Cloned immune cells cleared patient's cancer

Ian Sample, science correspondent

A patient whose skin cancer had spread throughout his body has been given the all-clear after being injected with billions of his own immune cells.

Tests revealed that the 52-year-old man's tumours, which spread from his skin to his lung and groin, vanished within two months of having the treatment, and had not returned two years later.

Doctors attempted the experimental therapy as part of a clinical trial after the man's cancer failed to respond to conventional treatments.

The man is the first to benefit from the new technique, which uses cloning to produce billions of copies of a patient's immune cells. When they are injected into the body they attack the cancer and force it into remission.

Campaigners and scientists in the UK yesterday welcomed the breakthrough. "It's very exciting to see a cancer patient being successfully treated using immune cells cloned from his own body. While it's always good news when anyone with cancer gets the all-clear, this treatment will need to be tested in large clinical trials to work out how widely it could be used," said Ed Yong at Cancer Research UK.

Peter Johnson, chief clinician at the charity, added: "Although the technique is complex and difficult to use for all but a few patients, the principle that someone's own immune cells can be expanded and made to work in this way is very encouraging."

Cassian Yee at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle extracted immune cells from the patient and found that a small proportion of them, called CD4 T cells, naturally attacked a protein found on nearly three-quarters of the cancer cells. Using cloning techniques, Yee's team replicated these cells until they had more than 5bn of them.

When the cells were injected into the patient they immediately began attacking the cancer. Intriguingly, the patient's immune system gradually began a wider offensive, attacking all the cancer cells in the body, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine. Two months later medical scans failed to pick up any signs of cancer in the patient.

The team believes the treatment could be effective in around a quarter of skin cancer patients whose immune systems have cells that are already primed to attack their tumours. "For this patient we were successful, but we would need to confirm the effectiveness of therapy in a larger study," Yee added.

In an accompanying article Louis Weiner, director of the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Centre at Georgetown University, Washington, wrote that Yee's work "underscores the remarkable potential of the immune system to eradicate cancer, even when the disease is widespread".

The case showed that hopes to turn the immune system into a weapon against cancer was becoming a reality, Weiner added. "If the destination is not yet at hand, it is in sight. The endgame has begun."

Using the immune system to fight cancer could be much safer than existing treatments, which often have serious side effects.

The Guardian

Prescription Drug Use in America

The Startling Numbers And Their Implications

In 2002, Americans filled 3,340,000,000 outpatient prescriptions.1 That's 12 prescriptions for every man, women, and child in America. Has the American dream become 2 kids, 2 cars, and a dozen drugs in each person's medicine chest?
Despite a cold economy in which most industries have seen sales drop, U.S. drug sales increased substantially in 2002, reaching $219 billion. According to NDCHealth, overall drug sales (all sources) grew 12% 2002, 18% in 2001, and 15% in 2000 (based on wholesale acquisition costs). 1
The trend of doctors writing more and more outpatient prescriptions each year continues without pause: 1,2

2002: 3,340,000,000 Rx
2001: 3,200,000,000 Rx
2000: 2,979,000,000 Rx
1999: 2,821,000,000 Rx
1998: 2,523,000,000 Rx

The cost of these drugs has more than doubled in five years.
The outlook for the future? According to Pharmacy Times last year: "For the past 3 years, prescription volume has grown by 25% in the United States, and there doesn't appear to be a slowdown in sight."2
I'm not anti-medication. Medications do a great deal of good, but we must ask, what is the goal of the drug industry? To simply sell as many drugs as possible? Yet, medications aren't like other commodities. Prescription drugs aren't the same as cars, cosmetics, or CD players. Drugs have direct, powerful effects on human systems. Some of these effects are negative, and taking multiple drugs -- as 25% of Americans do -- increases the risks exponentially. Psychologically, the growing attitude that drugs are the answer for every ache and angst is destructive for individuals and societies.
Prescription medications are vitally important for treating medical conditions, but they are also the #4 leading cause of death, cause more than 1 million hospitalizations annually, and are a major cause of disability and drug dependency.3 Over-use of medications is rampant.
Many doctors treating high cholesterol and high blood pressure turn to drugs without ever discussing diet and exercise, although many of these disorders are nutritional, not medical. Many patients prefer a pill to changing harmful habits. With drug advertising everywhere, what is the message being drummed into us and our children: that for every symptom and sensation the solution is a pill?


"The drug industry has been the most profitable industry by far year after year. Drug companies need profits to conduct research, but how much is enough, when most profits go to marketing, promotions, and the development of unneeded me-too drugs?"



