| ??? 08/15/06 19:40 Read: times |
#122306 - The FDA Responding to: ???'s previous message |
Here's one that you won't likely read about anytime soon.
The FDA is singularly responsible for retarding the fight against cancer by not less than a half century! It was the 1950s when thalidomide was widely prescribed to women without knowing that it was teratogenic (it causes birth defects). For the next 50 years, everytime anyone questioned their effectiveness/efficiency, the FDA quickly reminded people that they had single-handedly thwarted the thalidomide epidemic here in the States. And indeed, the FDA made the mere mention of thalidomide grounds to end the career of a pharmaceutical researcher. To even suggest studying thalidomide would guarantee that no funding would ensue. So, not surprisingly, no one in the field wanted anything to do with thalidomide, and the FDA was deferred to as the benevolent omniscient well-spring of all that is good and moral and decent, just like they wanted. Five years ago, more or less, about two or three small bio-tech companies introduced cancer/tumor research that was heralded as the most promising oncological breakthrough to date. It was termed antiangiogenesis therapy. "Antiangiogenesis" means preventing the development of new blood vessels. The researchers at these three companies were discovering that tumors could be controlled by preventing the development of new blood vessels. Okay, there's more to it than that, but this crucial first step was the beginning of a whole new level of understanding in the oncological treatment of tumors. Now guess which drug is the most commonly known antiangiogenesis drug around. That's right, thalidomide. That's how it caused all of the birth defects, by preventing the formation of new blood vessels and thus the associated limbs. But since the omniscient, omnibenevolent FDA had already decided that thalidomide was verboten, especially since thalidomide was the singular axiomatic basis for their theology of infallability, it would be a half century before anyone discovered all of this. I wonder if the FDA will ever be held to the same standard of accountability they seek to impose on others? |
