BTW, the vaccine that is being used in this particular study is manufactured in Canada.

Wow! Guys, I'm a type 1 diabetes person and the daily injections and especially the tests are a real pita. This is the first I've heard of a possible cure. My doctor (endocrinologist)is also a researcher: I can't wait to ask her about this.

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“These patients have been told their pancreases were dead,”

Wait. If a person could live with a "dead pancreas" (though need injections) then why can't a person live after they contract pancreatic cancer? Remove the damn thing and treat as per current type 1.

If that would work I've known many people who could still be around right now.

Am I wrong or is this why I don't even play a doctor on TV?

You mean old-school medicine might actually work? Say it ain't so!

By the way, I'd have replied much earlier had I not found myself distracted with debtpie's avatar.

Those invested in treatment of symptoms, fear the cure. Those invested in cures, fear prevention.

I wonder if the human race will ever outgrow the "Profit and material gain at all costs, even peoples' lives!!" mentality?

Short of an extraterrestrial threat that could wipe us out entirely, I doubt it.

By the way Gen, slight typo in your ticker -- in this sentence you likely meant healthy but put health:

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a process that health people's bodies do automatically.

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Wait. If a person could live with a "dead pancreas" (though need injections) then why can't a person live after they contract pancreatic cancer? Remove the damn thing and treat as per current type 1.

Several reasons. First, the pancreas has other cells besides insulin-producing cells. So a "dead" pancreas mentioned here really refers to the insulin-producing cells but it is still likely producing other hormones and digestive enzymes. You can LIVE without a pancreas though, but it takes some real medical management.

The larger problem with pancreatic cancer is metastasis to other organs. It happens quickly and can rarely be controlled once it starts.

Interesting that someone mentions the insurance companies would benefit from this type of research. How about the reality that we would all benefit more if we weren't using a 3rd party pay system?

Would we be more likely to donate to medical research under our old free-market system from a few decades ago? I don't know. That's an interesting question. Can charitable donations to medical research be tracked retrospectively?

I do agree the FDA inhibits a lot of research. And it's not often that it appears to be for sound medical reasons. Drug companies sometimes have to run a new study to make a non-meaningful change in the packaging. It's typical bureaucracy: the bureaucrats invent a type of paperwork that everyone must follow, to make it appear their job is essential.

Great. So TF has finally come to the same conclusion Chris Rock did in 1999.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7P4iFg04....

since the vaccine is already in existence...could it be used as is?

Today's big pharma is the love child of eugenics and capitalism.

Ulstr: Yes.

I'm not sure private charities have had a history of putting up the money & expertise to conduct Phase 2, 3 and 4 FDA trials.

I wonder what the private market solution for this problem is - I suspect it is not simple.

so does this mean the profit on diabetes is no longer attractive so big pharma will just throw the public a bone and cure them? then they divert the public's money to a new drug to increase profits?

Vaccines are ****ing toxic. The idea of an old Tuberculosis vaccine helping diabetes is actually absurd on it's face.

Nonetheless - to your point - of course they don't want people cured. The entire industry relies on keeping the nation sick and taking drugs; and they'd done a damn good job of it.......

Thanks for finding this KD.

This is personal. My girlfriend is a type 1. She developed it about 15 years ago. Lately she has struggled with controling her blood sugar levels and suffered a seizure. Her quality of life is not the best since she is frequently tired and the different swings in blood sugar cause problems.
She is getting a monitor to help warn her if her blood sugar levels are dropping.

Insulin should be cheap as **** but they keep synthezising new insulins in the lab and patenting them keep the price high and by introducing new insulins this prevents generics to come to market - some arcane rule (not an expert).

I am going to email this around and send it to our mostly worthless elected clowns.

This is similar to Orexin-A for narcolepsy and Dichloroacetic acid for cancer. Nobody wants to do any research on those treatments because there is no profit involved.

