About six months ago, I discussed a dubious and unproven cancer treatment that I had heard of but never looked into before that originated in, of all places, Latvia. This unproven treatment is known as Rigvir, which is represented as “virotherapy” in which an Echovirus (specifically Echovirus-7) is that, according to the IVC, seeks out cancer cells, replicates in them, and thus lyses the cancer cells (causes their membranes to break, spilling out the cancer cells contents, thus killing the cell), hence the term “oncolytic virus.” As I’ve discussed before, somehow, as I’ve mentioned before, mysteriously Rigvir was approved by the Latvian equivalent of the FDA in 2004 for the treatment of malignant melanoma despite what appears to have been grossly inadequate supporting evidence and then even more mysteriously placed on the Latvian Health Ministry’s list of reimbursable medications in 2011. Since then, it’s been increasingly marketed widely at quack cancer clinics, ranging from Dr. Antonio Jimenez’s Hope4Cancer Clinic in Mexico to various German cancer clinics, which I’ve discussed before.
Indeed, what led me to discuss Rigvir one more time was a comment in a recent post about the Hallwang Clinic. In it, a commenter going by the ‘nym DDay, probably thinking he or she was taunting me, pointed to a case report purporting to suggest that Rigvir virotherapy had greatly prolonged the life of a patient with melanoma metastatic to the brain. As you will see, it is not good evidence of the efficacy of Rigvir.
Before I discuss the study itself, in fairness I’ll mention that it isn’t beyond the realm of plausibility that an oncolytic virus could be an effective treatment of cancer. Indeed, such viruses, usually modified, are an active area of research. However, the claims made for Rigvir, both by the International Virotherapy Center and quack clinics like Hope4Cancer are selling it as a cancer cure. For instance, here’s Hope4Cancer:
Rigvir® is a product from the International Virotherapy Center (IVC) based in Riga, Latvia. In 2004, Rigvir® became the first approved oncolytic virotherapy in the world, approved and registered in Latvia as an active and specific immunotherapy. Rigvir® is the result of over 50 years of research conducted in Latvia4-7 under the leadership of legendary virologist, Dr. Aina Muceniece, and has been tested for safety and efficacy in thousands of patients in Latvia. Besides the occasional slight temporary fever, Rigvir® has virtually no side effects. These results are consistent with Hope4Cancer’s experience with Rigvir® in patients since 2014.8
Conveniently, most of the references cited above are from Latvian and Russian language journals that I cannot access, although I discussed in great detail over three posts why even secondhand accounts of this evidence are both incomplete and not compelling. I’ve also explained why the other, more recent studies, are at best preliminary and also unconvincing. Yet the irresponsible and misleading testimonials from the International Virotherapy Center keep flowing.
So let’s take a look at the case report itself. The introduction points out:
Melanoma is considered an aggressive malignancy with a tendency of forming metastasis in the brain. Less than 10% of all melanoma cases present with unknown primary tumor location. This diagnose is yet to be fully understood, because there are only theoretical assumptions about the nature of the disease. Melanoma brain metastases have many severe side effects and, unfortunately, any disease related to the brain has limited therapeutic options due to the blood–brain barrier. The course of the disease after a treatment course is complicated to predict, and it is difficult to obtain long-lasting remission.
All of the above, of course, is indeed true. Brain metastases are bad. Cancer of any kind in the brain is bad, as we learned from my many discussions of Stanislaw Burzynski. As bad as glioblastoma is, however, the most common source of cancer in the brain is metastatic spread from other primaries, like breast or lung cancer, and, yes, melanoma. As you might expect, brain metastases portend a dire prognosis. So it was that the patient described in the case report, a 64 year old woman, would not be expected to do well:
In 2014, the patient complained about severe dizziness after movements and increased fatigue. No headache was observed. The patient has a Ph.D., she is married, has three children, her hobbies include traveling and has an active lifestyle. There is no previous family history of cancer. After contrast-enhanced head and brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the patient was diagnosed with a formation in the craniospinal junction. The patient underwent a planned posterolateral foramen magnum formation extirpation in 23 April 2014 (Figure 1). The surgery lasted for 12 h, and no severe complication was observed. CT scan performed 5 days after surgery showed a minimal residual caudal part of the tumor. The condition of the patient during the postoperative period was satisfactory; progressive renewal of physical endurance with no signs of new essential neurologic deficit was observed.
