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A Cancer Cure Most Doctors Won't Tell You About

damninteresting.com — During the early 1900's, Dr. William Coley re-discovered a cancer treatment that was surprisingly effective. By infecting tumors with common bacteria, Coley learned the body could be triggered to kill off cancerous tumors. Conventional modern medicine rarely employs Coley ’s technique today for 1 reason: they still don't understand how it works.

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  • CaesarBlue, on 10/11/2007, -14/+155This treatment isn't a pipe dream. Its been used successfully in several cultures throughout history. The main reason it isn't used today is because , chemotherapy, which is understood, counteracts the effects of this treatment. As a result, doctors tend to go with the understood method of treatment. Very interesting read.
    • catalysis, on 10/11/2007, -17/+80The reason why they don't use it is very simple. S. pyogenes is a virulent, pathogenic bacteria that can cause necrotizing fasciitis (flesh eating bacteria), sepsis, toxic shock syndrome, and death. Infections below the skin usually require amputation. It is probably not the smartest idea to infect a cancer patient with it. Why the hell is this even on the front page?
      • Charlotte_Web, on 10/11/2007, -14/+7If you're going to die anyway, what difference does it make if you die of cancer or if you die from an attempted cure?
        • sgtbutterscotch, on 10/11/2007, -3/+5who said anything about dying?
          • Charlotte_Web, on 10/11/2007, -0/+16besides, according to the article, Dr. Coley modified the toxins he injected to only use dead bacteria, and still achieved the same cancer-fighting result.
      • madmac66, on 10/11/2007, -14/+8Either that or the pharma co's have greased the palms of many a doctor to promote Chemo as the 'only' option. Too many alternative or natural medicinal treatments are dismissed by 'the medical community' for what appear to be purely cynical and commercial reasons.
        • AtheistAcolyte, on 10/11/2007, -7/+10Of course, conspiracy theories abound from the alternative medicine crowd. News flash, buddy! WESTERN MEDICINE IS HERE TO SAVE LIVES! HOMEOPATHY IS 100% BUNK! NOT EVERYONE IS IN THE POCKETS OF "BIG PHARMA"!

          Deal with it.
        • imperium2000, on 10/11/2007, -1/+8Alternative medicine? Show me the evidence that it works. Show me a physiological reason why it works. Show me how to dose it.
      • crichton101, on 10/11/2007, -4/+8But irradiating a patient is a smart idea? Too much radiation can kill. Chemo causes hair to fall out, among other physical problems, like altering someones sense of taste. It's can be effective yes, but it's still radiation.
        • imperium2000, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9And what is the real alternative? It is attitudes like that that lead to patients fearing radiation therapy even when it is the most effective and safest treatment. Do you think that Radiation Oncologist make stuff up? The dosage of radiationa and how it is applied is a very specific science.
        • liquidcoooled, on 10/17/2007, -5/+2It is not a science.
          It is a chance at survival which a sane healthy person would never subject themselves through.
          Radiation IS dangerous, it just seems like the body gets ***** scared and gets rid of everything after having the treatment.
          I am personally not sure whether put in the situation I would be able to go through with it, but if enough people suggest it I might do.

          Remember, for years people said smoking was safe.
        • imperium2000, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3liquidcooled: Why would a healthy person irradiate himself and why would a healthy person take antibiotics or blood thinners? Oncology and the treatment of cancer is about balancing the risks and the rewards. Many types of cancer respond very well to radiation. We inform you and you can make your own decision about what you want to do.
      • nomadignatius, on 10/11/2007, -2/+9Please be a bit more informed about what you are speaking of. S. pyogenes can be a nast infection, but a) it is a bacteria not a virus and b) is pretty easily treated with antibiotics. Personally I'd rather risk most of the effects of S. pyogenes rather than undergo months of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. Much more comfortable, shorter, treatable, and less dangerous.
        • imperium2000, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6Great claim...and what is your evidence of this 'effectiveness' over current treatments?
      • klui, on 10/11/2007, -1/+7The article mentioned the fluid ultimately comprised of dead bacterial, which I take to mean it doesn't cause a patient any harm, other than stimulating his immune system.
      • microchp, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10There are other options. One treatment used on tumors in a persons brain was to infect it with rat herpes. Once infected, a treament for rat herpes was then injected and the tumor was destroyed. Rat herpes does not harm humans, though I am sure people would make fun of you for having it. :-D

        There are probably a billion other virii or bacteria that could be used as well, that are not harmful to humans.

        Stop being negative and find a cure. Hurry!

        :-)
        • imperium2000, on 10/11/2007, -4/+10Will people stop stating that cancer is one disease. It is multiple diseases. Its like claiming lets create a cure for infections. What the hell do you think all the billions being spent on cancer research is for? This is a BS article.
        • Bamborzled, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3The plural form of 'virus' is 'viruses', not 'virii' or 'viri'. 'Viri' means 'men' in Latin, and 'virii' would be the plural to the nonexistent word 'virius'.
        • microchp, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2imperium, Bamborzled,

          If we have to get into semantics, then obviously we are no longer talking about the topic at hand.

          Also, when I type the plural of virus, it is virii by certain laws you may not be familiar with. :-)

      • GoldYoshi, on 10/17/2007, -14/+5Why would they want to cure cancer with something that doesn't cost thousands of dollars? You think doctors care about the patients? They just want their money, and curing cancer would not get the cancer foundation all those nice, juicy check donations from rich people like Bill Gates.
        • imperium2000, on 10/11/2007, -4/+5I care so ***** you.
        • dragon76, on 10/17/2007, -10/+5"Modern" medicine hasn't cured anything since polio. That's not a fantastic track record for the amount of money poured into research. I don't see why people are digging GoldYoshi down. Creating treatments so you can stay sick longer is not my idea of medicine.
        • imperium2000, on 10/17/2007, -1/+10Modern medicine hasn't cured anything since polio? What an absurd statement. Where is malaria in the US? Where are all the childhood diseases that killed off most babies? What do you call using antibiotics to treat pneumonias or various infections?
          • johndi, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Medicine didn't eliminate Malaria is the US. That was done by draining wetlands and the prodigious use of DDT. Malaria is still one of the world's deadliest diseases, and there is no particular reason it couldn't return to the US and Europe. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for what doctors can do, but DDT isn't medicine.
    • almalax19, on 10/11/2007, -6/+4Thanks for the summary...
    • intense321, on 10/17/2007, -3/+87I am a physician. We can't employ these types of treatments today because it would be malpractice. Back in Coley's time, he could get away with doing radical things like this because society wasn't as litiginous as it is today. If I could practice without having any fear of being sued, I might be employing such tactics..
      • Charlotte_Web, on 10/11/2007, -1/+21Would it be possible for patients who want to undergo such radical treatments to sign away their right to sue for malpractice?
        • Gzero, on 10/11/2007, -0/+18Yes, exactly. If I told my doctor I wanted to be injected with bacteria, could I?
          • sigintop, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5But what's stopping your family from suing the doctor because they thought he did the procedure wrong? They might have hopped on the internet and read how it's a miracle cure that always works.
          • awhiteflame, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Hence the point of the release form.
          • imperium2000, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9Release forms do not protect you. In fact in many cases, it is not a legally binding document at all and there are many ways to argue a way around it. Not to mention medical funding from the NIH has many restrictions against high risk research.
        • brufleth, on 10/11/2007, -0/+19Almost certainly not. Even a release form is not a deterrent anymore. People will often sign releases and then sue anyway.

          Any doctor who did such a procedure would almost certainly be dropped by their insurance company and a doctor without malpractice insurance can't practice.

          The other problem is cost. NO insurance company is going to cover such a procedure. So you have a massive shopping list of expenses from hospital stay to sterilizing which is all very expensive. No insurance company or state run insurance system is going to pay for a treatment which hasn't been "worked out" and as some people have mentioned the resulting infection that would probably occur due to the bacteria would probably be lethal.
        • allywilson, on 10/11/2007, -3/+13Just go to the Netherlands. They do anything and everything in my eyes.



