I have an article published in The Economist's Babbage blog about how some patients with a terminal diseases are second-guessing pharmaceutical companies and medicating themselves. Here's the blurb:
It takes eight years on average for a drug to receive approval from America’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) after clinical trials have been successfully completed. Some patients of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), with a life expectancy of two to five years after diagnosis, do not want to wait that long. Since September 2011 some of those diagnosed with the fatal disease have taken to injecting themselves with a substance whose chemical identity they deduced from published literature, and which they claim is currently being clinically tested.... read more.Here is a set of main references:
- Neuraltus Pharmaceuticals press release
- James Heywood et al. Nature Biotechnology, 2011
- Eric Valor's conjecture
- ALS Study Shows Social Media's Value as Research Tool - The Wall Street Journal
- Frustrated ALS Patients Concoct Their Own Drug - The Wall Street Journal
- PatientsLikeMe - Lithium and ALS, sodium chlorite, NP001
- ALS Chlorite
I would reiterate my comment on the Economist blog:
ReplyDeleteA walk through patent filings reveals the active ingredient to be sodium chlorite. There are serious questions whether oral administration can even approach half the efficacy of the IV method Neuraltus is using, but it's safe enough to try and sure beats doing nothing.
I am also part of another group trying to work with pharmaceutical companies and the FDA to get quicker access to drugs without harming the clinical trial process:
http://www.treatalsnow.org/
-- ENV