I picked up on this link today regarding a potential cure for cancer and as exciting as the possibility is, it could literally be thrown in the ditch because there simply isn’t any money in it for big pharm.

Investigators at the University of Alberta have recently reported that a drug previously used in humans for the treatment of rare disorders of metabolism is also able to cause tumor regression in a number of human cancers growing in animals. This drug, dichloroacetate (DCA) appears to suppress the growth of cancer cells without affecting normal cells, suggesting that it might not have the dramatic side effects of standard chemotherapies.

The “drug” DCA, which could loosely be described as industrial waste cannot be patented and so may be overlooked for funding of human testing as most drug companies prefer something that they can legitimately charge more than 2 dollars a dose. 

It is expected there would be no problems securing funding to explore a drug that could shrink cancerous tumors and has no side-effects in humans, but University of Alberta researcher Evangelos Michelakis has hit a stalemate with the private sector who would normally fund such a venture.

Michelakis’ drug is none other than dichloroacetate (DCA), a drug which cannot be patented and costs pennies to make.

It’s no wonder he can’t secure the $400-600 million needed to conduct human trials with the medicine - the drug doesn’t have the potential to make enough money.

As a cancer survivor of sorts (it was a minor ordeal), and having family who have died from the disease, I would hope this news would be acted upon on the fast track.  And having seen the affects of traditional cancer treatments first hand, an option like this shouldn’t be overlooked simply because it isn’t profitable.  If the President ever needed anything right now to put a bright light on his legacy (Iraq isn’t looking so great), this could be his chance!!! But for some reason, I don’t think that will happen. 

He [Bush] said his goal is to promote what he terms a “culture of life” that includes safeguards for the unborn, including restrictions on the use of fetal tissue for medical research.

Anti-abortion, or pro-life activists, have long sought to overturn the landmark 1973 “Roe versus Wade” Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in the United States. They have been heartened by the fact that President Bush has named two new Supreme Court justices in his second term, both of whom are believed to be critical of the original Supreme Court ruling on abortion.

It’s all a matter of priorities…

Update: I found an important post on the Ko’s on this.  There is some contention sprinkled with a bit of hope.  I’m no conspiracy theorists by any stretch and agree that if there is a buck to be made from this by big pharm they will find a way.  I dug pretty deep into this today and along side of the skepticism there was quite a bit of discussion about DCA’s use with chemotherapy that looked more than interesting.  I think my major point here is that it could be slow going if only free market forces are responsible for DCA’s investigation.