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156 Comments
- orpheusj, on 10/11/2007, -22/+276BURY AS INACCURATE!!
Although this may be a promising adjuvent chemotherapeutic agent, it is WAY TOO EARLY to tell. Furthermore, saying this drug won't be developed (IF it does end up being useful) is ENTIRELY FALSE. In fact, drug companies could make loads of money off us for a drug which has already benefited from reasearch welfare. Here's why:
1) This has only been studied on tissues in a petri dishes!! Lot's of compounds have been promising in the petri dish and disappointing in clinical trials. This may be a great drug in the end but don't go crazy just yet.
2) There already exists a number of patents for various uses of dichloroacetate from cerebral ischemia to metabolic disorders:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/search.pl?p=1&srch=xprtsrch&sf=1&query=dichloroacetate%0D%0A&uspat=on&date_range=all&stemming=on&sort=relevance
3) Dichloroacetate already has funding from both the U.S. government and Europe as an "orphan drug" for indications much less common than cancer--congenital lactic acidosis and head trauma. If this drug is truly promising in animal models, then I'm sure the NIH, National Cancer Institute, as well as more prestigious universities will pick it up. The NIH will have more than $28 billion dollars this year alone to fund projects such as this.
Feel free to look it up yourself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_drug
http://www.fda.gov/orphan/grants/previous.htm
I should also note that the Orphan Drug Act provides a 7 year period of exclusive marketing for the company that gets FDA approval (of course charging whatever price they can squeeze out of the market). If the manufacturer can expand the drugs use to something common (i.e. CANCER) they can make fist-fulls of money. - jamaster5243, on 10/11/2007, -7/+94Actually Ibuprofen was patented before it went through medical trials. The patent has since expired, but it is already a commodity, so they continue to sell it and make good money on it.
http://www.ibuprofen-foundation.com/what-ibuprofen/patent.htm# - tiedyeman, on 10/11/2007, -9/+83Here is a post I made back in January when all of this madness first turned up...
Ok. This DCA thing has got to stop. Seriously. Please read this:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/01/in_which_my_words_will_be_misinterpreted.php
Apparently 90% of digg thinks medical research occurs in the following way.
1) BigPharm has an idea.
2) BigPharm checks to make sure the idea is profitable.
3) BigPharm dumps 100 billion dollars into the idea using lab trials
4) BigPharm test the drug out on the 1000's of cancer patients they have at their secret hospitals.
5) BigPharm gives Dick Cheney $100mil, stomps 50 puppies to death, and pays homage to our alien overlords.
6) BigPharm holds out on the new drug and only gives it to rich white kids.
7) Repeat.
In actuality, if a compound such as DCA were to prove promising in University Labs, (which for whatever reason the intarweb really really think this looks awesome, although in actuality this isn't a huge breakthrough browse www.pubmed.gov for awhile), it would go something like this:
1) University lab scientists think they are on to something and they talk to their counterparts across the street, the clinicians of University hospitals (which may be themselves in the case of MD/PhDs).
2) Doctors at University Hospitals ask NIH for a grant.
3) Doctors at University hospitals treat their patients with new treatment, comparing it to the "gold standard."
4) Doctors at University Hospitals publish their results.
5) Doctors of Academic Societies read results, pow wow, and set protocol.
6) Doctors all over the world are advised of new standard of care.
Believe it or not, Big Pharma aren't the only people doing research! In fact in a situation like this, if a MD, or group of them, were to publish a paper claiming that the new drug Placebacor reduced tumor growth in a clinical trial, and then at the end disclosed that they received funding from Scienoheal, the multinational drug company and patent holder of Placebacor, it would be a HUGE knock on whether or not the paper carried any clout.
And people "Cancer" isn't a single disease, its a bunch of them, caused by many many different factors (ie genetics, environment, carcinogens), some of which we are good at treating, some still have us stumped. Their is no magic bullet and if we someday find one, it most likely won't be DCA. I am rotating through a pediatric Hematology/Oncology service right now at a University hospital, and trust me these people would not let dollars and cents stand in the way of curing children of parents they have to tell will die.
And RE: arcooke
While their intentions would be noble, this would be like a bunch of people deciding that the best plan to end poverty was to use sunshine and wishes, and then trying to raise awareness and fund raise on the internet. - lostmyleggins, on 10/11/2007, -20/+79ibuprofen inexpensive and not patentable and you can still make money selling it.
- pictureDIGGER, on 10/11/2007, -3/+49Plus I believe this is in violation of Google AdSense TOS. Encouraging Clicks for whatever reason. Advertisers do not like that.
- KlayBorg, on 10/11/2007, -5/+48http://www.healthyontario.com/News_Tips/2007_3/Cancer_patients_told_to_avoid_DCA_drug.htm
The Canadian Cancer Society is warning people not to self-medicate with dichloroacetate, or DCA, a cheap, widely available drug used to treat lactic acid buildup in children as well as people with diabetes and AIDS. The drug was never designed to treat cancer and has not been tested on human cancer patients.
"The challenge is with this drug, we don't actually know whether this may hasten their death, and it may also seriously impact their quality of life for the months that they have remaining," Heather Logan told CBC Newsworld on Thursday. Logan is the director of cancer control policy at the society.
People taking the drug at home may not be aware of DCA's side-effects, ignore the symptoms, and end up with permanent nerve damage, Logan said. Side effects of DCA include peripheral neuropathy that damages nerves in the hands and feet. - pictureDIGGER, on 10/11/2007, -4/+44so we trust you? Non of your ads say public service, I call SCAM. Don't believe everything you read on the internet people.
- phenidate, on 10/11/2007, -3/+39This article is crap. Buried as inaccurate.
- trump48257, on 10/11/2007, -6/+40@lostmyleggins
People this is not some miracle cure. DCA is an organic chemical that causes liver cancer in laboratory mice when put in their drinking water. It is not nontoxic. It is a byproduct of another chemical called trichloroethylene (TCE), which has been a source of concern as a cancer-causing agent for some time. It has been suggested in one article on Lactic Acidosis (DCA is used to treat a genetic form of this) that it would be a good candidate for cancer research based on its ability to kill cells that use alternate metabolism pathways (like some, but definitely not all cancers). That's it. It hasn't proven to kill anything more than a couple strains of cancer cells in a test tube....killing cancer in a live patient is infinitely more complex. I am not saying it could not possibly be used in some instances---it very well might be good in some instances, but this, just like any other drug needs to be throughly tested before use. - tkilljoy, on 10/11/2007, -3/+23NOT ACURATE!
DCA s not used on people regularly because it is wildly detrimental to health!
- DCA Causes Periphreal Nerve Damage, this means you sense of touch, taste, etcetera will be permanently and irreversibly damaged by DCA. There is no known way to counteract this effect in humans, only rats!
- DCA is only able to reduce the size of tumors, it cannot eliminate tumors. Size reduction is not a form of treatment as it is a wildly unreliable, short term symptom relief.
DIGG CURES, NOT CRAP. - checksumz, on 10/11/2007, -4/+18If the blog owner is honest this is a noble gesture, but encouraging people to click on AdSense (which is pretty much what he's telling you to do) is fraud, plain and simple. And who's to say he donates it to his cause? There's no way to find out.
If he cares about this he should be submitting a legitimate website that has been put together for the same cause.
Buried. - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+12If you want to do something, go donate to a legitimate Cancer advocacy group:
American Cancer Society http://www.cancer.org/docroot/home/index.asp - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -1/+12Bury ratios are too hard to hit since too many people digg based on the title without even reading the article or the comments.
- yeastbeast, on 10/11/2007, -2/+13As per my previous comments on the earlier DCA story, this is pure bullsheeto! The science is weak, the appeal to public outrage is high.... I smell a scam.
- Canaduh, on 10/11/2007, -4/+14Others have debunked the patent myths, so let me explain the primary methods of testing.
1.) In vitro: cells in a petri dish, the most basic level. Culture some cancerous cells, add in your prospective drug, see what happens. Well, the thing with the petri dish model is you could add sulphuric acid and watch it kill cancer cells. Does that mean it is a prospective cure for cancer? Not really.
2.) In vivo: use of a model animal, usually a mouse. Great, you've seen that sulphuric acid works in vitro, so how does it work in the rat? Hey, why is my rat melting?! Because a biological organism is complicated, you need to see not only if the compound has the effect on the cancer, but also if it can be specifically delivered to the site of the cancer, how it affects the systems and cells of the organism, how it is processed by the body and how the body metabolizes the chemical and what those metabolites do, etc.
3.) Human trials: hey, you nixed your "sulphuric acid as cancer cure" and found some other promising compound that didn't cause the mouse to melt! Now, generally, depending upon the severity of the disease, etc, you can proceed in several different directions. You can go through all the rigorous testing, paid human guinea pigs vs. control groups to see if there are hazardous side effects, begin testing in clinical trials, and you end up coming to one conclusion: a man is not a mouse, what worked great in vitro, and in vivo models, probably won't work in humans. Even if your compound DOES show some statistical benefit in the clinical outcomes of patients, it likely won't be a "cure".
