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I've been a caregiver for a woman who, following her last series of chemos in 2007 was told nothing else could be done for her lymphoma, enjoy life as much as possible before hospice. Instead she looked for clinical trials, and eventually renewed acquaintance with a cancer therapy she'd known about many years before, Coley's Fluid, or Coley's Toxin. It is an immunological approach to cancer that proved very effective in her case. It has enabled her to live comfortably (lymphoma is not painful) until new chemotherapies have become available, should she need them. Her tumors have been reduced from 10 cm, to 1.2 cm.

The CEO of the company that makes her Coley's Fluid, Don MacAdam of MBVax in Canada, e-mailed about a program called "People's Pharmacy" on NPR (I know, I know, it's NPR) that's having a 3 part series on immunological approaches to cancer. This is likely to prove leading edge, because the mainstream pharmaceutical companies all seem to be doing research into this area of cancer treatment. Many of the therapies are not valuable to the big companies because the substances are not always patentable. Coley's Fluid is simply two killed bacteria that causes high fever, which upsets many kinds of cancer growth. It is not patentable.

I'm kind of flumoxing around trying to get the e-mail transposed over to here with its valuable links;

NOTE - MacAdam's e-mail to me indicated the program started this weekend on People's Pharmacy, but it did not, at least not on the Chico, CA station I was able to listen to on my Dial Up. The station said the 3 part cancer series starts next week end.

This is from a Word Document, not my e-mail, so the links are shaky as heck. There is a ling somewhere here that lists all the NPR stations in each state that carries People's Pharmacy. None near me in Utah so I tried the Chico station kcho, which worked on line.

Don's e-mail:

Coley Fluid on National Public Radio
Wednesday, August 4, 2010 11:13 AM
From:
"Don MacAdam" <[email protected]>
To:
"Don MacAdam" <[email protected]>
Cc:
"Don MacAdam" <[email protected]>
NPR, the public radio system in the United States, will air a three-part series about cancer immunology and MBVax Coley Fluid. Three weekly one-hour editions of “The People’s Pharmacy” hosted by Joe and Terry Graedon will be broadcast on Saturday and Sunday mornings beginning this weekend.

(The programs are likely going to be a week later in each instance. Convenient times, too !!! But some lives may be saved that more modern medicine has yet to be able to handle. It has worked in my partner's case. This is not some hippy-dippy stuff. I hope the program's are well done). I've communicate with Don MacAdam a few times over the last 3 years and he's serious about Coley's potential. It looks like other therapies will be the subject of these programs, as well. It seems to me like big pharmaceuticals won't spend money on research for the sake of patients, but more for the big billion dollar wonder medication they can sit back and profit from. What a strange world we live in now).

Program #1 – Saturday August (7th ?? - another subject entirely, as I listened to Chico, CA station) and Sunday August 8th
NIH Immunologist Dr. Polly Matzinger; and fever therapy authority Prof. Uwe Hobohn.

Program #2 – Saturday August 14th and Sunday August 15th
MBVax president Don MacAdam; and oncologist Dr. Jonathan Serody.

Program #3 – Saturday August 21st and Sunday August 22nd
Dr. Vikas Sukhatme, Victor J. Aresty Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; and Vidula Sukhatme, chair of GlobalCures.

To listen to these programs on the radio, check the schedule of your local NPR station:
http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/radio-stations/

To listen to these program live on the Internet:
www.wxel.org Saturday mornings at 4:00 am PDT, 7:00 am EDT, 11:00 GMT.
www.wxel.org Sunday mornings at 4:00 am PDT, 7:00 am EDT, 11:00 GMT.
www.kcho.org Sunday mornings at 6:00 am PDT, 9:00 am EDT, 13:00 GMT. (This was the station that let me listen using my simple Diaql Up connection on Sunday morning on my computer. It didn't come in very well on Friday and Saturday nights - when lotsa college kids there were online - but worked fine on Sunday morning. Except the program was postponed a week).

