Pbs On Cancer

[GregS]

I found this most edifying and, I think, important. Inasmuch as we look to cannabis as treatment, this series explores how cancer treatment has come around historically and explains in great detail, at six hours in length, advances in the field.

 

http://video.pbs.org/program/story-cancer-emperor-all-maladies/

[Indigro]

Been watching it myself. Saw the first two & believe the final is airing tonight at 7pm.

 

Interesting to learn the progression over time. Was surprised to learn for how very long we knew tobacco caused cancer & to realize how very good big tobacco has been at obscuring that truth, and for how long. Scary how big biz can get away w such things, esp when looking at how uncommon lung cancer used to be before the popularity of smoking & how serious it has become as each year we smoked more & more. hHow such a strong relationship can get swept under the rug is disheartening. Doubt tobacco is the only industry... wonder how oil & power will stack up over time.

 

Interesting in how we frame the oncogene as the enemy... seems like their function almost goes hand & hand w evolution, as in genetic mutation in response to envrionmental changes leading to a possible 'better' version to address the new environment. Better or worse as a result, seems like two sides of the same coin. It may require tens of thousands of negative outcomes, but perhaps one of those mutations will result in positive benefit over time. Genetic mutation over time = evolution. Just dont see cancer framed in such a way.

[GregS]

I came to conclude that anything that damages DNA at the critical locations in the double helix causes the disease, from toxic chemicals to gamma rays that pass right through us, leaving behind damaged tissue behind. Those causes are many, and, as the program demonstrates, alter the conditions of Deoxyribonucleic acids. Carcinogens have the apparent ability to rewrite the story of our lives that is written in our DNA, or maybe it can be described as spilling water on an inked page, leaving illegible and incoherent conditions that, in these cases, run amok.

Edited April 4, 2015 by GregS

[Indigro]

Part 3 was the hardest to watch... placed faces to the disease.

 

Interesting that yahoo news had this posted today...

 

The very first human trial of a new approach to cancer treatment has scientists excited

Business Insider

Lauren F Friedman 17 hours ago

 

A human melanoma cell line.Two of the most promising recent approaches to cancer treatment are immunotherapy, which harnesses the body's own immune system to fight cancer, and personalized medicine, which involves therapeutics that are targeted to the genome of a particular patient and that patient's cancer.

 



Now scientists have combined those two strategies to create a novel treatment: a vaccine developed for a single patient that triggers an immune system attack that is laser-focused on that patient's tumors.

 

In the very first human trial testing this approach, the personalized vaccines successfully activated an immune response in three patients with melanoma.

 

The research is in its earliest stages — it's too soon to say if the treatment actually improved survival in the patients or whether it will work in others at all. Still, scientists are excited about the idea and the proof-of-concept results, which were published in the journal Science on April 2.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/very-first-human-trial-approach-190331178.html

[trichcycler]

"The tobacco of yesteryear is not the tobacco of today. The carcinogenic chemical applications are much more potent today"

[Indigro]

^^^ Besides their tweaking the end product w chems for varying effects... the other half of that is commercial farming techniques. Relevant because we have this fight going on right now w our mj, and guess what, commercially chemmed weed is winning.

[t-pain]

watching this , at every turn its "the doctors had run out of things to try".

 

cant try that cannabis i guess.

also it just breezes over the tobacco companies tainting scientific methods.

we're still dealing with the biased clinical trial funding.

[trichcycler]

With all these patents granted to them do we see a future issue with cannabis compounding or extractions violating their patented process/use protections?  Homeland Security is now the patent watchdog and they offer a toll free snitch line for patent infringements surprisingly.

[+washtenaut]

I think that insurance coverage may tilt the balance toward FDA approved medicines.  Eventually I believe insurance companies will cover cannabis medicines, but only those produced by a pharma company and only FDA approved medicines.

 

Over time that policy would benefit GW, INSY, and other pharma companies over non-pharma companies producing essentially the same medicine.   I know it seems unpalatable but that is how I see it.  Will patients pay $8.00 for 30 days of pharma produced cannabis medicine or $50, $100, or higher for 30 days of non-covered cannabis medicine?

[+washtenaut]

The covered cannabis medicine may cost the insurance company a lot of money but the covered patient will eventually just pay his co-pay to the pharmacist.

[Indigro]

Does anyone here recall the old rumors of gwpharma & sam/dea?

[trichcycler]

yes.

[Indigro]

Here's what gets me on that whole debacle...

 

That gwpharma got their core genetics from a source that ran commercial greenhouse crops of mj during the dutch boom years. What was intended outcome for those crops? That's their primary source for genetics & a primary architect for their grows. It also goes to show that much of what the medical community has today directly stems from the illicit market & the work done by participating individuals. A number of ways to look at that.

 

Related to this is the past video of the gwpharma crops... that had visible mold growing on the plant leaves. Hmmm... even at a 'lab grade' big pharma grow, under professional commercial crop managers, has mold problems when done on scale, indoors. This is even evidenced by sam's comments regarding gw's research in trying to remove mycotoxins from extracted cannabinoids, to which I believe they were unsuccessful. You have to infer that last part based on the language of his posts, but point being is that they have mold.

 

Just because they r big pharma & conducting patented research doesn't mean they are clean themselves. Ethics from the start are sketchy, and large scale indoor commercial cropping (no matter who does it) is ripe w problems. Wonder if they just spray now? Or if they did even back then (very likely) & still had problems at that scale?

[trichcycler]

astute observations^^^

I bet the fda will make them spray some kind of whiz squirt chem they rapidly approve for use on cannabis eventually.

[Norby]

That's the only way it can be done.  Monocultures on that scale don't work well.  too much humidity and too much heat.  That's why a house in winter is teh best place to grow.  Lowers your heat costs and adds humidity to the dry winter air.   It's byproducts are not pollutants on that small scale.