Cancer is an insidious beast. It is your own cells gone wild, with 5 or 6 of the controls that keep cells from dividing aggressively and to terminate disabled. Moreover, recent research has indicated that stem cells may be responsible for some cancers, the infinitely splitting seed that will cause the cancer to keep coming back no matter how well you deal with it so long as a few of those cells are left.
Moreover, there are hundreds of varieties of cancers afflicting many different systems. And each of those types of cancers is virtually identifcal to your other, healthy cells (some difference at the genetic level of course). Which makes cancer immensely difficult to cure, ignoring the hundreds of different varieties.
Personally, my money is on targeted nanotechnologies or altered organisms that can be designed to lock onto the specific protein differences that exist in just the cancerous cells. THen maybe we'll have a cure for "a" cancer.
But the lack of a cure for "cancer", the hundreds of different forms it can take, is not because of some conspiracy. But like HIV (yeah yeah, apples to oranges) it has proven to be an immensely difficult disease to do battle with, and using our current method of testing random compounds to see if they work we won't find one. Once technology progresses to where we understand all the underlying mechanisms, and understand ways to design (and not just test out various witch's brews) drugs or compounds from the molecular level to specifically attack the cells at the molecular level, we may be able to cure cancer. But we ain't there yet. - Aurostion, on 10/11/2007, -6/+15How many times does this need to come up before people let it go. If it truly had potential it would be snapped up my Pharmaceutical companies. If the compound itself isn't patentable, who cares, the methods by which it fights diseases and the various applications of it (ie, what it fights) are.
This is verging on urban legend status. - xtraa, on 10/11/2007, -3/+12The difficulty or why DCA does not work atm is the problem to get it directly to the cancer cells. You cant simply swallow a pill, because nothing would reach the tumor.
It is maybe a good thing but it is too early to give people a hope. - pictureDIGGER, on 10/11/2007, -1/+9http://digg.com/health/ClickToCure_org_is_a_SCAM_Diggers_fill_a_scammers_pocket
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8why the ***** are people on digg so gullible? this is inaccurate and lame, extremely likely to be a scam. DCA IS NOT A MIRACLE DRUG.
- thefat, on 10/11/2007, -1/+8Well they didn't even setup an about me page so I am with the people calling scam.
- elioty, on 10/11/2007, -6/+13Go to the following site to report Google Adsense violations. They're encouraging you to click for a clearly fradulent site and purpose. It's a scam. Click the link on the bottom of the page to report the violation.
http://services.google.com/feedback/abg?url=http://clicktocure.org/sponsors/digg-this-to-fund-cancer-cure/&hl=en&client=ca-pub-2689675403875110&adU=www.cmarket.com/biddingforgood/&adT=Support+Cancer+Charities&adU=www.fundraising.entertainment.com&adT=Cancer+Fundraisers&adU=www.RocheExchange.com&adT=Cancer+Info+and+More&done=1&gl=US&oasu=true - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -5/+11Explain why hte insurancecompanies that are PAYING those billions would not be funding the crap out of this or ANY of hte supposed cures?
And also exaplin to me why pharamaceutical companies ARE spending tens or hundreds of millions resaerching a cure for cancer?
Those are the FACTS. You can provide the standard ***** if you want, but how about using some facts? - IceZZ, on 10/11/2007, -3/+9Yeah, sorry, everything on DCA so far says it is too poisonous for humans to cure any cancer in them. While this may chance with development of treatments, lack of patent will not stop the drug from being sold and money made. Many common drugs today like aspirin are patent-free and sell huge quantities.
While a patent would help, this isn't going to stop a company from going ape over it. - pictureDIGGER, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6@tmak73 - http://digg.com/health/Pharma_Wont_Fund_Cancer_Cure_But_You_Can_Cant_Donate_DIGG#c6791667
"@Picturedigger
I understand your concern, there are alot of scams out there. But i can assure you and anyone else that everything made here will go to cancer charities. if you think its a scam don't visit. The donation sites I link to are official sites of charities and universities, the money does not cross my hands at all. The ad revenue will have to cross my hands until i figure out a way to send it directly to the desired charities. I like good Karma."
