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Bioethics Cancer Medicine

Dubious benefits versus profits in chemotherapy

At the monthly faculty meeting of our cancer center the other day, we had just finished listening to an invited talk by an ethicist about medical technology and the ethics of end-of-life care, when one of my colleagues happened to mention an article in the New York Times about how a perverse incentive system encourages […]

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Bioethics Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

An “arrogant medico” makes one last comment on dichloroacetate (DCA)

I love it. You see I noticed an old “friend,” the Herbinator, making this comment about me regarding dichloroacetate: I was listening to CBC Radio – the Current, as is my want, and there was a show on about DCA, or Dichloroacetic acid. DCA is a molecule so simple and cheap to make that drug […]

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Bioethics Cancer Clinical trials Medicine

A family practitioner and epidemiologist are prescribing dichloracetate (DCA) in Canada

It never seems to end, does it? I’m talking about the hype and questionable practices revolving around dichloroacetate (DCA), the small molecule chemotherapeutic agent that targets the Warburg effect, in essence normalizing the metabolism of tumor cells and thereby inhibiting their growth. (See here and here for more details.) A report by Evangelos Michelakis at […]

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Bioethics Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Another young life claimed by a misguided faith in alternative medicine

A number of readers have mailed me links to this story, and, yes, it is right up my alley. In reading it, I fear that it’s a vision of the future for two young cancer patients who are very unlikely to survive their cancers because their parents eschewed evidence-based medicine in favor of woo, Starchild […]

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Bioethics Cancer Clinical trials Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

“Clinical research” on dichloroacetate by TheDCASite.com: A travesty of science

I hadn’t planned on revisiting this topic again quite so soon, but sometimes a piece of information comes up that’s so disturbing that I can’t ignore it and can’t justify delaying blogging about it by very long. So it is yet again with the strange and disturbing saga of dichloroacetate (DCA), the small molecular chemotherapeutic […]