Where Are the Cures?

I hope with the new administration, things change, and that people in this country can get the treatment they need. I myself, am going to Costa Rica in a few days to get stem cell therapy for my MS. Maybe it won't be a cure, but hopefully it will alleviate my symptoms enough that in a few years, this country will get it together and find a real cure.

Reading the misinformation in some of the posts forces me to set some records straight. Though I am not a doctor, my qualifications exceed those of 90% of the very doctors who are, as Ms. Begley points out, keeping the cures from us. As accurate as your article is, Ms. Begley, it leaves out the only thing that matters: THE RULES ARE THERE TO KEEP THE CURES AWAY AND THE PROFITS IN PLACE.

1--I founded the very first company in the world to treat dying heart patients with stem cells. Of the first 300 treated, we had a 75% success rate with cardiomyopathy, with CHF, and with severe angina. Yes, at the six month mark, 225 were living better lives---not cured, but living better lives, with more energy, far fewer out-of-breath events, and higher ejection fractions. Of course we could not do this in the USA where not only horribly out-of-date laws prefer that heart patients die under standard cardiology with its less than a 5% success rate, but those who call themselves "scientists" lie at every turn to denigrate what we and dozens of others have done???..lie with 90% cooperation by major media who would much rather you die than know the truth.

2--To fight this I retired and started the Repair Stem Cell Institute to help sick patients who are told "there is nothing we can do." I have led dying patients to world-leading researchers who actually treat human beings with proven therapies: cancer patients to remissions, dying heart patients halfway back to normal lives, multiple sclerosis patients back to near-normal activity, autistic children to serious improvement, spinal cord paralytics away from paralysis....the list goes on and on???you can see it for yourself by visiting www.RepairStemCells.org and clicking on DISEASES TREATED.

In the end, however, I cannot beat the billion-dollar lobby which controls both sides of the aisle in both houses of Congress plus every White House since JFK.

You have been misled by your media to believe that embryonic stem cells are the only stem cells that work and that Repair (adult) stem cells cannot do much of anything. At first I believed that lie was merely to con the taxpayer out of funds for useless embryonic research, but I was wrong. Embryonics are useless, but the real reason for the hoax is that the worst-in-the-developed-world USA medical system (which kills a quarter million of us a year with its ???care???) DOES NOT WANT REPAIR STEM CELLS to be used ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD???..because they work, thus threatening the profits of everyone in the system. They know they can keep them out of the USA, but now they are going after other countries, buying doctors and politicians for just one reason: to keep Repair Stem Cells from destroying profits.

For 100+ stories of Repair Stem Cell victories using real names of real patients, please visit www.donmargolis.com/blog

Reading the misinformation

I attended a world-wide Lou Gehrig's conference. Yes, there were several passionate, compassionate researchers there--but I came away with the impression that the research world is a comfortable life-style--cocktail parties, respect, decent salary; plus the belief that one is doing something worthwhile. It's a far-cry from the desperate situation of people actually dealing with these terrible diseases (of which my husband is one, suffering from Lou Gehrig's).

I would also like to mention that there are extremely powerful lobbies out there which strap much research which should be taking place regarding the cause and increasing prevalence of many diseases. Consider the petroleum products which we put on our skin (and which are absorbed); the inhalation of pesticides, herbicides, benzenes, and other chemicals. Do you think these mega-corporations want any evidence that their products may be causing, or contributing to, fatal diseases?

First: one thing is certain: basic research is needed and not even supported enough. These days, all I hear is that we need to move to translation, find a cure etc... How can we do this if we don't even understand how most diseases work?
Secondly: what's not even mentioned is that scientists are a very competitve lot. I was recently at an oncology conference. The only conclusion I could come up with for this conference was that most scientists attending are 'oncotourists' and it is all about themselves. Is scientists can get together to make an attomic bomb, why can't they get together to collectively attack issues such as HIV, cancer, etc....

CTSAweb.org is the NIH's solution to funding translational science.

Way to miss the point entirely, honeykitty.