After surgery:
The patient declined postoperative radiation therapy, because the metastasis residue was closely located to truncus encephali and; therefore, the risk of complications was estimated as high, and efficacy of the radiotherapy uncertain (at that time, stereotactic radiosurgery was not available in Latvia). Since no BRAF mutation was found, therapy with a BRAF inhibitor was contraindicated; in 2014, CTLA-4 and PD-1 immunotherapy was not registered in Latvia (at the time when the decision on adjuvant therapy was made).
The truncus encephali is just a fancy term for the brainstem. I actually hadn’t heard anyone refer to the brainstem by that term in a very long time.
This is what’s known as metastatic melanoma of unknown primary. The patient had never been diagnosed with melanoma before. She had, however, had a basal cell carcinoma excised five years before her diagnoses with brain metastases, but nothing else that might even remotely be related. The authors speculate that maybe the basal cell carcinoma was misdiagnosed. Another possibility is that there was a small primary melanoma that regressed. (Melanomas do sometimes spontaneously regress; it’s not that common, but it has been observed.) Whatever the origin of this woman’s brain metastasis, it is known that somewhere between 2%-6% of metastatic melanomas have an unknown primary tumor, and an extensive workup, with imaging, skin examinations, and other tests, was undertaken to find the primary tumor. None was found. The authors point also out that metastatic melanoma with an unknown primary might have a somewhat better prognosis than your standard, run-of-the-mill melanoma.
In any case, because the patient wasn’t deemed a candidate for radiation therapy and was definitely not a candidate for BRAF inhibiting drugs, it was only natural that, being in Latvia, this patient would get Rigvir. After all, Rigvir seems to be a matter of national pride (how else it was approved for use in Latvia, I can’t figure out), and it seemingly can cure any cancer if you believe the International Virotherapy Center. Treatment with Rigvir was begun in July 2014 with a three-day series of doses followed by doses once a week. In January 2015, the injections were changed to every two weeks, and then in December 2016 to every three weeks. The patient has not received any other treatment.
The case report shows a series of MRI scans, which are characterized as showing “minimal residual tissue of a melanoma metastasis in the anterior spinal cord located in the craniospinal junction without significant changes in structure and size.” I’m a bit skeptical. Yes, there is a small lesion there that hasn’t changed, but I’m lacking one huge piece of information I need to evaluate the case report. Surgeons who actually read the case report will know right away what I’m talking about because, as surgeons, when reading of any resection of any tumor it’s something we look for right away in the pathology report. I’m referring, of course, to the surgical margins. Nowhere is it mentioned whether the surgical margins were clear. By “clear margins,” I mean that no tumor is seen at the edge of the resected specimen, meaning that the tumor has been completely resected. Given that there’s no histologic confirmation or confirmation on other scans that the lesion seen on the followup MRIs is actually tumor, we don’t even know if there was residual tumor.
The authors also play a deceptive game with selective citations:
The median expected overall survival from the time of melanoma brain metastasis diagnosis is approximately 5 months (15). A meta-analysis suggests that the prognosis of melanoma unknown primary is better than that of melanoma known primary (4). The patient described here has been stable for more than 3 years and 9 months, and the virotherapy is still ongoing.
Let’s look at reference 15, which is a report from the British Journal of Cancer from last year examining the effect of immunotherapy on melanoma brain metastases. It was a retrospective study examining the effect of anti-PD1 therapy, and citing it was very deceptive. Why? Simple. This was a study of all comers, most of whom did not undergo surgical resection and many of whom had multiple brain metastases. It’s a study that was not well-suited to serve as a comparison to this patient.