This post speaks close to home. Ever since I was young I suffered from Bipolar symptoms and was diagnosed just a few years ago because my parents never got me in to a doctor. obviously this caused severe problems with work and I finally went and got, "Help." The psych. experimented until I just could not take it anymore. I kept having reactions to the medications and it was destroying me. I finally got so upset with her that I started doing my own research and asked to be refered to some specialists and my psych was completely upset. She basically called the, "specialists." fake and said they will never be able to help. Long story short I learned from these people who are not considered part of, "Modern Medicine." and was able to completely CURE my bipolar illness. I have never felt so healthy and good in all my life.

My sister went through a similar problem where the doctors could not figure out what was wrong with her so they finally decided to remove her gal bladder. These people have no idea what they are doing and have no intentions of actually curing you.

I would trust a doctor with little things like cold and flu and things like that, but these drug companies run the show and really cannot be trusted.

My doctor has had amazing success reversing Type II Diabetes in men with bio-identical testosterone supplementation - he even wrote a book about it. The result was that Blue Cross of MI and a couple of other insurance companies dropped his participation contracts and attempted to sue him for not being an 'endocrinologist.' The insurance companies lost their case against him for treating patients outside of his specialty, but the he could not get his participation contracts reinstated.

Since then, he's gone to a basically cash-only basis - like the Oklahoma Surgery Center. He has an advertising campaign now in which he touts himself as the 'Tea Party Doctor.'

Apotheoun

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These people have no idea what they are doing and have no intentions of actually curing you.

That's what I'm seeing: misdiagnosis or failure to diagnose stuff my old granny could have diagnosed in 1955, refusal to acknowledge a correct diagnosis, and what appears to be near-total ignorance of all things medical.

I know two guys whose gout has been misdiagnosed as something else for YEARS. I remarked to the one guy's wife, "They can't diagnose gout?"

My daughter's parasitology professor spent months trying to persuade his doctor he had a parasite, and the doctor wasn't having it. Finally the guy drew his own blood and grew his own culture and took the culture to the doctor.

Now a friend has been having severe muscle cramps, and they are telling her to load up on potassium, when what she needs is magnesium.

SHEESH! Don't go near these *******s!

This is precisely why I will not donate to groups similar to the American Cancer Society. Are they searching for a cure or expensive prolonging of life treatments?

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The implication, of course, is that if it's more profitable to "control" a disease than cure it, the path that will be pursued is "control", not cure.

Seems like I heard that before in the cancer thread. (I said that too -lol0)

The government creates special tax breaks for companies that want to create 'orphaned drugs'. Essentially the government giving some tax payer dollars for a treatment along with other investors. These companies still have a profit motive.

There's nothing wrong with profit but individuals in the medical profession that purposely ignore real cures for the profits of managed treatments should be banned from the field. To me this is criminal to prolong suffering and robbing the infirm.

How do we create a system that will TRULY create cures without fleecing the populace? Few people have altruism as their motive.

Considering the long term cost to support 'treatments' the government paying a lump sum (as the past 1-10 years costs it took medicare/medicaide to manage the disease) to the first company to provide a true cure seems reasonable to me.

Smart medical insurance companies should also get involved and to me this would be the preferred source of the capital. If the people that have the most to gain financially in the long term for a real cure come together, they make up for the investment in the long term.

The prize is the lump sum - not the continued dump of funds into 'charities' or non-profits by persons and organizations that pay high salaries to its management and produce little worthwhile in the end.

This is a known one time shot and you get the money after its proved effective.
This is not an effing research grant to 'study' the problem.

The only solution is to get charity back into the mix for people without money. They have a strong incentive to actually cure things, as their resources are limited and there's no value to extract from the patient.

Can you just got to mexico or canada and receive this injection?

You should be able to get it here, as it's considered an approved drug.

Now getting a doctor to give it to you might be difficult.

Two doses and then check and see if it worked. Any improvement in pancreatic functionality is a home run -- you don't need to restore "normal" function for it to be a win.