The drug industry has been the most profitable industry by far year after year. Last year, Public Citizen stated: "While the overall profits of Fortune 500 companies declined by 53% [in 2001], the top 10 U.S. drug makers increased profits by 33%. These companies had the greatest return on receipts, reporting a profit of 18.5 cents for every $1 of sales, which was eight times higher than the median for all Fortune 500 industries."4
Meanwhile, drug costs are driving health insurance expenditures and your premiums through the roof. They are driving thousands of people to Canada and Mexico for drug prices they can afford. For many people, it comes down to medications or food. For many healthcare systems, Rx drugs cost more than all of their doctor visits or hospitalizations combined. Drug companies need profits to conduct research, but how much is reasonable, especially when the greatest proportion of these profits go to marketing, promotions, and the development of unneeded me-too drugs?
Here are the big $ales winners in 2002:

1. Lipitor (cholesterol-lowering): $5.58 billion (up 18%)
2. Zocor (cholesterol-lowering): $4.069 billion (up 18%)
3. Prevacid (ulcers, reflux): $3.894 billion (up 4%)
4. Prilosec (ulcers, reflux): $3.341 billion (down 22% after going generic in 2002)
5. Procrit: >$2 billion, exact numbers N/A
6. Zyprexa (neuroleptic): $2.716 billion (up 15%)
7. Paxil (SSRI antidepressant): $2.509 billion (up 13%)
8. Zoloft (SSRI antidepressant): $2.445 billion (up 13%)
9. Epogen: >$2 billion, exact numbers N/A
10. Celebrex (anti-inflammatory): $2.380 billion (up 5.3%)
11. Nexium (ulcers, reflux): $2.000 billion (new drug)
12. Neurontin (seizures, pain): $2.000 billion
13. Norvasc (antihypertensive): $1.814 billion (up 5%)

Prescription drug use and costs are like a runaway train. Where is it heading? Can we, should we, try to slow it? Is there an optimal balance between effective medication use and overmedication? Can we find it?
The mission of this newsletter and website is to discuss issues about drug use, drug safety, and proven-effective alternative methods that mainstream medicine and the media ignore. These issues affect every family in America and the developed world. I'll have a lot more to say on these issues in subsequent newsletters.


References:
1. NDCHealth, a healthcare information services company. Atlanta, GA, Apr. 1, 2003:www.ndchealth.com.
2. Top 10 Drugs of 1997-2001. Pharmacy Times, April editions in respective years.
3. Lazarou, J, Pomeranz, BH, Corey, PN. Incidence of adverse drug reactions in hospitalized patients: a meta-analysis of prospective studies. JAMA, 1998 Apr 15, 279(15):1200-5.
4. Public Citizen. Pharmaceuticals Rank As Most Profitable Industry, Again. Public Citizen, 4/18/02:citizen.org.

Raw milk's popularity growing by leaps and bounds

I'm almost ready to declare victory in the government's absurd war against raw milk. In spite of the efforts of Big Dairy, as well as wrong-headed public health officials from the Federal, and State governments - demand for raw milk is actually growing.

Moo-ve over, Big Dairy!

As you well know, I'm the poster boy for the many health benefits that are found in raw (i.e., unpasteurized) milk. And thankfully the publics' growing concern about all the nasty stuff (read: chemicals, hormones, and drugs) used in commercial dairy farming has pushed them toward raw milk. I know it's the right move, and I'm happy to see that this is a growing trend.

To be sure, anyone making the switch to raw milk has to climb a mountain of misinformation to get there, which makes the increased demand for this good stuff even more impressive. First, there's the fact that the federal government and the majority of states prohibit the sale of raw milk to the public. These public health bureaucrats claim that in recent decades raw milk was responsible for sickening hundreds with bacterial illnesses such as salmonella, E. coli, Listeria monocytogenes, and others. In short: this is untrue.

In fact, as I've told you, recent milk-related outbreaks of Listeria and E. coli that caused illness and even death were caused by pasteurized milk, not raw milk (typically, the health officials didn't have much of an explanation for this). But the FDA and the CDC never let the facts get in the way of a good story. "Raw milk continues to cause outbreaks year after year," says FDA dairy "expert" John Sheehan. "It is a concern for the FDA."

Really? Or is it more of a concern that, in spite of all the money that Big Dairy's special interest lobbies pump into the government agencies, it's becoming more and more difficult for the FDA and the CDC to fight the tide of truth about raw milk. The story is getting out, no matter what they do. And I'm proud to be one of the people who's helping to spread the word.

What's more, because it's grown organically, raw milk comes with a hefty price tag: the going rate for raw milk is often north of $5 a gallon. But as so many people are discovering, this would be a bargain at twice the price.

Here's why…

There are many indications that raw milk consumption can relieve allergies, asthma, digestive disorders – even autism. That's a lot of power in one glass of milk. So it's no wonder that smart folks everywhere are ignoring the warnings and seeking out the small, organic dairies that sell raw milk.

It's easy to see by the growing number of dairies that sell raw milk that the demand is on the rise – big time. In Washington State alone, the number of raw milk dairies boomed from just six to 22 in just two years. And over the last five years, Massachusetts has doubled its number of raw milk dairies to a total of 24 – and this is at a time when the number of commercial dairies has been declining.

The process of pastuerization – where the milk is heated for an extended time – destroys many of the key proteins and enzymes that occur naturally in milk, and that can help the body to absorb vitamins and digest lactose. The high heat also damages the water-soluble B vitamins, which are chock-full of incredible health benefits.

Raw milk maybe off the beaten path … but it's the super highway to good health.

Moo-ving public perception about raw milk,

William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.