Annoyed, I looked for studies more appropriate to compare this woman’s outcome to. One study I found looked at the survival of patients treated with stereotactic radiosurgery and ipilimumab, an immunotherapy. Stereotactic radiosurgery is a technique used to closely target brain metastases using precisely focused radiation beams. It’s not surgery in the traditional sense in that there’s no incision. Rather, it uses 3D imaging to aim high doses of radiation to the tumor with minimal “bleed” over to normal surrounding healthy tissue. Basically, it cooks the tumor. This study noted a median survival of 29.3 months when brain metastases were present. Now, this study is an outlier and retrospective. It also has immunotherapy added. Most studies show median survival for melanoma brain metastases of a year or less. Even so, there are outliers, and the very fact that this patient’s tumor could be resected successfully and that she had no known primary already made it a lower risk tumor.
So did Rigvir have anything to do with this patient’s good fortune? This case report sure isn’t any good evidence that it did. Why? Because it’s a case report. That means it is almost certainly not reflective of what usually happens, because if it were (e.g., the patient died less than a year after her surgery) it almost certainly would not have been reported as a case report. That’s why randomized clinical trials are done; case reports and small case series can mislead.
Case reports, however, are what the International Virotherapy Center bases its entire advertising model on. For instance, I just learned of a documentary:
And here’s a trailer from November:
It’s all part of a propaganda film called Climb for Cancer:
The Aina Muceniece Virotherapy Foundation has launched an initiative to involve oncology patients in voluntary activities, supported by doctors, in order to prove that they can still make the most of life while undergoing treatment.
For this purpose, the Aina Muceniece Virotherapy Foundation and the “Kalnu Grupa” (Mountain Group) organised a climbing expedition to the Alps from 29 July to 12 August 2017.
Participants did include existing and former virotherapy patients as well as other oncology patients who are currently fighting the disease or have already overcome cancer in different forms and stages. The trip will also involved patients who were prescribed palliative care and who didn’t have much hope before they found virotherapy.
You can see the message. It’s the same message that dubious and quack cancer clinics peddle on a routine basis, namely that these patients were “written off” by conventional medicine but were saved by Rigvir. It’s the same message peddled by Stanislaw Burzynski and German cancer clinics. I will give them credit, though. They have a more flamboyant way of making a propaganda movie than any I’ve ever seen before.
More and more, I’m convinced that Rigvir virotherapy has many of the hallmarks of cancer quackery. There’s nothing in the way of rigorous evidence in the form of well-designed randomized clinical trials to support its efficacy for anything, and what is out there is of low quality or inaccessible, having been published decades ago in journals from Eastern Europe. Its entire marketing campaign relies on anecdotes and case reports. Increasingly, it’s being marketed to alternative cancer clinics. What more do you need to conclude that Rigvir is quackery?
69 replies on “The dubious cancer “virotherapy” Rigvir returns with an equally dubious case report”
Gee, when I was in high school biology I learned about viruses and thought, “Hey, what if you could use viruses to destroy cancer cells?” Too bad it’s a little more complicated than that. Besides, you don’t want to end up with “I Am Legend.”
Orac asks,
What more do you need to conclude that Rigvir is quackery?
MJD says,
In the results section of a retrospective study by Aina Muceniece et al., it is written, “Patients who were free of melanoma after surgical excision and were treated with Rigvir appeared to remain disease free (free of metastases and/or recurrence) for a longer period of time compared with a similar group of patients who did not receive Rigvir. The difference between the treatment groups did not, however, reach statistical significance.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4560272/?tool=pmcentrez
@ Orac,
Quackery is often reinforced by writing style. For example, claiming that the patients above were “free” of melanoma (i.e., metastases and/or recurrence) after surgical excision is fantastical conjecture. The ignorant use of the word “free” in medical science often reinforces “quackery”.
FTFY.
“appeared to remain disease free”
“The difference between the treatment groups did not, however, reach statistical significance.”
How about an endorsement from MJD?