          Don't digg me down for a gross generalisation - my point is that if someone wants a treatment, there will be someplace in the world willing to administer it.
      • ingxia, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Check out what Coley Pharmaceuticals and Dynavax Technologies is doing. See my explanation in reply to original post.
    • aaaargh, on 10/17/2007, -2/+17Only paranoid conspiracy-freaks could believe doctors are withholding its use simply because they don't fully understand it. Individual doctors don't understand lots of drugs they use, and even the best informed researchers don't understand all the aspects of how drugs work. That's why side effects can turn up even after FDA approval. And the fact is, the operation here is generally understood. Interferon (mentioned as an obscure exception in the article) has been heavily studied in cancer treatments for decades, and is prescribed in a wide variety of treatments. And finally, classifying a drug as experimental doesn't mean a tyrannical government is keeping it from us; it can be used in studies of mice and other animals, and if it shows promise advance to human testing, the same as with any drugs. True, you can't inject patients with whatever you want, the way you could in 1900, but it can be argued that that's to protect society. I can see room for debate as to how far that should be taken, but the general contrarian tone of the article is disingenuous or ill-informed.
      • microchp, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3We could EASILY make more volunteer programs that allow people that are terminally ill to undergo various experimental procedures. That would require dropping all abilities to sue anyone in this volunteer program. As in-humane as some people will say it is, there are incredible benefits from doing something like this.

        If we give terminally ill people incentive to do such a program, like giving their family life insurance benefits that go above and beyond what they normally would have received, giving them a memorial with their names on it, naming them as contributing to the cure for x,y,z, forgiving their debts, etc, then people would be willing to sacrafice that last suffering moments of their life to help save many others and further the understanding of various diseases.
        • AtheistAcolyte, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4They're called clinical trials. And they cost money.
        • microchp, on 10/11/2007, -4/+1Clinical trials cost money, but a VERY SMALL fraction of keeping people in the system sick with cancer.

          Send one less AC130 to Iraq, and all trials would be paid for over the span of the next 30 years, easily.
          • AtheistAcolyte, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4I'm sorry, I had no idea that you knew exactly how much a set of clinical trials (including blind and double-blind trials) costs. Or for that matter, the cost of sending an AC130 to Iraq.

            Don't make claims to knowledge you don't have.
        • microchp, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1AtheistAcolyte,

          Yes, one less AC130. If we have to send two less that is fine. And yes, the costs of both are published and linked to from Google. That would be a whole topic for discussion though and would be a fun one at very least. :-)
    • Alegoo92, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2Hypocratic oath- I will not treat patients without knowing the treatment myself,
      • stklaw, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4But how do we know if we don't try the first time?
    • ingxia, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Wrong. This is only partially true. A company called (suprise, suprise) Coley Pharmaceuticals just released data (albeit, showing lack of effectiveness) from a non-small cell lung cancer trial. Another company, Dynavax Technologies is in the middle of a colorectal cancer trial and is still enrolling patients in the Washington, DC area. See http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct/show/NCT00403052?order=1 The experimental drug 1018 ISS activates the same receptors and is basically the essence of the virulent bacteria used in Coley's experiments. But as the article says, the drug must be administred at the same time as today's standard of care which is always chemotherapy, thereby killing immune cells and not giving the drug a real chance of success. The US FDA is basically at fault here because it doesn't allow companies to test a drug alone, it's always together with standard of care (i.e. radiation/chemo) meaning a Coley-like therapy will have a difficult time succeeding.
  • Battleloser, on 10/11/2007, -36/+5So...Cancer is caused by anti-bacterial soap? O_o
    • TheGrunt, on 10/11/2007, -4/+23Actually, yes. It's called triclosan and it's a carcinogen.
      http://www.newstarget.com/021703.html
    • subliminalurge, on 10/11/2007, -1/+13Lots of nasty things are caused by our culture's obsession with germ avoidance. If you're never exposed to anything, how can your immune system develop to its full potential?

      Couple that with our extreme over usage of antibiotics and we now have bigger, badder, meaner germs out there and bodies that don't know how to fight them off.

      • brufleth, on 10/17/2007, -6/+3Cancer is not a germ.
        • subliminalurge, on 10/17/2007, -2/+2Really? Golly gee, thanks for clearing that up for me.

          That's not the point. The interesting thing about the article, which many people are not aware of, is that our immune systems are capable of fighting off cancer. The described process is simply a means of directing our immune system to attack the correct location. Therefore all of the paranoid pill-popping, hand-washing, scrubbing, sanitizing, and sterilizing that we do does, in fact, make us more susceptible to cancer.
    • asaturn, on 10/11/2007, -6/+3yeah man! that's why you really shouldn't take showers or wear deodorant! it's NATURAL! just like weed, man! the government should quit trying to tell us what to do with our bodies... I mean, things weren't so bad before anti-bacterial soap!
  • ladyarcher85, on 10/11/2007, -38/+34Interesting article and a great read. Will need to dig more information with regards to this.

    I'm not really surprised if there are doctors out there that won't recommend other treatments especially if said treatments would be cheaper. After all, healthcare and medication is just another business and like all businesses they are after profits.
    • AndrewJC, on 10/11/2007, -10/+66You REALLY think that doctors get paid more if the medications they prescribe are more expensive?

      My father is a doctor and he's a damn good one. He WILL prescribe what is best for the patient. I get sick of people assuming that all doctors are out there to scam their patients, as if there's some mass conspiracy to delude the American public into thinking that there are cures for all their diseases in that locked cabinet over there that are going unused, while the doctor prescribes a lengthy and expensive treatment simply because it'll net a pharma more money.

      Doctors are like cops, in a respect: There are good ones and there are bad ones (both in talent and in ethics)... but usually you can spot the bad ones a mile away.
      • ladyarcher85, on 10/11/2007, -13/+11Read my comment again til you get it. I did not assume ALL doctors are just scamming patients but you cannot also deny that there are many out there that do. So spare me the rant.

        I have been a victim of it. Most doctors and private hospitals HERE *philippines* don't give a damn if you are dying if you are poor or broke you won't be treated. They even stop the treatments in the hospitals if you no longer could pay. They don't care about your life.
        • AndrewJC, on 10/11/2007, -4/+10Your comment was "After all, healthcare and medication is just another business and like all businesses they are after profits," indicating that doctors prescribe more expensive medications because it's a business and they're after profits, when in fact they don't see the profits from that. Granted, you may not have meant every doctor, but that's pretty irrelevant.
          • ChildeRoland420, on 10/11/2007, -2/+9That is not at all what he "indicated"

            He said "recommend other treatments especially if said treatments would be cheaper"
            The doctor most likely will be performing the treatment, making it in his favor to administer a more expensive treatment. He never said doctors prescribe more expensive medications.
        • allahuakbar, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1Ladyarcher, spare me the victim game. People like you are constantly playing the "victims". Nothing is ever your fault, it's only because someone else is working together to screw you over.
      • pabloleaf, on 10/11/2007, -12/+9the scam that doctors use is to completely limit the doctor "club" by controlling numbers of students into medical programs, thus keeping a low supply of doctors and allowing them to charge outrageous fees for their services. It has created a human crisis that we'll see unfold in the next 10-20 years.....but I do believe they treat their patients well while not on the golf course....
        • imperium2000, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6You are a nut. Lets allow all applicants into medical school and lets not bother with medical licensing. Lets have everyone claim to be a doctor without background checks.
      • joshlrogers, on 10/11/2007, -2/+20/puts on Tinfoil hat

        This is exactly what insurance companies want patients to think and conservatives have jumped right on board. As long as people think the doctors are the ones screwing them they don't point the finger at insurance companies constantly cutting pay outs to doctors. Just so everyone knows the bill that they submit to the insurance is never paid in full, insurance companies just pay what THEY feel the services is worth. Trust me, medical care would be much cheaper if doctors would not have to charge so much in hopes that the insurance company won't turn a 100 dollar bill into a 5 dollar bill (and I am not exaggerating).

        I was in the hospital two years ago with a bochdalek hernia. I had a 14 hour surgery and was in the hospital for 12 days at Vanderbilt university. They submitted a bill to the insurance company for 225k roughly, the insurance company paid 45k and that was it. I paid an extra 3k on top of that so they got a 21% return on their bill. So you tell me if you were a doctor and you had to check someones throat would you submit a bill for 20 bucks and get a 4.20 or would you submit a 100 dollar bill and get 20 bucks. See if they just paid the 20 bucks they would have to jack up their costs 80 bucks to get the same thing they wanted to charge in the first place. I know this for a fact as my mom has worked for doctors and hospitals all of my life.