Beginning August 15th, the shows will be available as a podcast at:
http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/

For more information about Coley Fluid, visit www.mbvax.com

Thanks



Podcast
I know all this, just give me the feed!
If you're familiar with podcasting and already know how to subcribe to an RSS feed, you can use this link to our xml feed.
The People's Pharmacy® is happy to offer a free podcast of our complete Radio Show. Miss the People's Pharmacy weekly radio show? Now you can download our podcast! Everything from home remedies to the latest breakthrough medications are discussed on The People's Pharmacy.® Pharmacologist Joe Graedon and medical anthropologist Terry Graedon talk to leading experts to discuss issues relating to medications, herbs, home remedies, vitamins and related health topics. Each People's Pharmacy radio show is a 1 hour audio file.
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(Visit Wikipedia for a detailed explanation of podcasting.)
How to subscribe to the People's Pharmacy podcast:
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iTunes is the most common podcatcher. iTunes is a free program with an extensive library of podcasts to choose from.
o Download iTunes (PC or Mac)
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The mix up on when this series begins isn't exactly resolved in my mind, because the Chico, CA station I could bring in Sunday had another program, yet the first program on cancer appears on "The People's Pharmacy" web site this week. It can be listened to simply on any computer with broadband internet service. The 3 part series seems to focus on Dr. Will Coley and his early discovery of an immunological treatment of cancer.

The reason for this post is that I thought the cancer program (and possible People's Pharmacy in general) were somewhat better than I expected. It appeared to me that the program transcends the border between alternative medicine and solidly scientifically based medicine. There were two scientists interviewed. One was a doctor with a Dutch sounding name who works in Germany, who described Will Coley's discovery and brought it up to date to some extent. The other (here goes my credibility) was a woman, a former Playboy bunny, who, as a barmaid at age 28 was encouraged to go back to school and now leads an immunological research section of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease at the NIH. Anthony Fauci runs the NIAID which is the governmental health organization that I most respect (though I'm just an amateur in this stuff).

The former bunny/cancer researcher has developed the important concept that the immune system doesn't just work to attack 'foreign substances' as has long been thought, but is much more sophisticated in a way that fits this scientists increasingly accepted model called 'the danger model' of infection by the immune system. She explained it fairly clearly and ended by showing why it's so important to needed new therapies for cancer. There are certain substances that can enter or form within the body that change in a way that make some cells see them as dangerous and then an immune response begins. It takes a series of reactions to make this happen, not just that a 'foreign substance' is in the body. Most cancer therapies are still based on the cruder idea of simple foreign bodies being present.

It could be that we are in a time when pharmaceutical company profits take priority over new research models and a resistance forms to newer, somewhat less profitable (home run hitting) medications that big pharmacy is after. It might be smart to know about these kinds of researches because it may take a decade or two before the right emphasis in medication research leads to a plentiful supply of the best therapies. It might be that the U.S. will lag behind European and other countries in honest pursuit of life giving therapies. I'm not a counter culture person, but old age is making evident to me that the history of this era is going to include that greed has been good to a lot of people who are willing to remain blinded to the social and ethical costs. Of course, I've been with a partner who was told to go home to die, and, instead found an unexpected 100 year old therapy that has given her additional years of life.

I'm certain, now, to catch the next two radio broadcasts about Coley's treatment in hopes that it will do people I know some good when some few of them are diagnosed with cancer. FWIW

Very interesting, it almost sounds as if this therapists idea may come from a link between arthritis and cancer therapy, as arthritis is an autoimmune attack on the body's joint cells. Most arthritis therapies today focus on suppressing the immune system to reduce the effects of the disease. The new cancer therapy sounds as if it's trying instead to get the autoimmune system to see cancer cells as bodily invaders to attack and kill them. As I understand cancer these cells are generally formed by a mutation of the body's cells during the normal cell reproduction process. That is one reason why the immune system ignores the mutant cancer cells, as their genesis comes from within our bodies. Trying to get the body's immune system to see cancer cells as dangerous foreign invaders must be very complex. Otherwise the autoimmune system might react to all bodily cells in the same manner as the cancer cells and attack the normal healthy cells too.

I do agree with you that while traditional cancer therapy has improved over the years, it seems to have hit a wall in the form of new developments. It is probably going to take some nontraditional researcher to think "out of the box' and lead cancer research off in a new direction toward a cure. Why not a bunny/barmaid/immunologist?

R,
Bullseye