I am not qualified to evaluate the quality of this case report independently. But even if I take it at face value, it is a fancy version of an anecdote, and as we all know, the plural of “anecdote” is not “data”. At best, it is a suggestion that a clinical trial to look into this might get a positive result. No guarantees that it would: it could turn out to be a placebo effect, like homeopathy and most traditional Chinese medicine. And it is not enough by itself to show that a clinical trial is warranted; some other evidence, like a plausible mechanism or additional case reports with similar results, would be needed.
I really don’t see the placebo effect being a consideration here.
The patient had surgery. More likely the original surgery did what it was intended to do and removed most if not all of the cancer. We’ve seen this same story in patients who opt for quack therapies like the Gerson protocol. They get surgery for their cancer, but refuse follow up chemo and radiation, and extol how diet and coffee enemas cured their cancer, when the surgery just sent them into remission. Then, sometimes years later, the cancer comes back and they die. The alt med community excoriates them for not being faithful with the protocol to avoid having to explain why the patient died. It’s a sad story Orac has reported on and discussed with us all too frequently.
That this patient is getting Rigvir really doesn’t speak at all to whether or not the therapy is having any effect at all, given the lack of information as to whether there was any cancer originally to treat.
Given that history, there isn’t even enough to indicate a clinical trial would tell us anything different . . . assuming said trial was appropriately done. IIRC, Orac has pretty much smashed the Latvian trial to bits quite awhile back. https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2017/10/09/a-conversation-with-a-rigvir-flack/
The patient might do well for years. She’s 64, so she might get some other form of cancer, or she might never get cancer again. If she does, we probably won’t hear about it unless the family spills the beans. If she doesn’t, quacks will hold her up as proof of Rigvir’s efficacy, when in fact there’s no evidence of any kind it did anything at all.
Round and round we go
Orac asks above, “What more do you need to conclude that Rigvir is quackery?”
.
… And thus it seems to be fulfilling the well known adage:
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck – It’s a duck.
I’m not sure of you know this, but the approval of Rigvir in 2004 was shortly before Latvia joined EU and adopted it’s much more rigorous research requirements for new medication approval in market.
ICH GCP standards were in force already in 2004, and legislation in new member states was harmonized with EU regulations way before joining. So no, legislation differences alone do not explain the registration of Rigvir without a single RCT. One can only guess what the explanation is – naive nationalistic pride, corruption, or other reasons. Knowing how things tend to work in Latvia, I’d personally go for corruption.
MJD (above) quotes selectively from a publication on Rigvir (“Adapted ECHO-7 virus Rigvir immunotherapy (oncolytic virotherapy) prolongs survival in melanoma patients after surgical excision of the tumour in a retrospective study” S. Donina et al. Melanoma Research 25: 421-426, 2015) highlighting a section where the authors state that there was no significant difference between disease free survival of treated and control groups.
It is only fair to point out that this paper claims a significant prolongation in overall survival for their treated group, which MJD would have found if he had continued reading. That’s a little more than a single case report.
This is presumably what encouraged the editors of Melanoma Research (a respected journal as far as I can discover) to publish this paper.
However this was an entirely retrospective study. According to the methods section, patients themselves selected whether they wanted simple follow-up or treatment with Rigvir. 52 patients selected the treatment offered and 27 did not. This was therefore not a randomized trial, and explanation for the results (not mentioned by the authors) include that the group declining treatment were older (confirmed in their table 1) and/or felt not healthy enough to undertake a lengthy experimental treatment.
My take on this paper is that the journal agreed to publication to encourage further clinical exploration of this therapy. Ideally a group outside Latvia might mount a rigorous randomized trial. Little chance of that given the type of evidence presented here.
Yah, there’s a review paper here.[*]
“Moreover, limited data are available to objectively evaluate efficacy of Rv relative to ECHO-7 neutralizing antibodies. The authors in the aforementioned manuscript allude to the fact that the prevalence of neutralizing antibodies against ECHO-7 in the general population has not been reported and that levels do not correlate with efficacy of therapy. However, it appears that more corroborating information is needed in this regard.”