        Also if you want to do the chicken before the egg thing with who jacked up or lowered costs first I will bet my entire worth on the fact it was the insurance companies lowering payouts to increase profits, if you think otherwise you are a bit naieve. /Removes tinfoil hat
        • enola, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3Cute hat. ;P
          I wish people who said such things realized that the payouts the insurance companies actually give the doctors are negotiated beforehand. Whenever a doctor agrees to accept a certain insurance, they work out negotiated, lower prices between them. It their way of saying, "We, as doctors, will cut you a deal if you'll keep us on your list of in-network docs so that more of your members will come to us."
          • joshlrogers, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I don't deny that at all, although negotiate is a very strong word as it is more along the lines of this is our payouts take it or leave it. Then you have to play the medical billing game where you use overly complicated coding system that is so vague you have to just try different codes until you get the one that pays the most.

            Doctors hands are tied behind their back and the insurance companies know it. If they don't agree to be an in-network doctor for an insurance company then they lose that clientele. I am under the belief that getting paid something is better than not getting paid anything at all and I would suspect most of them are as well.

            I also attribute this to some of the errors that doctors are prone too because to make a decent living post Malpractice and costs associated with running the practice they have to see as many patients as they can. It is like the difference between an upscale restaurant and a fast food restaurant; the upscale restaurant wants you to stay in your seat as long as possible and treat you, it is more profitable for them to take their time and entice you to eat more. A fast food restaurant is more profitable the quicker they can spit you out. Now which food is better and less prone to pubes in the salad?

            Same thing if doctors aren't as pressed for time they can deliver a more thorough medical exam and possibly diagnose better and more cost effectively. Malpractice would drop as there would be less mistakes causing costs to drop even more. Nobody sees any of this because the insurance companies and their VERY effective lobbyists don't want you to.

            And don't forget blame on our government "representatives" who benefit as well by not keeping the health consumer informed.
      • cjhowe, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1I don't think it's necessarily a scam by doctors to prescribe a high priced pharma treatment, I think it is just easier. Many of the drugs that are on patent only differ from the generic by means of controlled release. It's easier for a doctor to keep their patient compliant with the treatment by prescribing a pill you take once a day, rather than a treatment that requires you to take it several times a day on schedule. It's generally patient's laziness to follow a treatment plan combined with a "reasonable" copay that has contributed to the higher price or pharmaceuticals. Joshlrogers is correct. Move healthcare back to a first payer system instead of a third payer and healthcare prices will plummet.
    • NinjaBoy, on 10/11/2007, -4/+15Yeah. AndrewJC hit it right on the head. If most doctors don't prescribe something, there is probably a good reason for it.
      • norman619, on 10/11/2007, -6/+5Hmmm.... What reason is there for not using this treatment? I mean come on.
        • jonnyeh, on 10/11/2007, -4/+13I can see no reason that infected someone with a highly contagious flesh eating bacteria would be frowned upon.
        • joshlrogers, on 10/11/2007, -2/+9Yeah it isn't like America isn't sue happy or anything...I mean sheesh if someone was trying to save my life with a risky treatment and something went wrong even if I agreed with it I could sue the pants off that doctor by just saying it wasn't fully explained to me, ***** I don't even have to say that I can say he put me in a year long course and I all I have to say is I still didn't understand and boom he loses. Yes malpractice suits are that asinine
        • imperium2000, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Evidence of efficacy and safety.
      • AndrewJC, on 10/11/2007, -1/+9For starters, infecting somebody with a disease isn't the safest way to treat somebody. There is a large number of risks involved with that—what if you were to infect somebody with this bacteria, and with their cancer-affected immune system weakened, it was unable to fight off the bacteria and an infection developed? You could end up killing a patient when with chemotherapy the risk of that is much lower.
        • allywilson, on 10/11/2007, -3/+7Infecting somebody with a disease isn't safe, no. Is infecting them with toxic substances safer? No. Chemotherapy involves toxic substances. It's also commonly used with treatments of radiotherapy. Is sending radiation through someones body safer? No.
          • imperium2000, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4It is safer because we know how it works and how to dose it. You seem to have this asinine belief that radiation is purely bad and evil. Show me some evidence that this treatment is SAFE and EFFECTIVE and perhaps I'll consider using it.
        • AtheistAcolyte, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4It's not the live bacteria. It's dead bacteria, like vaccines. The presence of the dead bacteria will trigger an immune response just like the live ones. That said, I am kind of doubtful of these claims. If they worked so well, why aren't we using it? There must be a reason outside of idiotic conspiracy theories.
    • hematochezia, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4The idea that doctors are hiding better treatments from you because "its a business" is easily debunked by simply asking yourself why, in not-for-profit systems outside the US, they don't use these treatments either.

      Don't believe every tinfoil hat bit of nonsense you read, ladyarcher85.
  • nonpareil, on 10/11/2007, -27/+52Until medical society moves towards preventative medicine (rather than treatment), cancer will *always* be an issue. That being the case, it is a lot more lucrative to treat ailments than to prevent them.
    • dpknc84, on 10/11/2007, -6/+27Preventative? In this day an age where every week there are articles shoved out doors that say that basically everything causes cancer or a disease, how preventative can we be when we don't even know what we're talking about.
    • Error601, on 10/11/2007, -6/+30Total nonsense. There's no preventative medicine that will prevent cancer. That's the kind of ***** you read from people trying to sell snake oil at health fraud stores.
      • biohazd, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5How about the idea to replace our natural stem cells with ones that are missing the coding sequence for telomerase. The telomere regions would never outlast the huge amount of division needed in a dangerous tumor. We would need new stem cells every decade or so with fresh telomeres in order to survive, but thats the price you pay for eliminating many types of cancer. Stating "Total nonsense" simply advertises your unwillingness to consider the possibility of solutions you don't yet know about.
        • Angostura, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6Let's see. You are proposing manipulating the genetic makeup of all the cells in the adult body in order to limit the number of times they can divide, in order to stop out-of-control division. You then propose to counter the major side effect (you'd die very early) by saying that the adults cells could be replaced by a fresh infusion of stem cells.

          Hmmmm, now let me see. Yup "total nonsense: seems fairly apt.
        • scispaz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Ugh, I hate pop-science because it gets us ignorant comments like yours.

          By the way, I am way more used to hearing that extending telomerase regions would allow us to "live forever" or "never age" than your plan. Both are of course ignoring gross physiology and the more common ways cancer starts.
      • microchp, on 10/11/2007, -2/+3I have never once had my insurance company check on me to see if I am maintaining good health habbits. They dont request periodic checkups like the military did. They dont ask me how I am feeling. They dont send me health tips, or use their big business influence to get me discounts on things that would keep me healthy.

        Blue Cross PPO, highest level of coverage... and they don't give a rats ass about my health.

      • satanguy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1it doesn't necessarily have to be medicine, it could be lifestye things that are effective in helping prevent cancer
        e.g not smoking or exercise...
    • AJH16, on 10/11/2007, -5/+5Actually, it would probably be more lucrative to have more preventative medicine as people would be paying in all the time rather than only when sick. The problem with that is that insurance wants to pay as little as possible, so they are going to try their hardest to keep you from using a doctor.
    • norman619, on 10/11/2007, -2/+9Actually since we do not understand what actually causes cancer we can't do much prentative treatment. Take the little girl in the article as a prime example. her cancer developed from a simple injury not from smoking, drunking, drug use or anything else. So until we understand the mechanics of cancer infection and/or development we can't do much to prevent it. All we can do now is treat it.
      • microchp, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2We could make more volunteer programs that allow people that are terminally ill to undergo various experimental procedures. That would require dropping all abilities to sue anyone in this volunteer program. As in-humane as some people will say it is, there are incredible benefits from doing something like this. Even the crazy experiments that the Nazi's performed in WWII still benefit people today, as sad as that truth is.

        If we give terminally ill people incentive to do such a program, like giving their family life insurance benefits that go above and beyond what they normally would have received, giving them a memorial with their names on it, naming them as contributing to the cure for x,y,z, forgiving their debts, etc, then people would be willing to sacrafice that last suffering moments of their life to help save many others and further the understanding of various diseases.

        I know that you won't agree with me until you catch a life threatening disease.
        • imperium2000, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4There is something called ethics that just invalidated everything that you've said. Basically lets buy the life of someone to experiment on...guess how that's going to go?
      • microchp, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2From imperium2000: "There is something called ethics that just invalidated everything that you've said. Basically lets buy the life of someone to experiment on...guess how that's going to go?"