Again you are asking me to take your word. Ill tell you what, if you send me all the revenue generated from your site, I will make sure it gets into the right hands. Paypal to picturereader@gmail.com I am awaiting the money. I'll give you a couple days. Its also funny to point our that the date you registered your digg accoun is: May 17, 2007, the same day the domain went up.
And since your showing your face, be a little more descriptive of what charities this money is going to. Since your trying to save face...
Why aren't they public service ads? Stop avoiding the obvious - rrll222, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5Sorry if this is a repeat comment. Has anyone checked the WHOIS for clicktocure.org? It was registered on May 19th, 2007. It looks like a scam to me as well.
- Nameless1, on 10/11/2007, -3/+8Here we go again... big pharmacy companies are not ignoring the compound because it wouldn't yield profits, they're ignoring it because its either bogus, rubbish or untested properly for human consumption.
Any company that would market a "cure-for-cancer" would have it's name engraved in mankind's history.
And for those extra mad conspiracy theorists, why yes, I do work for the man. - checksumz, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6Everyone here should be reporting his site to Google for breaking AdSense terms (encouraging people to click on ads). You can do it by clicking on the "ads by Google" logo that appear with the ads, after that navigate to the bottom and report the violation.
- catalysis, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7"once they find a cure the money stops."
Yeah, because nobody would pay for a cure. Are you retarded? - pictureDIGGER, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4There are ways to assure the end user that the money gets there. Again, why make people trust you when you can make them feel secure. All these long responses are meaningless. You just had a catchy title. For your unreputable site that encourages click fraud (clicktocure.org) Talking about sponsers and ad revenue... Its a subliminal message
- tkilljoy, on 10/11/2007, -3/+7DCA -Harmful not Helpful: http://digg.com/health/DCA_Harmful_to_Health_no_Cure_for_Cancer
Put The Truth in Place! - paraxion, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Besides which, for me at least, a lot of the AdSense ads were charities anyway - isn't that like taking money from one charity and giving it to another?
- pictureDIGGER, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4I am not emailing you. I want to be heard, you might want to do a little research before setting up a website of this nature. You are asking us to trust you. Who knows, you might be the same guy that told me about Great Uncle Ishkalabernone who had Millions that was left for me. Why don't you try linking to places that donate proceeds from their sales to your designated charity(companies that "wasted"(as you say) their time). Google AdSense is for publishers. About the other ads, you say they are pay per action, but that is taking your word. The only assurance that anybody gets from your website is to take your word. And in my opinion, I am more credible than you for the simple fact that I am calling you out. Why would anybody be against any type of charity? I am calling you out because you say you donate to a charity. And you are looking to be a major contributor to some charity but you aren't willing to take the time to make it legitimate? For all we know, you are taking the revenue for yourself. If on some crazy chance this is legitimate (of course this is just ignoring the fact that all signs point to SCAM) you are probably donating to a charity for your own Tax Deductions.
- stealthboy, on 10/11/2007, -3/+7I wish I could add 100 diggs to your comment.
- ShazerFox, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5I can't believe there's actually more than 5000 boneheads out there who will agree with this conspiracy lunacy.
How does it affect you, living in a world where you believe that thousands of people allow cancer to kill millions simply for patent-money-conspiracy reasons? I agree with all the knowledgeable people above that have contributed real facts to this discussion. Cancers are so unique, it's doubtful that "cancer" will ever be cured in one fell swoop!
Get a clue, boneheads! - Angostura, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5Buried as inaccurate.
- realchemist, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4I can't believe the diggs this is getting, buried as inaccurate.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5I would prefer to donate to a legitimate cancer advocacy group that can actually do some good with the money.
American Cancer Society http://www.cancer.org/docroot/home/index.asp - pictureDIGGER, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5tmak73@http://digg.com/health/Pharma_Wont_Fund_Cancer_Cure_But_You_Can_Cant_Donate_DIGG#c6791667
Whats your non profit id? Show some ***** proof! Your article is dupe, lame, and innacurate. - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -3/+7Is the average digger really THAT stupid as to buy this ***** that this site is spewing?
If htere was something that was really as promising as they claim, you know who would be ALL OVER it? The INSURANCE companies. They have just as much, if not MORE money to throw around than phramaceutical companies, have just as much political power, and have EVERY desire to see cancer cured, since a cure would be far less costly than decades of treatment. - emiliogtz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4You know, to people who are really experiencing the disease, this is like a very bad joke. Serioulsy.