There’s a reason that measles vaccine worked for multiple myeloma. I’m uncertain how this line of work has been going.
[*’] Yes, Dove, and not the Band of Love one.
The most commonly reported side effects of Rigvir are diarrhea, drowsiness, fatigue, and fever. Symptoms of an immune response to Rigvir which destroys its efficacy.
A more reasonable supplementary-treatment to inhibit tumor growth and metastasizing is described in the following research paper:
https://bioaccent.org/cancer-sciences/cancer-sciences25.pdf
@ Orac,
Please advise me on the following:
I’ve been invited to speak at the “36th World Cancer Conference” scheduled to be held from October 11-13 2018 in Zurich, Switzerland.
It states, “Your expertise and experience in this field will be an excellent addition to our program as many of our visitors will look forward to hearing and learning from your work. It is an honor to invite you to be a Speaker for the conference as we are aware of your great contribution to this field of work.”
Please do contact me if you need any more information and we do hope to see you there.
Best Regards,
Diana
Program Manager
World Cancer 2018
Kemp House
152 City Road
London EC1V 2NX, UK
Ph: +44-2033182512
[email protected]
Michael, if you need anyone’s advice on what to do with an invitation like this, then there really is no hope for you.
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/dr-madhukar-pai/predatory-conferences-academia_b_12467834.html
I expected as much, but thank you for the confirming link.
Latex. Even more latex. Why am I and no one else not surprised? Have you considered that . . . oh, never mind.
I am open to the possibility that the juxtaposition here — between (a) advertising one’s gullibility with regards to low-life predatory publishers (i.e. paying the BioAccent scuzzballs to host one’s paper), and (b) asking a gullible question about attending a predatory conference-shaped scam from the OMICS vermin — is intended as self-deprecating humour. Please don’t tell me if it isn’t.
More precisely, the phone # and the address in MJD’s invitation identify the putative “annualconferences.org” to be the scamference company EuroSciCon, operating incognito. EuroSciCon was once a legit conference-organising group, but the OMICS dirtballs bought the company last year and gutted it, leaving only a facade for their own 100% grifting.
https://twitter.com/jeffrey_beall/status/900009158409207808?lang=en
Did you notice what it doesn’t state? Any specifics on “your work” and “this field of work”.
It’s impersonal to the point of blandness. A genuine personal invitation would have more details, a general call for contributors would put forward more features of the conference. Either way, you would have the full name of the sciencey Big Shot inviting you, not just “Diana”.
You can copy and paste this invitation and use it to call people for the next pan-Australian symposium of Plumbers and Dunnikin Divers.
I got at least three invitations like this a year; more aggressive, usually – I am not merely invited, I am to confirm that I am going to be giving a lecture.
“What more do you need to conclude that Rigvir is quackery?”
How about an endorsement from Cheapquack Dopra?
Rumor is that he’s also been invited to be a featured speaker at the 2018 World Urine Therapy Conference in Rosenberg, Texas.
There’s also the Boil Festival in Lansing.
You should say: virus enters cells using receptor X, so therapy works with cancers de, pendent expression of receptor X. Echovirus receptor is CD55,, which protects cells from complement induced lysis. There are, tough,other receptors doing same thing.
Any case, some clinical testing is advisable 😉
I’d like to thank the minions for sharing their “tough love” with MJD about the World Cancer Conference 2018.
@ Orac,
Your silence speaks volumes, RI master.
So you’re going?
Narad (the unknown) asks,
So you’re going?
MJD says,
I’ve always believed if a person can’t disclose their legal name (e.g., Diana, Narad, Dangerous Bacon, Helianthus, Smut Clyde, sirhcton, Skepti, Panacea, etc…) the information/opinions that they express/promote is “pro-dubious”.
An exception is Orac (i.e., Dr. David Gorski). His nym is used as an image enhancement instead of a cloak.
@ Orac,
If you were asked to be a speaker at the World Cancer Conference 2018 would you consider participating?