        If it is controlled properly, it will go well. Like anything, there will be a few bad apples that abuse the system. That is done anyway and these people are dieing... so anything done is better than NOTHING done.
        • imperium2000, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3There are a lot of restrictions when it comes to safety to patients when it comes to medical research. 'Buying' patients is illegal. Research volunteers have to volunteer and payments can only be for time and travel expense(except for healthy volunteers). Research is going on you know? That's what the NIH billions in grant money is for and billions in private funds from the various Cancer societies do to help.
      • Angostura, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Actually we do know quite a lot about the causes of many cancers and the risk factors that make them more likely. But in most cases whether someone gets a cancer is a question of probabilities not certainties
    • donte, on 10/11/2007, -4/+3I seriously doubt that actual preventative measures for cancer are being held back for financial reasons. Trust me. Whoever figures out how to prevent cancer altogether is going to be a very very wealthy person regardless of the lucrative treatment market.
      • jocknerd, on 10/11/2007, -3/+0Yes, but that person will have to come up with the cure independently. No pharmaceutical company is interested in cures. Cures != profits. Treatment = profits.
        • imperium2000, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Sure its called the billions of funding by the National Institutes of Health and private grants that funds most of the research in the US.
    • jordanday, on 10/11/2007, -2/+6Actually, there are plenty of preventative measures out there when it comes to cancer.
      There's no "silver bullet" that will "vaccinate" you against cancer, but by eating right, exercising, not smoking/drinking to excess, you can cut your chances of plenty of specific types of cancer a great deal. That doesn't mean you *won't* ever be afflicted by cancer, but you can really improve your odds.

      Colon cancer, for example, is one type which you can *almost* completely prevent by just eating the right kind of diet.
    • flazz, on 10/11/2007, -3/+4car analogy time: preventative medicine: change the oil; treatment medicine: body shop after you got in a fender bender.

      if all body shops close there will still be busted cars.
    • zimmermans, on 10/11/2007, -2/+0eat some blueberries and other rich in anti-oxidant foods.
      • scispaz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1What? No one who eats blueberries has ever gotten cancer?

        Thankfully medical schools have some standards and you can't legally be my doctor.
    • itzac, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3"it is a lot more lucrative to treat ailments than to prevent them."

      That sort of conspiracy thinking really only works in the US. In the rest of the industrialized world, where healthcare is usually socialized, that sort of premise just doesn't hold up.
    • scispaz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Give me a break.

      There are things called childhood cancers and faulty genes. You can reduce your risk some by not working demolishing asbestos buildings or being around 9-11 clean up, but people have gotten cancer throughout history. The only difference is now a lot of them are cured and live a whole lot more years.
  • Lymphocyte, on 10/11/2007, -2/+160As an Immunologist, I can assure you we don't know how a lot of drugs work. In fact, we spend a lot of time trying to find the mechanisms of how some drugs work simply so that we can design better drugs in the future.
    • dcrooks, on 10/11/2007, -28/+5And ignore natural ways of treating the body. The FDA controls which drugs are released and many do not work and sometimes kill people along the way. It is all about the money.
      • Ramble, on 10/11/2007, -3/+20Ignore natural ways?
        A load of the drugs nowadays are just purified forms of chemicals found in herbs and such.
      • positron, on 10/11/2007, -9/+4Yup. Has nothing to do with whether it is natural or not, and everything to do with whether it is patentable or not.
        • wiggles, on 10/11/2007, -2/+6For a drug company, yes. For a publicly and non-profit funded university hospital research team that's more likely to get an unbiased paper into the NEJM, no.
      • Lymphocyte, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7The NIH funds quite a bit of science that focuses on 'alternative medicine'. In fact, one of the institues at the NIH is devoted to this (http://nccam.nih.gov/). Despite what you might think, there is quite a bit of research that goes on - everything from studying herbs to playing harp music in the rooms of people who have undergone bone marrow transplants. I urge you to search the literature (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/) as you'll be pleasantly surprised by the amount of research that goes on regarding 'natural ways of treating the body'.
        • imperium2000, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4Unfortunately most of this alternative medicines have never panned out or have been proven to be ineffective.
    • norman619, on 10/11/2007, -1/+16How the hell do you think we got asprin and penicillin?
      • ragsmaloy, on 10/11/2007, -3/+5By taking natural compounds, finding out how they work and then refining the active ingredient so it works better or has fewer side effects. As was the case with asprin which I think origionally came from willow bark, which worked fine for pain relief but was way too acidic so caused stomach cramps. It wasn't just a case of "let's change this amazing natural method so we can patent it".
      • norman619, on 10/11/2007, -5/+2LOL I replied to the wrong post. My reply was meant to be to dcrooks ignorant post. Sorry I agree 100% of what you just wrote.
  • Bluntman4000, on 10/11/2007, -26/+18Stoner Fact:
    Marijuana can help prevent and treat Lung, and brain cancer! :)
    • rauz, on 10/11/2007, -11/+32And, as I've noted among my stoner friends, it can also prevent intelligence!
      • Novagenesis, on 10/11/2007, -9/+2Nah...it's just that more stupid people are stoners.
        Nevertheless, I'd rather be stupid and alive than smart and dead.

        Too bad it's preventative and not a treatment. "I don't want cancer" isn't a good reason to get stoned.
      • Bluntman4000, on 10/11/2007, -3/+4Ever thought that maybe your friends were just Dumb to begin with?
      • itzac, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2"It's Tuesday!" is usually a good enough reason for me.
    • NinjaBoy, on 10/11/2007, -7/+24Stoner Fact2:
      Wait what?
    • DiggityCarl, on 10/11/2007, -10/+6But, the drawback is you enjoy listening to ***** music like the grateful dead.....
    • jtizzle, on 10/11/2007, -7/+9Stoner fact 3: What time is it? Where are my Doritos?
    • Bluntman4000, on 10/11/2007, -7/+14"In lab and mouse studies, the compound, known as THC, cut lung tumor growth in half and helped prevent the cancer from spreading, says Anju Preet, PhD, a Harvard University researcher in Boston who tested the chemical." -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      "Moreover, other early research suggests the cannabis compound could help fight brain, prostate, and skin cancers as well, Preet says."

      http://www.webmd.com/lung-cancer/news/20070417/marijuana-may-fight-lung-tumors
      • Bluntman4000, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3LOL who dug this down? its a qoute form a scientific study... lol
        now I know in the future not to try and talk about Cannabis.. cause no ones gonna listen!
        your all just a bunch of fascists arnt you!... I suggest you get off digg and go watch faux news!
        • enola, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3I believe it was because your original claim was that marijuana can prevent cancer. The lines you quoted from that study say nothing of the sort. They only point to the fact that it can slow the growth of tumors. While this is helpful, it does not prevent, cure, or effectively treat cancer.
    • Bluntman4000, on 10/11/2007, -13/+4LOL your all digging me down... IGNORANCE IS BLISS!
      • fwedwic, on 10/11/2007, -1/+8iv heard a million stoner reasons to justify why its not 'bad', lol i dont think its very bad, for what i know it makes ppl slow and short-fused (edgy) and i just hope ur smoking weed for fun, and not expecting it to prevent cancerous growths ;P
        • Bluntman4000, on 10/11/2007, -2/+3I will dig you because atleast you acknowledge that smoking cannabis isnt bad. But I find that It affects different people in different ways. its a common myth that marijuana makes you stupid. Sure it may kill some cells but it also promotes the growth of brain cells.
    • JohnGalt01, on 10/11/2007, -4/+2By what method? Destroying all 3 before cancer can get them?
      • Bluntman4000, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1Except for the fact that the OLDEST LIVING WOMEN (125 Years old) claimed smoking cannabis every day is what made her live so long!
        Wow how damaging... I dont think I wanna live to be 125... I better stop smoking weed!
        • givinupthefight, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5Yes because one old woman living to 125 and what she personally believes made her live so long is hardcore unbeatable scientific evidence.
        • Bluntman4000, on 10/11/2007, -4/+2Regardless of what she believes... she smoked cannabis almost everyday of her life and lived to be 125.. It oveously didn't do any harm to her if she lived that long... Your own words show your ignorance!
        • givinupthefight, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4And there are people who smoke 3 packs a day and live to be over a hundred. Does that prove that smoking isn't harming them? I'm not ignorant, you are. Not dying doesn't prove that something isn't hurting you. Go back to 8th grade science.
    • charlieyocum, on 10/11/2007, -3/+2THC might reduce tumor growth, but putting smoke in your lungs certainly won't. In fact, I recall that smoking is a major cause of lung cancer. Do you really think those doctors had those mice smoking pot to administer THC? The article never actually says 'smoking pot', and always refers to the 'canibus compound'.

      I know you're looking for something, anything, to rationalize your destructive habit as healthy, but you're really grasping at straws here. Although, if you think that SMOKING prevents lung cancer, then you might just have had enough THC to stop yourself from getting brain cancer. Congrats!
      • Coinspinner, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4That is smoking *tobacco* causes lung cancer. Tobacco picks up radioactive Polonium from the ground (both natural Polonium and contaminated fertilizer). Smoke itself is not automatically harmful.
        Harvard Medical College put out a piece that says Cannabis halts lung cancer.
        Yes, even smoked Cannabis.
      • microchp, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Agreed. If there is something in pot that cures tumors, extract it and get a pure sample of it, rather than getting lung cancer.
      • 2timegrime, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1weed and tobacco are 2 different plants retard. what makes you think just because smoke from one plant has the same cancer causing stuff in it as some other plant. that doesn't even make sense.
    • conceptkid, on 10/11/2007, -3/+3holy ***** there are idiots here, live your own ***** life and dont worry about what other people do. If you dont want to smoke weed, fine, that leaves more for me. The fact is, Marijuana is a natural growing medicine and our government is brainwashing you to make you think that its a radioactive poison from planet krypton. There have actually been scientific studies done (very recently,2006) that says, THC kills cancerous cells, sorry but you cant argue with scientific fact.
      • microchp, on 10/11/2007, -3/+1If there is something in pot that cures tumors, extract it and get a pure sample of it, rather than getting lung cancer.
      • enola, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I don't recall any studies showing that THC kills cancerous cells. I do, however, recall articles suggesting that there is evidence (not proof) that THC slows the growth of tumors.
      • BrentyD, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0ahhhh the stoners ideaology is funny aint it?
    • itzac, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Beer, red wine, pot: a little every now and then is good for you. Or at least isn't bad for you. Moderation is the key. And like pretty much everything in life, the whole story turns out to be more complicated than anyone really thought. Go figure.
    • scispaz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I though the most common use with cancer patients was to combat the nauseating and appetite suppressing side effects of chemotherapy.
  • dumbum, on 10/11/2007, -35/+95I'm getting tired of all the conspiracy theories that are hitting Digg nowadays
    • farrellj, on 10/11/2007, -2/+21Just because you are not paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you! :-)

    • fwedwic, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1how come? it makes the most hostile conversation! =)
    • MarkOfTheDead, on 10/11/2007, -2/+4I'll tell you what i'm NOT tired of, and it's all these free tinfoil hats! :D
    • gn0stik, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9Not really sure how this is a conspiracy. When something is not understood, it can't very well get FDA approval, now can it?

      Bottling up E-Coli, or Salmonella and stocking cancer ward shelves with it probably doesn't go over well legally for most hospitals.

      Thing is, they have all kinds of liability issues, and rules that they have to be mindful of. It would take some kind of maverick like House, and some stupid slutty department head that can be steamrolled easily to make something like this fly.
      • glmory, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4It sure can get FDA approval. If you read the article it claimed its current status was as an "experimental drug" meaning it can be used in clinical trials. Meaning if it treats cancer in a way that gives results better than current therapy it could very well be used in the future.
      • Angostura, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3You can get FDA approval for drugs whose mechanism isn't understood. The key aspects for approval are efficacy and safety, not comprehensive understanding of the mechanism involved.
    • zspade, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3You're a plant from the man aren't you? AREN'T YOU!?
    • glmory, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3I agree in general. The only conspiracy theory part of the article was the title when it was submitted to digg though. This is not the piece of pseudoscientific dribble you would expect from the title. It is the story of an old treatment that showed some promise, but was passed by for other advances in the field.
    • microchp, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1Anything can be labeled as a conspiracy theory if there are enough people that don't want to believe it is real, or more to the point, don't want others to research it.

      I remember a consipracy theory about the earth not really being flat. There was another conspiracy theory about the war in Iraq and not really having any WMD's. There was a consipracy theory about what we call modern medicine and some people were burned as witches for it.

      In the end, most people don't see that the best way to manipulate a large number of sheople, is to call something a conspiracy. Sometimes they are better off for it, but I don't believe that to be the case when it comes to finding better solutions for treating diseases.

      Do the tinfoil hat wearers have issues? Yes, they often have trouble communicating their ideas in ways that sound practical or scientific. They tend to be those that are more emotionally involved than they should be. Their lack of ability to elaborate on an idea is what empowers people to discredit them.
  • Ehko, on 10/11/2007, -23/+9Ma'am. We cured your son's cancer.....although he now is going to die from sarcoma.
    • AweMazing, on 10/11/2007, -2/+21Sarcoma is a type of cancer.
    • MarkOfTheDead, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4when people say rtfa, they mean more than just the first paragraph.
  • hokie47, on 10/11/2007, -9/+5Good article, I felt like I was reading some kind of SAT/GMAT reading comprehension question.
  • Ehko, on 10/11/2007, -20/+4Ma'am. We cured your son's cancer. Although now he is going to die from sarcoma
  • eleece722, on 10/11/2007, -13/+5"We couldn't find a cure for canceh, but we found a guy with canceh, *PUNCH*, take that canceh!!" OMG IT'S RUSSEL CROWE
  • zephyrTR, on 10/11/2007, -5/+13another reason why they dont use it is that theres TONS of kinds of cancers which need to be matched with a specific disease have the desired effect. Since doctors don't know how it works, there's no good way to figure out what diseases cure what cancers.
    • chingy1788, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9give them the cocktail, something dr house may do
      • jonnyeh, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4House has never cured cancer, the show's writers are not that cruel.
        He deals with diagnosis, not treatment.
    • Kerath, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2How about trial and error? Terminal cancer patients don't have a lot to lose...
  • Chairboy, on 10/11/2007, -7/+216I love the presentation. "A cancer cure MOST DOCTORS WON'T TELL YOU ABOUT!"

    Why? Because Doctors love the sweet, sweet taste of your tears. They sip them from champagne flutes while cruising down the main street of your little town in their Bentleys. They also eat babies whenever they can get away with it!

    ....or maybe the treatment has a lower success rate than chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation. It's possible for there to be multiple treatments to something, and for some of those treatments to be better than others.
    • Deathshead1941, on 10/11/2007, -3/+6Agreed, I wish people would stop with the ridiculous conspiracy theories here,. Doctors do not even REALLY know what cuases cancer, or how to "cure" it.
      • microchp, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2That is expected from someone by the name of Deathshead1941. lol

        Actually, scientists have found a great deal of information about what causes cancer. There are many promising experimental procedures in existance, most of which will take decades to prove safe because of the system that we have created to keep people in business.

        The military had a similar problem a while back. It used to cost millions of dollars to validate something, do the R&D and find a way to implement it. They have since cut most of that red tape and can now operate at a fraction of the cost, albeit still way too much. For example, a radio/radar site I installed was designed and installed in less than a few months. What we did used to take years of work and had so many processes involved, it would almost take an act of congress to get done. We were able to get the site up and running in no time and at a very small fraction of what it would have costed just five years prior.

        What happened to change that? A reformation of many of the rules/laws around the processes. That was it. People technically were capable of performing these tasks in a more efficient and logical way for a long time, but the system kept them from doing that. Once the rules were changed, life got much easier and innovation was encouraged.

        The same thing can happen in the medical industry. It may take a reformation of the system, but it can be done quickly if enough people are interested.
    • web.phreak, on 10/11/2007, -6/+2Yeah exactly, forget about how chemo, sugery, and radiation destroy the rest of your body. As long as it works as quickly as possible on the little tumor...
      Forget about trusting our obviously inept bodies to cure themselves. Thats a TERRIBLE idea...
    • LucasKane, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1You have figured out the truth!
    • DrDigg, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5MMMMM! Babies.
      • imperium2000, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5I love kids...I just can't finish one by myself.
        • JCSaint, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1That's why I import mine from the third world.
    • Angostura, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2I believe this is pretty much the first or second comment on Digg that has made me laugh out loud. Very nicely done sir (or madam)
  • bovester, on 10/11/2007, -5/+26My dog has had a sarcoma developing on the side of his mouth for a few months. Our vet and a cancer specialist both said it would take $7,000 worth of treatments, but after looking around on the internet, we just started treatment with a drug called Neoplasene:

    http://www.nypost.com/seven/08202006/entertainment/a_new_hope__entertainment_julia_szabo.htm

    Three weeks later it has started to disintegrate the tumor and we are very hopeful about success.
    • tucsonsun13, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7Good luck to you and your dawg. I love dawgs!
      • idonthack, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3This same treatment saved one of my homies.
    • Nudar, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Hi. My name is bovester and I work for the company that makes Neoplasene.
  • Sphonix, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7So remember, if you have any strange lumps, poke and expose them to the elements, it could just save your life... (or see a doctor...)

