally

>heated. " >>

>

>This is why we don't support the research foundations.

>

><<She also had to stop the attack that was under way in the pancreas.

>That required killing the white cells that were doing the attacking. Her

>solution was to give an off-patent drug, BCG, that is inexpensive, $11 a

>vial, and approved for use as an immune system stimulant. It elicits the

>release of an immune system hormone, tumor necrosis factor, that kills

>activated white cells.

>

>After Dr. Faustman gave the mice the two types of treatment, the attack

>on the islets stopped.

>

>Then, to her astonishment, something else happened: the islet cells grew

>back, a development that went against everything known by scientists.

>

>The implications, Dr. said, were enormous. The diabetic mice, he

>said, had had extremely high blood sugar levels for weeks and would die

>without insulin. Researchers had successfully intervened earlier in the

>disease with these animals but not once diabetes was so firmly

>established. >>

>

>The implications of this are even bigger than they realize. I wonder if

>the mice had to stay on the BCG and what side effects that could cause.

>I also wonder if simply finding the exact appropriate homeopathic remedy

>would do the same thing. For those of you who don't know, my youngest

>daughter was showing early signs of diabetes, the doctors told me just

>to watch her and let them know when she started needing insulin. Sheri

>took her case and found a remedy, some of the signs stopped immediately,

>some of them stopped within a few weeks, she shows no signs now. Sheri

>will be treating Brittany this winter, I can't wait to see what happens!

>

>Please don't flame me about my thoughts on JDRF, we don't support the

>JDRF or the ADA, they hinder more than help. The only organization that

>we support is a local one that provides camps for the kids in the summer

>that teach the kids how to take care of themselves. I don't know where

>we would be without those camps every year.

>

>

>Ohio

Thanks for sharing all of that...........we are definitely hopeful. I have

found no precedent to help us along the way. I know of no other homeopath

who has treated a pre-diabetic who was spilling sugar, so we are going by

the seat of our pants here.

Hopefully we will make the history books!

And yes, all of the foundations are the same - Cancer on down. Don't give

your money to them.

Sheri

--------------------------------------------------------

Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA, Classical Homeopath

Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Nevada City CA & Wales UK

$$ Donations to help in the work - accepted by Paypal account

vaccineinfo@... voicemail US 530-740-0561

(go to http://www.paypal.com) or by mail

Vaccines - http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/vaccine.htm

Vaccine Dangers On-Line course - http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/vaccineclass.htm

Homeopathy On-Line course - http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/homeo.htm

ANY INFO OBTAINED HERE NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS MEDICAL

OR LEGAL ADVICE. THE DECISION TO VACCINATE IS YOURS AND YOURS ALONE.

******

" Just look at us. Everything is backwards; everything is upside down.

Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy

knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the major media destroy information

and religions destroy spirituality " .... Ellner

[Guest guest]

<<She also had to stop the attack that was under way in the pancreas.

That required killing the white cells that were doing the attacking. Her

solution was to give an off-patent drug, BCG, that is inexpensive, $11 a

vial, and approved for use as an immune system stimulant. It elicits the

release of an immune system hormone, tumor necrosis factor, that kills

activated white cells.>>

I figured out what BCG is, I knew it sounded familiar. It's a TB

vaccine. :-( On a Type 1 Diabetes and Celiac list that I'm on, there

is a lady from the UK who's son received it and has been ill since,

weak, thin, sickly, etc.

Ohio

My auctions at eBay - http://tinyurl.com/53lys

)0(~~~)0(~~~)0(

Mom to Brittany, born 8/31/93, dx'd-IDDM 5/28/01; , born 6/28/97;

and Shayna, born 6/1/00.

Vaccine free since 1999! See our site and get more vaccine info at

http://www.loonatics-fringe.com

For Ohio specific Vaccine Info - http://groups.msn.com/OhioVaxInfo/

[Guest guest]

At 09:01 AM 11/11/2004 -0500, you wrote:

>

><<She also had to stop the attack that was under way in the pancreas.

>That required killing the white cells that were doing the attacking. Her

>solution was to give an off-patent drug, BCG, that is inexpensive, $11 a

>vial, and approved for use as an immune system stimulant. It elicits the

>release of an immune system hormone, tumor necrosis factor, that kills

>activated white cells.>>

>

>I figured out what BCG is, I knew it sounded familiar. It's a TB

>vaccine. :-( On a Type 1 Diabetes and Celiac list that I'm on, there

>is a lady from the UK who's son received it and has been ill since,

>weak, thin, sickly, etc.

You know I wondered about that

But I thought there must be something else called BCG that I didn't know

about as the article didn't say it was a vaccine, but said it was an

off-patent drug (didn't know what that meant)

BCG vaccine could CAUSE diabetes in my opinion

Oh, jeeshhhhhhhhh. Are we sure there isn't something else called BCG?

Sheri

--------------------------------------------------------

Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA, Classical Homeopath

Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Nevada City CA & Wales UK

$$ Donations to help in the work - accepted by Paypal account

vaccineinfo@... voicemail US 530-740-0561

(go to http://www.paypal.com) or by mail

Vaccines - http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/vaccine.htm

Vaccine Dangers On-Line course - http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/vaccineclass.htm

Homeopathy On-Line course - http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/homeo.htm

ANY INFO OBTAINED HERE NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS MEDICAL

OR LEGAL ADVICE. THE DECISION TO VACCINATE IS YOURS AND YOURS ALONE.

******

" Just look at us. Everything is backwards; everything is upside down.

Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy

knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the major media destroy information

and religions destroy spirituality " .... Ellner