If you had a grain of sense in your head, you would not use your “legal name.” Your special blend of dipshittery, passive-aggressive assholery, and pomposity is nothing to be proud of.
This is the interweb. Use of a name means nothing. Claims to authority mean nothing. For all we know, you’re not the real MJD, but really a super-intelligent hamster called Gerald.
“@ Orac, Your silence speaks volumes, RI master.”
I have searched the site and it seems to have no reference to any obligation on the part of the blogger to respond to your post, or anyone’s post.
Incidentally, I would be honored to be part of Orac’s minyan, but alas, he’s not a Jew.
MJD, seeing how willing you are to shell out your hard-earned cash for dubious websites to host your writings, I guess you may as well shell out some more to go to a scam conference. At the very least you will get another publication-shaped web page out of it for the cost.
I do caution you about following James Lyons-Weiler’s example.
Generally “cure of cancer” stuff stinks to high heaven. There have been enough examples.
Please prove first:
a) there is a cancer caused by suppression of complement. To be specific, by CD55.
b) Echovirus 7 infects these cells, not normal ones.
And in the case of gliomas, that echovirus 7 infects brain cells
Aarno Syvanen says,
Generally “cure of cancer” stuff stinks to high heaven.
MJD says,
This is the part of your comment that makes sense in this forum (i.e., respectful insolence).
Reading between the lines it appears you’d like MJD to disprove the mechanism-of-action associated with virotherapy (e.g., Rigvir).
An analogy is often a useful tool to bring clarity and comprehension:
Virotherapy is like a war. Kamikazes (e.g., Echovirus-7) are sent into enemy territory (i.e., cancer) in anticipation that they will kill many. Very quickly, the enemy is protected by a defense mechanism (immune system) and thereafter the Kamikaze’s are anticipated and easily destroyed.
In my opinion, this type of medical intervention (i.e.,Virotherapy) may win a few battles but more often lose the war.
@ Aarno Syvanen,
My proposed medical intervention (Natural-Allergy Oncology) is designed to inhibit metastasizing and tumor growth using an inherent defense mechanism (i.e., adaptive immunity).
Another alalogy:
Natural-Allergy Oncology is like treason. A branch of the military (adaptive immunity) is tricked into destroying (friendly fire) its own infrastructure (cancer) by disruption of the supply line. 🙂
@ Aarno Syvänen
A bit off topic.
How were able to put those two dots above the letter “a” in your last name?
I’d like an “a” like that in my last name (i.e., Dochniak).
Please advise…
a comment in a recent post about the Hallwang Clinic. In it, a commenter going by the ‘nym DDay, probably thinking he or she was taunting me, pointed to a case report purporting to suggest that Rigvir virotherapy had greatly prolonged the life of a patient with melanoma metastatic to the brain.
I had wondered why DDay would spring to the defense of Rigvir in a post about the Hallwang clinic, which does not offer Rigvir (though saying that, I have not trawled through the entire oeuvre of Hallwang-benefiting GoFundMe appeals to get a comprehensive sense of its scammocopoeia).
It turns out, though, that when she is not running the Hallwang clinic, Dr Ursula Jacobs is on the Scientific and Medical Board of the Verita Life clinics… which is very much part of the Rigvir franchise (indeed, the Verita logo appears at top right of the image that heads this post). Before that, Veritas was aboard the GcMAF scamwagon; and before that, they originally pimped stem-cells.
http://group.verita.com/en/about-us/our-people/
There are other familiar names there… Marco Ruggiero stands out. On the “Executive Management Team & Medical and Scientific Board”, one Darryl Knowles is “Head of Compounding Pharmacy”… people who follow the Australian pharmacy scene might recognise his name. There are also some genuine medical researchers, whom I assume were fooled by the shiny website.
Darryl Knowles. Indeed.
If you want to smell real stink, google for Penelope Dingle. A homepath torturted a woman near to death. Coroners report why ould make anyone with little empathy angry. I wonder, why it must be cancer ? Why not common cold ? Then nobody would die, at least.