    I would however like to see this experimented with today's method, it does sound interesting.
  • gwthm, on 10/11/2007, -1/+35This is an interesting article, but seriously it's written like National Inquirer of science related articles. The article is FAR from having it's facts straight. I, as a clinical research Virologist and currently a medical student, can assure you that a majority of medical techniques currently in employ are not fully understood or even moderately understood. Cancer is a highly complex disease and can result from the deregulation of an innumerable number of controls. The medical field barely understands cancer, let alone the chemotherapeutic agents we utilize. Modern science still operates mostly by trial and error, albeit guided trial and error, we use a chemotherapeutic agent in a cancer model In Vitro or in an animal model, and see how it works, if it works we try and see what is different between the treated group and the untreated group. Only then can Scientists even begin to conjecture as to what is going on. The reason this treatment isn't used is because it is unproven, even a handful of examples by this physician in a single cancer type is far from proof that this is an effective therapeutic, not to mention the numerous botched cases where infectious agents have been used as a therapeutic. Cancer patients are often immune-compromised by the cancer itself this is added to by the chemotherapeutic agents. You can't use both these treatments together, and as a result Medicine goes with the treatment that has been tested.
    • hockey, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1"The article is FAR from having it's facts straight"

      Welcome to digg :)
    • microchp, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1So if we dont really understand it, then using chemo therapy, surgery and radiation are technically malpractice. Lets call that out and open the field to more options. If there are experimental drugs, chemicals, natural resources and what-not that can cure cancer, then we should be exploring all of those options to the fullest possible extent.

      To only use something that is proven puts us in a conundrum and therefore, we will always continue to die of preventable diseases; and therefore, the tinfoil hat wearers are 100% correct, even if not for the reasons they think they are.

      I challenge you to un-learn the programming you have been taught and encourage people to find new methods of treatment. When the series of treatments are found that make cancer almost non-existant, we will kick ourselves for not having found it a few hundred years sooner.
      • Angostura, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2No. If something is effective and safe it doesn't matter one jot if the mechanism is obscure. I challenge you to unlearn the paranoia that you have subjected yourself to and understand that there are thousands of researchers out there right now attempting to find new and off-beat ways of curing cancer.
        • microchp, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I have absolutely no paranoia regarding this and I do realize that people are finding new ways to research this. The issue is that they can not take the next steps needed to use these procedures on humans. Testing on mice is useless if the process takes decades to reach humans.

          Take the bureaucracy out of this process and I will agree with you.
      • imperium2000, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2What a load of crap. Evidence of efficacy and safety even without knowing the exact mechanism is what matters. It isn't malpractice(you may want to look up the definition and criteria). Making the absurd leap to 'lets try things even when we don't know if it even works' IS MALPRACTICE.
        • microchp, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Chemo and Radiation are a crap shoot at best. Nobody can even come close to possibly disputing this as fact. The survival rate is very low for chemo, in part due to late detection of tumors which could be resolved if the health industry really cared about your health and partially due to the fact it is poison administered to the entire human, with an attempt at localization. This is par with procedures used over two thousand years ago. Chemo and Radiation are most certainly malpractice, just as much as any other procedure with unpredictable results. Just because lawyers have convinced us otherwise, does not mean it isn't. People will look back and will most certainly point out the bad practices used in our era, that could have been avoided if much of the silly rules were updated and the medical industry was reformed and had evolved.

          Do no harm.
  • MarkusBlair, on 10/11/2007, -8/+6In Coley's first test 2 out of 10 of his patients died from the cure.
    Maybe, Chemo is as likely to cure you with out the same risk of killing you?
  • nobody98, on 10/11/2007, -11/+3burried as lame.
  • kronzdigg, on 10/11/2007, -4/+10This is classic hype! The problem with this story is that diagnosis of sarcoma was horribly inaccurate in the early 1900's and is still very difficult today. Many things called sarcoma then are know to be reactive (non-cancerous) conditions now. These reactive conditions will usually go away without any treatment at all. Nevertheless immunotherapy is now common place treatment for may cancers particularly lymphomas. At least is wasn't a story about "virus vacuums" for cancer treatment or snake oil or etc.....
  • Varnu, on 10/11/2007, -4/+41Oh, wow, a CANCER CURE, that's being kept secret by the man. I've never heard that before. Oh wait, I have. I have at 3:00 AM on infomercials sandwiched between ads for hot chicks who want to talk to me right now.

    I actually worked in a lab studying a similar effect in prostate cancer (in rats) and it's not nearly as simple as it sounds. The immune response against a developed cancer is extremely usesful--at the right time with the right tumor in the right person. The reason it isn't a treatment is because it almost never works, and when it does, no one knows why. Believe me, if there is a cure out there, doctors are going to use it and labs are going to race each other to find out how it works. A guaranteed Nobel prize is a pretty good motivator. The lord knows life science researchers are not in it for the money...
    • microchp, on 10/11/2007, -6/+2So if we dont really understand it, then using chemo therapy, surgery and radiation are technically malpractice. Lets call that out and open the field to more options. If there are experimental drugs, chemicals, natural resources and what-not that can cure cancer, then we should be exploring all of those options to the fullest possible extent.

      To only use something that is proven puts us in a conundrum and therefore, we will always continue to die of preventable diseases; and therefore, the tinfoil hat wearers are 100% correct, even if not for the reasons they think they are.

      I challenge you to un-learn the programming you have been taught and encourage people to find new methods of treatment. When the series of treatments are found that make cancer almost non-existant, we will kick ourselves for not having found it a few hundred years sooner.
  • joel2600, on 10/11/2007, -7/+4hmm, i'm pretty sure modern medical professionals know how this works
    this concept is used in medicine today ... in fact there is a name for these molecules, they're called antigens
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigen

    by stimulating your body in the affected areas with an antigen, you trigger an immune response which is telling your body that there is something bad present that we need to fight off by creating and targeting antibodies, etc. when the antibodies, et. al arrive to fight the invasion, presumably they will notice the other bad things in the area and start killing them as well. you're just helping your body out, so to speak.

    for example, instead of removing plantar warts the old fashioned way, you can inject some candide albicans into the affected area, and this antigen will trigger an immune response which will help your body deliver what it needs to that area, also noticing the wart, will hopefully attempt to remove it as well.

    as far as the "we don't understand how this works" .... i'm not sure where you're coming from on that one
  • SeasonedBeef, on 10/11/2007, -1/+28Digg users should already know that the stem cells from the blood of a hybrid Cylon-human cures cancer.
  • CMuffa, on 10/11/2007, -6/+7I don't want herpes or sarcoma to cure my cancer. I want vitamin C infusion. www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/174/7/937
    • jordanday, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2First line of the abstract:
      "Early clinical studies showed that high-dose vitamin C, given by intravenous and oral routes, may improve symptoms and prolong life in patients with terminal cancer."
      "Improve symptoms" != cure.
    • web.phreak, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1Good idea, I've never taken prescriptions and never had an ailment I could not cure with Vit C. Hard concept for the druggies though...
  • Barbarino, on 10/11/2007, -2/+4good read
  • Avatar, on 10/11/2007, -8/+5Homeopathic Medicine also works in a similar way. And without the nasty side effects of chemo.
    • AforAlexander, on 10/11/2007, -4/+6Homepathic medicine doesn't work. Please leave your quackery behind and join us in the 21st century.
    • floorman56, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7Homeopathic treatment involves giving a patient with symptoms of an illness extremely small doses of the agents that produce the same symptoms in healthy people when exposed to larger quantities. A homeopathic remedy is prepared by diluting the substance in a series of steps. Many homeopathic remedies are so highly diluted that no molecules of the original substance are likely to remain after dilution.[3][4] Homeopathy asserts that the remedy will retain a memory of the diluted substance and the therapeutic potency of a remedy can be increased by serial dilution combined with succussion, or vigorous shaking.