As a person currently working in the biotech field, I have seen firsthand how difficult it is to push new treatments and lines of research forward. There are probably innumerable molecular pathways and genetic discoveries that have been made concerning disease and disorders, but the problem is there is not enough funding from NIH, NPOs and private ventures to look at each one. Another problem is. especially with private venture capital, the focus is for a one size fits all approach to potentiating treatment when the reality is, even within the same disorder/disease there is much variability on an individual to individual basis; your basic costs vs benefits ratio. This is all before bringing any new treatment before the FDA and commencing clinical trials, which takes years to complete the process. The disconnect there is between discovery and new treatments entering the market is vast and will be difficult to bridge the divide

The comments about Genentech drugs are true. They have created 2 or 3 groundbreaking cancer treatments in the last five years. They are highly innovative and and patient centered. Unfortunately they have done a bit to well and now they are the target of a takeover by a large Swiss pharmaceutical company called Roche. Roch has a reputation for destroying anything it swallows and Genentech should be no exception. Genentech's innovative culture is at risk of coming unraveled and patients will suffer if this happens. This company is the pioneer of the biotech industry and should be protected as a an asset too important to loose. Write your congress person. Let Roche know they should keep theri hands off.

The NIH model seems to heavily favor more fundamental research and the most expensive solutions to many of our disease challenges and does not adequately fund treatment, prevention and wellness strategies that would bring the cost of disease care down. As an example, it's been impossible to get funding from NIH or from NSF to develop engineering systems tools that can look at and reduce costs and improve outcomes in hospitals, clinics and doctor's offices, yet these same engineering systems tools are known to save tremendous amounts of money in other industries. Six Sigma training and other cost and process industrial engineering efforts routinely improve quality control and reduce the cost of services and products. Hospitals, insurers and providers (doctors) are unwilling to sponsor this type of research and development at the outset because shareholders and private practice physicians are not likely to reap the savings because there isn't a free market for medical services and no clear competitive advantage to fund the research and development necessary to prove the concepts and determine which processes are most likely to return the highest levels of savings.

The NIH model seems to heavily favor more fundamental research and the most expensive solutions to many of our disease challenges and does not adequately fund treatment, prevention and wellness strategies that would bring the cost of disease care down. As an example, it's been impossible to get funding from NIH or from NSF to develop engineering systems tools that can look at and reduce costs and improve outcomes in hospitals, clinics and doctor's offices, yet these same engineering systems tools are known to save tremendous amounts of money in other industries. Six Sigma training and other cost and process industrial engineering efforts routinely improve quality control and reduce the cost of services and products. Hospitals, insurers and providers (doctors) are unwilling to sponsor this type of research and development at the outset because shareholders and private practice physicians are not likely to reap the savings because there isn't a free market for medical services and no clear competitive advantage to fund the research and development necessary to prove the concepts and determine which processes are most likely to return the highest levels of savings.

Why is the solution more government funding and more government programs? What programs have they run well in the past? The supercar? The information superhighway? Yeah, let's let those guys try to push medical discoveries from the lab to the pharmacy.

NIH SHOULD NOT be in the business of making drugs or medical devices. This is the HUGE fallacy promoted by Ms Begley and the PREVIOUS administration. They call it "Translational" but in reality it is a mechanism to build enormously wasteful bureaucracies in the guise of ???Centers???! Such DIRECTED funding has NEVER worked in the history of research. The NIH should be in the business of funding basic discovery research through individual grants. This system has placed the US as leader in such discoveries for more than 50 years. The administration of George W Bush decided that ???Centers??? would ???translate??? discoveries. Turns out the ???discoveries quite happening at the rate they were previously so now there are lots of centers with nothing to translate (and lots of wasted money). Translation should be done by PRIVATE INDUSTRY. What is missing at the NIH is to provide seed funding for Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Companies to more rapidly translate the myriad of basic science discoveries that arise from individual research grants. Centers are a waste ???period!

NIH SHOULD NOT be in the business of making drugs or medical devices. This is the HUGE fallacy promoted by Ms Begley and the PREVIOUS administration. They call it "Translational" but in reality it is a mechanism to build enormously wasteful bureaucracies in the guise of ???Centers???! Such DIRECTED funding has NEVER worked in the history of research. The NIH should be in the business of funding basic discovery research through individual grants. This system has placed the US as leader in such discoveries for more than 50 years. The administration of George W Bush decided that ???Centers??? would ???translate??? discoveries. Turns out the ???discoveries quite happening at the rate they were previously so now there are lots of centers with nothing to translate (and lots of wasted money). Translation should be done by PRIVATE INDUSTRY. What is missing at the NIH is to provide seed funding for Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Companies to more rapidly translate the myriad of basic science discoveries that arise from individual research grants. Centers are a waste ???period!

Next President need ti dismantle the NIH administration and bureaucracy completely. It became extremely bureaucratic and a typical old boy network that completely perverted the NIH grant system. At least half of the tax payer's money that flow into NIH go to bureaucratic waste instead of research that must change if we want lead the world in biomedical science.