Then there is naturalness. Nicotine is all naturalb,and quite bad. Tobacco is a herb, but is still not advisable to eat it. And what about drug like digitalis ? It comes from Digitalis plant. At what point during purification it loses its naturalness ?
@MJD I want you tell us why your cure works. Like all solid cancers need blood supply, so preventing formation of blood vessels would indeed be allmost cure of cancer. Sadly it is not that simple.
Cancer cells very good in immune evasion. They commonly lose their MHC 1 molecules, which are required by T cells to destroy them. Besides, adaptive immune system has always target, the antigen. What is yours ?
Aarno Syvänen politely asks,
I want you tell us why your cure works.
MJD says,
You recently wrote, “Generally ‘cure of cancer’ stuff stinks to high heaven.”
The “Natural-Allergy Oncology” hypothesis was presented above in a research paper. Furthermore, an analogy was provided to bring clarity and comprehension to its mechanism-of-action.
In the spirit of open communication and mutual cooperation, instead of making a third attempt at describing its utility I’d like to present a possible limitation:
“A limitation of natural allergy therapy as a supplementary-treatment relates to the understanding that a number of anticancer drugs may cause impairment of antibody synthesis and cell-mediated
immunity.”
https://bioaccent.org/cancer-sciences/cancer-sciences25.pdf
I have fucking had it, you sniveling shit. You have a negative signal-to-noise ratio. You are privileged enough to pay for vanity presses. I am busting my hump to make $10 a day and live in squalor in a cat shelter, and I also help people on the side. You contribute exactly nothing except stench, so get used to the replies rather than putting on a disgustingly faux-piteous show about rule 42 or some other inanity, hemorrhoid.
MJD, that is the second time you have advertised your latest vanity offering of vogon poetry masquerading as scientific writing on this very thread. Don’t you think you should give it a rest before you embarrass yourself further?
@MJD I have Swiss German keyboard, which has ä. You can set your keyboard (Windows 10) Start Menu – Settings – Time & Language – Region & Language – Select language – Options – Add a keyboard – Click the keyboard you want to add
You’re a fucking imbecile.
Protip: If you have nothing to say, say nothing. Of course, that would cause you to disappear.
Pending RI rule #13,
If a commenter uses the phrase “A bit off topic” during their response, it’s acceptable to venture into the great “nothing”.
RI rule #2,
If a commenter uses the phrase “fxxxing imbecile” to insult another person, it’s totally unacceptable and will eventually be dealt with by Orac.
@ Orac,
Do I have your support?
Go suck a porcupine, Doucheniak.
MJD’s writing is one the majors reasons I stopped studying humanoïd critter and want to focus on running a machine shop. I stopped trying to just wonder on which galaxy is he living.
Al
@Alain:
A machine shop! Cool. I have known guys who worked in them. What type of machine, though?
JP,
Turning and milling centers with tools changers.
Alain
My uncle used to be in charge of this place. It’s really amazing to me how some of this stuff is made.
Nifty,
The use I’d have for a forged die would entail a giant tennis ball cannon but such a device would only be usable in a remote unpopulated area. Definitely not in town.
Alain
The same uncle also had a WWII tank and halftrack. He drove one in a 4th of July parade. IIRC, there was a lawsuit afterward about the damage to the roads.
@ MJD:
You are not aware of the foremost
RI rule:
#1 Orac makes all of the rules
Commentary/ questions:
-Sometimes when someone calls you ” A F#CKING IMBECILE”, you should shut up so as not to provide more justification for the aforementioned appellation.
-When did you switch from being an autism theorist to a cancer theorist?
After seeing your examples, I suppose you didn’t do extremely well on the analogies test.
Narad discloses,
I am busting my hump to make $10 a day and live in squalor in a cat shelter…
MJD says,
I sincerely hope things get better for you in the future, although, living with cats can be rewarding in unexpected ways.