      Since its inception homeopathy has received significant criticism on scientific and medical grounds. The belief that extreme dilution makes drugs more powerful by enhancing their "spirit-like medicinal powers"[5] is inconsistent with the laws of chemistry and physics and the observed dose-response relationships of conventional drugs. Several pro-homeopathic articles published in highly regarded journals were later withdrawn.[6] Additionally, the use of homeopathic drugs to prevent malaria infection has had life-threatening consequences.[7][8] Consequently, critics of homeopathy have described it as pseudoscience[9] and quackery.[10]




    • Sharky35, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7Avatard... Homeopathy is BS, proven and reproven.
    • itzac, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3If you believe that, I've got a bridge I'd like to sell you.

      Fact of life: difficult problems require difficult solutions that take time and effort. There's no such thing as magic water, there are no magic numbers, your fate has nothing to do with the alignment or positions of arbitrary celestial bodies on the date of your birth. There is no lost ancient human knowledge, no conspiracy to hide the truth, and no one cares enough about you or me to spend so much time and effort on elaborate deceptions.
  • intense321, on 10/11/2007, -2/+17I am a physician. We can't employ these types of treatments today because it would be malpractice. Back in Coley's time, he could get away with doing radical things like this because society wasn't as litiginous as it is today. The truth is that surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation are much more effective than infusing S. Pyogenes into a patient. If a patient fails such therapy, and I would run no risk of being sued, I'd happy to infuse S. Pyogenes into you.
    • swordphish, on 10/11/2007, -3/+9No offense to you or other doctors, and I fully understand your position, but I just love how money always supercedes life and well-being in our society (Sicko anyone?). If I had cancer and had no other option for treatment, I'd happily sign a no-fault/limited-liability agreement with the doctor to provide this treatment to me.
      • kittynipples, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4Even if liability were the only issue, you still have to deal with the sticky little problem of government regulations requiring that everything be approved by bureaucrats who know better than you.
        • swordphish, on 10/11/2007, -2/+3We need to get rid of the bureaucrats and government control of our well-being. I'll be damned if I, or somebody I know, is going to die simply because some money hungry politician doesn't want to sign on the dotted line. ***** them and ***** that.
          • Angostura, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Great. Get rid of the bureaucracy and controls. And watch as the hordes of con-men converge on cancer wards promising a sure fire cure "that will only cost you. my friend $60,000 for a complete course of treatment. I contains secret ingredients discovered by the Rgfjdrtefdsx Indians of Asdfg".
        • hiPpymIck, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1@kittynipples
          ..off-topic but..
          awesome user name

          - you should get a frontpage story that gets on Diggnation
          id like to see Alex or Kevins face as they read it
          (they appreciate creativity)
    • Flanker, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3Cool me too. I got tired of burying 99% of stories in this section as inaccurate though, so I rarely come here anymore. Unfortunately there's no easy way to block this section from the RSS feed, so that's how I ended up here, baited by the outrageous title...sigh.
    • glmory, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2What about setting up clinical trials for things like this? Sure you might not be able to use a drug with poor support for it, however in clinical trials people sign away liability. If those clinical trials show the treatment works than future doctors would be free to use it, wouldn't they?
    • microchp, on 10/11/2007, -4/+3Using chemo therapy, surgery and radiation are technically malpractice. Lets call that out and open the field to more options. If there are experimental drugs, chemicals, natural resources and what-not that can cure cancer, then we should be exploring all of those options to the fullest possible extent.

      To only use something that is proven puts us in a conundrum and therefore, we will always continue to die of preventable diseases; and therefore, the tinfoil hat wearers are 100% correct, even if not for the reasons they think they are.

      I challenge you to un-learn the programming you have been taught and encourage people to find new methods of treatment. When the series of treatments are found that make cancer almost non-existant, we will kick ourselves for not having found it a few hundred years sooner.
      • Angostura, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3I challenge you to stop spamming this reply. Ah what the hell. Blocked.
        • microchp, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1If the shoe fits, diggers will have to wear it. People are spamming the same nonsense repeatedly. Ill dig you up just for that! :-D
      • imperium2000, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1Microchip: Stop spamming the same *****
        • microchp, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Imperium, stop posting lame responses then. I have to respond to people that are making illogical statements.

          These are issues that can all easily be fixed if people start to think for themselves. Since they are not, I have to post the truth. I know you wont agree and honestly I question your motives. Any problem can be solved if enough people want to solve it.

          Oh, and it is not *****. I know from experience that such issues can easily be addressed provided more people are interesting in addressing them, than the number of people with bad motives wishing to sabotage the chance to solve them.

  • joeinheat, on 10/11/2007, -4/+1here are details of a current cancer immunotherapy study going on in the USA

    http://www.searchjerk.com/cgi-bin/smartsearch/smartsearch.cgi?keywords=cancer+immunotherapy
  • katie2007, on 10/11/2007, -5/+2very intresting to read if the treatment has been proven to work it should be used !
  • Cornedbeef, on 10/11/2007, -3/+2William Coley was a man ahead of his time.
  • qwerty121, on 10/11/2007, -2/+3Who kept misreading Coley for Colon?
  • ckasprzak, on 10/11/2007, -6/+2WTF? Why not use this rather then radiating people?!?
  • debegray, on 10/11/2007, -5/+11Another medical conspiracy. Yes, all the doctors and nurses and pharmacists and every other medical professional in the field meet once a year in a secret location to decide which successful alternative treatments they should suppress. And they're all so amazingly good at keeping the success of these treatments secret that we only hear about them from brave anti-establishment souls who risk ridicule to get the truth out.

    Jeesh. If you're going to read this rubbish, read this too: http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Cancer/conspiracy.html
    • glmory, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2I really don't understand why people have the need to think of this particular issue as a conspiracy theory. The article(if you read it) made it pretty clear that other treatments simply became more popular with doctors, not that there was some massive conspiracy.
      • Coinspinner, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1yes, some diggers LOVE to rail against posts about "..the man.." and "..conspiracy...".
        Even if the story has NONE of those things.
    • microchp, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1Yes, the best way to discredit good ideas is to label them as a conspiracy, so that way anyone that agrees to the good idea is labeled a quack. It has worked for years and will continue to work. That is how to keep people performing malpractice like chemotherapy. Yes, it is malpractice. It violates "Do no harm".

      We could EASILY make more volunteer programs that allow people that are terminally ill to undergo various experimental procedures. That would require dropping all abilities to sue anyone in this volunteer program. As in-humane as some people will say it is, there are incredible benefits from doing something like this. Even the crazy experiments that the Nazi's performed in WWII still benefit people today, as sad as that truth is.

      If we give terminally ill people incentive to do such a program, like giving their family life insurance benefits that go above and beyond what they normally would have received, giving them a memorial with their names on it, naming them as contributing to the cure for x,y,z, forgiving their debts, etc, then people would be willing to sacrafice that last suffering moments of their life to help save many others and further the understanding of various diseases.

      I know that you won't agree with me until you catch a life threatening disease.
  • krinn, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7Researchers at Wake Forest University have found a mouse with a particularly active immune system that can kill cancer cells. However they still don't understand exactly how this works.
    http://www1.wfubmc.edu/cancer/Research/Mice/
    • glmory, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2The opposite has been known for years. AIDS patients, or people taking immunosuppression drugs for an organ transplant get a lot more cancer.
  • manuelflury, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3There is a House M.D. ("House vs God") where they talk about this I think, herpes healing cancer (but temporarily).
  • stcmoose32, on 10/11/2007, -2/+4Treatment != Cure
  • Sharky35, on 10/11/2007, -6/+2The ranking of this article is paramount to the stupidity of the average digger.
    • itzac, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1That statement is indicative of your not knowing when to use 'paramount.'

      I do, however, agree with what you meant to say.
  • TheDatabit, on 10/11/2007, -4/+3This guy is/was my Great Uncle. Not only was it a cure for cancer but for quite a few other diseases as well. From what I understand it cooks the disease out of you. Awesome stuff from us Coley's!
  • Sharky35, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6Ohhh, Ohhh, Buried; it is obvious that the Poster didn't read the damn article before posting it... With his stupid ass comment.
  • beowulflee, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Coley#Radiation_therapy_vs._Coley_vaccine
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coley_vaccine
  • londubh, on 10/11/2007, -5/+2Hey, as long as the don't use MRSA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRSA to treat it, that would be super.