- pictureDIGGER, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3I didn't, but none of the features for the website work either. (comments, about page) and again I say none of the ads are public service ads so there isn't that available guarantee from a reputable name that this is charity. Diggers aren't very smart.
- edebolt, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5thats faulty logic. If one company came up with the cure they could capture a huge market share. Is the board of directors and stockholders going to vote against that kind of opportunity. Is a company going to not develop and market a product because they might wipe out the rest of the industry and make Microsoft or Google profits? I kind of doubt that. There is a lot of profit motive to come up with a cure. Even if there are barriers in the US a company that really could cure cancer could do so in easier markets and eventually make it thru the more stringent US and EU certification process.
- xinit, on 10/11/2007, -9/+12There's also the "BigPharma" offshoots that sell BigHerbs which aren't patented, but make a boatload of money off the backs of fools.
- Error601, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4It's amazing how easily people are suckered by this kind of scam over and over. A fool and his money are soon separated...
- kirakun, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5I don't get it. If this drug has such potential as being claimed, would not somebody (or company) try their best to be the first to get it to work so that they'll get all the glory such as the Nobel Prize? Yes, it may not be billions of dollars in sales, but the immortal fame of having developed a cure for cancer is priceless.
- greenspans, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3Also he had already submitted this trash. http://clicktocure.org/?page_id=7 with only 17 diggs. He just reposted it and turned it into an "optimized for adsense" doorway page. This is grossly deceptive.
The same thing happened on digg earlier too. There was a story with a lot of hype about a black background google and how much energy it would save. Then comes ninja.com which is nothing more than a black page with google adsense for search customized in black and along come 3000 diggs to nothing but SPAM. - uptown, on 10/11/2007, -2/+4I view it as contributing to the fees I pay to have insurance so they can cover your dumb ass......
- orpheusj, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1@ tmak73
No, you need to do your homework sir. Yes there has been a patent for it's use in cancer by the doctors who published the study you and the other DCA fanatics have been citing:
http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?wo=2006108276
The fact of the matter is this drug has been documented to CAUSE CANCER IN RATS AND TOXIC NEUROPATHY IN HUMANS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichloroacetic_acid
As a medical student, I can tell you that cancer cannot be cured with a silver bullet. Each kind of cancer has different genetic causes and therefor require different strategies to cure them. There are many other VALID reasons to decry the drug companies and what they fund but this is not one of them. Who do you work for? Do you work for one of these sites making money off poor desperate cancer patients by selling them this snake oil?? It's not the pharm companies I'm worried about here.... It's the supplement industry. They aren't funding any research but they certainly are funding the marketing. - orpheusj, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1tkak.... You need to realize that there are serious dangers to this drug and there are people out there trying to make a buck selling bottles of this to desperate cancer patients. I'm still not convinced that you aren't one of them. If you are sincere, I'm sorry to inform you that it isn't as promising as you would like to think.
Yes, it is an application and it's one they can win IF they show that it works, which I sadly doubt. My point being it CAN BE PATENTED for use in treating cancer.
I agree. We should avoid extremes such as:
1) Calling DCA a cure: Such as in the title of this post, 3 times in the description and as website URL. You're couched statements on the website give little comfort.
2) Saying DCA is safe:
Multiple studies have shown DCA to cause cancer through several mechanisms, at the lowest doses tested and even at doses that aren't detectable!!!! You either haven't done your homework or you are lying:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=16966105
3) Saying DCA is used in metabolic disorders safely:
Trial of dichloroacetate in MELAS: toxicity overshadows the assessment of potential benefit.
Neurology. 2006 Feb 14;66(3):302-3.
------------- Toxic peripheral nerve damage was worse than any potential benefit of lowering lactate levels.
4) Implying there is a conspiracy to ignore this drug:
Again, any company can research it combiine it with any other drug. Researchers recognize this study on DCA for the interesting mechanism of tumor action. There are many drugs that have interesting actions.
If you want to make a real difference, give to the American Cancer Society or another reputable group that does this for a living.
If you want to get mad at the drug companies about something real, read Marcia Angell's book, The Truth About the Drug Companies. Or look at the high price of the HPV vaccine and then read about how it came from 20 years of research from the NIH. There is some real, righteous indignation:
http://ott.od.nih.gov/current_issues/issues-ended-09-18-2006.html - pictureDIGGER, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1They stopped using AdSense and switched to adbrite, I am assuming they were shut down by google. Victory! I hope they don't see one red cent.
http://digg.com/health/ClickToCure_org_is_a_SCAM_Diggers_fill_a_scammers_pocket -
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