In a study from the Journal of Allergy, Asthma, & Clinical Immunology (2016) titled, Association between cancer and allergies, the researchers disclosed, “Patients with cancer had significantly fewer IgE-mediated allergic diseases than the control population.” Furthermore, the researchers disclose “cat” in the allergy data section.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4982132/
@ Narad,
If the unfortunate cats your associated with induce allergic rhinitis, the resulting increase in IgE-mediated antibodies may provide cancer protection.
Hope this brightens your day, Narad.
Meow… 🙂
MJD,
Regardless of your intent, have you considered that you could be rubbing salt into Narad’s wound with a mortar with that comment. When you have been repeatedly told to STFU by several commenters here, you should indeed shµt the fµck µp. I mean it.
Alain
Yeah, I regret having approved MJD’S comment. I will be less…lenient…in the future.
If MJD doesn’t like being called an imbecile, he should stop posting imbecilic things.
I have no wound from this situation, Alain, but I appreciate your concern. I have no shame about Boddhisattva action. Yes, there’s a metric asston of things that I need to improve in my life, but this particular item will do for the time being. It does exhaust me, though, and my patience with MJD’s smugness is commensurately lowered at the end of the day.
^ Almost forgot: let’s have a real aphorism for a change!
“That time which we really improve, or which is improvable, is neither past, present, nor future.”
Look everyone in this thread, I got the financing needed to do a machining technics cours for the next 16 month and I have applied for a job to teach machining technics to the populace at large in exchange of some machining time outside of school time.
Narad, I intend to start a shop doing beer brewing kits which can be sold on amazon. after that, more plan to grow up the business. You’d be the first employee if you want to.
Alain
Given that I had to take a break, I’m going to add something here.
Meow this, asshole, or do some work in a local cat shelter.
Chris Preston writes,
…your latest vanity offering of vogon poetry masquerading as scientific writing…
MJD says,
The term “vogon poetry” was foreign to me so I did a google search and found this:
You are clever in a shifty way, Chris.
Maybe you should learn how to fucking pay attention.
^ G-ddammit.
@ Narad:
I imagine that you and cats have much in common: rare, arcane skills and an incredible ability to survive adversity.
Not bad I’d say.
re MJD:
I am of two minds about how to react to him-
if we ignore him, he doesn’t go away AND he doesn’t learn at all
if we react, it doesn’t NECESSARILY** reinforce his activity BUT it may instruct him. I understand that the latter is extremely unlikely but not totally impossible
PLUS there are lurkers to entertain
My friend has a nephew who sends loads of e-mails about the most mundane events or places. He’ll take 60 photos of a hole where a house is being built or 100 of a manmade lake in a housing development. He’s always planning a book: about cars in general or the weather. He has oodles of opinions on all subjects- mostly quite pedestrian. His writing resembles that of someone who is starting secondary school despite having a(n abysmal) college degree. He pontificates about subjects in which he has no expertise or even general knowledge. His taste is movies or music is totally banal.
I tell his relative, “Why do you respond?” He basically feels sorry for him.
We are not so kind or related..
I suspect that Orac may also have mixed feelings as well.
** I wonder whether ALL reaction reinforces or not
Denice, currently I’m trying for pitying with MJD, but it’s a hard row to hoe. So now I just imagine the house from Up, except I replace the house with MJD, and the image makes me smile.
@ JustaTech:
I had to look up Images/ Up movie
ha ha! That’s hilarious.
Orac writes,
Yeah, I regret having approved MJD’S comment. I will be less…lenient…in the future.
MJD says,
It continues to amaze me that Orac and his minions continue to be overly sensitive to MJD’s respectful insolence.
I’m not going away my RI friends, if Orac wants to use the delete button more often so be it.
One thing is certain, I’m guaranteed an audience of one – Orac!
One last comment on this posting:
Pack mentality is alive and well at RI.
@MJD Do you want cause cancer patients have more general allergic reactions ? How would this help them ? Or do you have a specific target ? How do make a mast cell that is activated in response of abnormal cell growth ?
“Pack mentality is alive and well at RI.”…Says the bear of very little brain.
Remember, he compared himself to Winnie the Pooh?
The MJD theme song: