Somebody at LBCI TV in Lebanon (a right-wing sectarian and racist station in Lebanon) is allegedly paid by a Lebanese quack who claims to have "discovered" a cure for cancer. The TV station is promoting this guy. He is bilking people for their life savings (and royal princes, I am told) for the promise of curing their cancer. He has an "institute" which is a website. Judge for yourselves. I asked a comrade who is a professor at Harvard Medical School to respond. Here is his response:
"If he were in a country with effective laws he would be in Jail with some very serious charges.
You have to read through the patent. It shows results
from tissue and mouse experiments (never published in a peer reviewed journal
or in any journal as far as I can tell), a CT scan from a patient and claims
about its use in different cancers. It is not equivalent to proof of efficacy
as understood in the scientific community . I also raised concern about the
company that filed the claim. It seems to be a front for himself. Essentially,
there are no independent verifications for any claim of his, and no peer
reviewed publications to back his assertions. Plus, he has no human studies
whatsoever: no phase I, II or III trials. The problem is this: the compound
itself may or may not have anti-tumor properties, but we have no idea about its
efficacy from published preclinical studies (mice, tissues etc, and I stress
the term "published") or from carefully controlled and monitored
human studies. This affair has been going on for at least 15 years. Don't you
think that something should have materialized by then? Remember, a patent is
simply a claim to intellectual property. It is no proof of the claims being
made. That is determined by carefully conducted studies that end up being
published in peer reviewed journals for the scientific community to examine the
results and make its judgement. So far, everything he claims about his drug is
the equivalent of hearsay.
"If he were in a country with effective laws he would be in Jail with some very serious charges.
The
issues are self evident, but here is a synopsis:
1)
His compound has never moved into any human studies (phase I for toxicity,
phase II for prove of efficacy in small trial set up and phase III in larger
controlled studies). I looked into the documents listed on his website under
Phase I trials, and there is nothing in there. What is written up is a
proposition for trial, not one. The writeup would not pas muster in any
institutional review board in the United States (IRB, the review
boards that go over the details of trial proposals in a hospital). We have only
test tube (in vitro) and animal studies, non of which to my knowledge have never
been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. The only publication
listed on his website is an abstract in a meeting (essential a non-peer
reviewed communication with no data), which counts for nothing.
2) I
am also very concerned that the in vitro and animal studies listed in his
patent were carried out by a company, (Vianova Labs, Inc., Cambridge,
Mass), that if you google it will only come up in relation with this one
patent. Meaning, it may well be a shadow or front company that was set up
just to obtain this one patent.
3)
It is disheartening that this man, himself not trained as a physician, is
giving a compound not tested or sanctioned for human use under the guise of
scientific rationalism. The ethical infarctions involved are so serious as to
call for immediate legal intervention for medical fraud and endangering the lives
of patients. The latter is both because the medicine may have an untoward side
effects and also because it detracts patients from seeking proven effective
medical therapy.
HIs
approach of throwing in anecdotal testimonials from treated patients is classical
for such a situation. Anecdotes do not replace the need for controlled
scientific studies since chance results, placebo effect and misdiagnoses are
common mishaps (that is why placebo controlled studies are rigorously demanded
and applied in such studies).
In
summary, we are dealing with serious medical fraud and misrepresentation.
Legally, This man is running a criminal operation.
The
patent provides no references or publications for human or mouse studies. It
provides data for the efficacy of the compound in treating cancer in a mouse
model, and a CT scan of a patient before and after treatment. But patents are
not prove of efficacy. They are registration of intellectual property. We
simply do not know if this compound is as effective in vitro and in animal
studies as the claims present it to be because non of those studies have been
looked carefully at in a peer reviewed manner nor have they been replicated by
other investigators. We simply do not know.
I
have to say that such a story irritates me because I know it takes away
potential therapy and valuable resources from patients who frequently are poor.
It is, in summary, a fraud. Now, it may well be that the compound itself has
anti-tumor property etc but the man jumped the gun over the entire process of
drug verification to make a buck while claiming at the same time to be a
saint.
Remember,
this is not a new story. He has been peddling his drug from before 2001. We are
talking of close to 15 years, if not longer, of a scamming operation.
That
is the same patent.
It is a patent application, not a patent."