    "The patient died, but the treatment was a success."
  • kittynipples, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4The thing I remember regarding this subject from college biology classes is that the immune system naturally finds and kills cancerous cells all of the time since they are designed to give signals that there is something wrong with them. It is when they don't give these signals that they are left to continue growing and eventually kill us. So, it makes sense then to this layman that if you could prompt an immune response though other means, such as infecting those cells with a virus that our systems can identify and fight, you could deal with the cancerous cells by fighting the other infection.

    Of course, you would have to figure out a way to ensure that all the cells in question become infected in order for them all to be targeted by this immune response. And different types of pathogens would be needed depending on the body cells you are wishing to kill.
    • jordanday, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I don't think the idea is necessarily that Coley's treatment "infected" the cancer cells and left the healthy cells alone, I believe the idea is that the presence of Coley's bacteria increased the body's immune response to a level where it would "notice" the tumor and begin attacking it, when before it had not been triggered to that level of response.

      And you're right, probably every single human being has cancer. Right now. Your body is always destroying cancer cells, the problems start when your body doesn't do a good enough job of it.
  • Pauleon, on 10/11/2007, -3/+0Is it at all suspect that two of the further reading articles are from WIkipedia? I think I'll file this one under the "too good to be true" tab. I am sick of reading about how in the 1800s some doctor discovered this and now its being buried. Why have we forgotten that doctors often killed more of their patients than they cured in the 1800s? Why do we forget that "cut it off/out" was the principal treatment for most ailments? Why do we forget that they were still trying to balance humors in many hospitals in the 1800s?
  • Sovereigndk, on 10/11/2007, -4/+7Cancer is " BIG BUSINESS ! " (lots of $$$$)
    What I see is that with an infection introduced to the body or cancerous area, the bodies immune system goes to work. Once the immune system is doing its job, the cancer too is taken care of. So it is easy to see the real key to defeating cancer is a health immune system.
    Eat the right foods.

    • swordphish, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3I couldn't agree more. People disregard their nutrition and health only until their body turns around and says "Well ***** you too! I'm out of here..."
    • web.phreak, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Holy *****... thank you!!
      Yes people, it is that easy.

      Problem is everything we eat is so poisoned with pesticides, additives, and preservatives that even the 'right' things are the wrong. Be careful. Wash fruits and veggies and read labels.
    • fantasticjon, on 10/11/2007, -2/+3Yes! You get cancer from cheeseburgers and doritos!!! It all makes sense now.

      That is why people in the third world never get cancer, they don't eat preservatives. That is why vegans and vegetarians never get cancer. Yes the doctors want to give us all this "medicine," when all we need to do is eat more washed apples. Thanks! problem solved.
      /sarcasm

      There is nothing wrong with eating healthy, but FYI it is not going to prevent cancer.
      • web.phreak, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Yes, it absolutely will. Oh and don't drink tap water. Where the hell do you think the DNA damage which causes cancer comes from???
        To quote Bill Maher "Thank you for the stupid opinion..."
        • Radionesiac, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1you are a grade-a ***** idiot.
        • nondescrypt, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1thanks for the interesting post web.phreak / radion-sac quit yelling at that mirror & go ***** yourself
  • jordanday, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2To all the quacks screaming about how a cure is being suppressed because chemotherapy makes so much more money for the hospitals, refer to our beloved wikipedia for a comparison of Coley's treatment and chemotherapy:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Coley#Radiation_therapy_vs._Coley_vaccine

    "Furthermore the creation of the vaccine had to be made to a patient's exact needs, making the Coley Vaccine more labour intensive, time consuming and expensive."

    Radiation/Chemo is CHEAPER for the patient.
    • microchp, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Radiation and chemo are destructive and cause the doctor to violate "Do no harm" and therefore we should find alternatives that are less lethal to the patient.

      We should start a class action lawsuit against the medical industry to get those things labeled correctly. "Malpractice".

      The health industry should be forced to do the right thing, which is to find the actual cures that work without killing the patient in the process.

      Isnt it odd that even with Chemo, nobody here has mentioned the Chronos method? Hrmm. I smell a list full of doctors and insurance companies responding on digg.
      • jordanday, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1In that same vein, I guess you would have to view amputation, even to save someones life, as a violation of "Do no harm."

        It's a very rare treatment indeed that actually doesn't harm some part of the body. Even pumping yourself chock full of vitamin C as some of the quacks like to try is very destructive to certain parts of the body.

        You have to weigh the amount of damage a treatment does versus the amount of damage the disease will do.

        "The health industry should be forced to do the right thing, which is to find the actual cures that work without killing the patient in the process."
        Since all these perfect silver-bullet cures are apparently so easy to find, why don't you lead the way and start documenting some? I'm sure there are plenty of doctors who would love to have an effective treatment for cancer that does no other harm to the patient. Let me know how that goes for you.
        • microchp, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I believe that I am not getting my point across correctly. The issue is that we seem to have made it almost impossible to do no harm, but putting several levels of red tape in the process. While I understand the importance of keeping Dr. Jekyl from performing quack one-off experiments on people, there is also a need to expidite new treatments that work and to encourage innovation.

          Yes, sometimes there is a need to cut out a tumor, or cut off a leg or arm. I understand that. THAT is the very problem that needs to be addressed. It will not happen until we stop saying that we "can not do that because..." and start to adapt, improvise and overcome all nonsense obstacles.

          We have created more problems than solutions by giving full control to the medical industry of what may or may not be used to treat or save someone, and what may or may not be researched. We are at their mercy.
      • imperium2000, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Radiation and Chemo is harmful but it works. You forgot to mention surgery which is also harmful to remove the tumor.
        What alternatives are there? Please lay out your options and the evidence of their efficacy.
        • microchp, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1That is my point exactly! We have made it so difficult to get alternatives in place by adding so many levels of bureaucracy, that we will just sit in our own puddle of blood so to speak.
  • EnglishVoodoo, on 10/11/2007, -4/+0Google "urine therapy"
    and drink up.
  • birdspot, on 10/11/2007, -4/+1as many of you know - i am not a dr - i am an investigative journalist and.... this article is definitely not something i would base my treatment on - be smart and do what all the rich folks do - go to Mex and get treatment from US trained doctors with B17. ref: G Edward Griffin's World Without Cancer - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4312930190281243507&q
  • crimsoncircle, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3I don't trust this as a reliable source but it raises an interesting idea. The body can't fight off cancer cells because it has no idea what cells to attack (to my understanding). If you could infect those cells with a bacteria the body does know, could our anti-bodies destroy those cells?
    • Jack9, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1You have no way to control what it infects. What's worse is that a bacterial infection likes to travel from the bloodflow-heavy tumor to other parts of your body more efficiently than even cancerous cells do. Whee, now I've let the infection progress until it's entered my bone marrow and I'm brain damaged. This is nothing but nonsense by people looking for pageviews at the cost of fact. Next issue, Mercury, the lost cure for the common cold!
  • Flanker, on 10/11/2007, -9/+3Digg needs a way for me to easily bury the entire health section as inaccurate.
  • louiemantia, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3That's amazing, I have the same combination on my luggage!
    • rgautier, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Probably posted here in error - but it gave me a chuckle.
      • microchp, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1DARK HELMET


        What the hell am I looking at? When does this happen in the movie?


        COL SANDURZ


        Now. You're looking at now, sir. Everything that happens now, is happening now.


        DARK HELMET


        What happened to then?


        COL SANDURZ


        We passed then?


        DARK HELMET


        When?


        COL SANDURZ


        Just now. We're at now, now.


        DARK HELMET


        Go back to then.


        COL SANDURZ


        When?


        DARK HELMET


        Now.


        COL SANDURZ


        Now?


        DARK HELMET


        Now.


        COL SANDURZ


        I can't.


        DARK HELMET


        Why?


        COL SANDURZ


        We missed it.


        DARK HELMET


        When?


        COL SANDURZ


        Just now.


        DARK HELMET


        When will then be now?
  • jcmiro, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0Burried as Inaccurate....The Alaskan railroads began construction in 1902 and didnt even finish until 1920s .www.wikipedia.com
    SO anything else I read in the story sounds fishy...
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