Originally posted by Telos
You think they really care to find the right cures so to lose the giant market and the huge profit? Don't think so...

...And that is written by a doctor: www.mnwelldir.org...
I can go on forever but I guess this shows the clear picture of what we're dealing with.

Illegal AIDS trials in South Africa
In 2005, according to Reuters, Rath's foundation distributed tens of thousands of pamphlets in poor black South African townships, such as Khayelitsha, claiming that HIV medication was "poison" and urging HIV-positive people instead to use vitamins such as those Rath sells to treat HIV/AIDS. People with "advanced AIDS" were then recruited by the Rath Foundation and its surrogates for what the Rath Foundation called "a clinical pilot study in HIVpositive [sic] patients" Personnel of the South Africa National Civic Organisation (Sanco) administered the programme in Khayelitsha as "agents for the Rath foundation." Patients were recruited for the study with offers of money or food, and were instructed to stop taking conventional HIV/AIDS medications. Luthando Nogcinisa, a local Communist Party official, said that Rath agents recruited known HIV-positive individuals, "often with a pack of groceries, and they encourage the person not to take the antiretrovirals, but to rather take the vitamins". Mike Waters, Democratic Alliance health spokesperson, states that Rath gave patients "food parcels to convince them to give up their antiretrovirals and take his vitamin C supplements instead."

During and immediately following the vitamin trials, "many people died," deaths attributed by Rath's adversaries to a lack of effective medication. Sanco-Rath clinic workers reportedly instructed patients to return to the clinic in the event of medical emergency, rather than going to hospital.

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the South African Medical Association (SAMA) took the Rath Foundation to court to prevent further unauthorized trials and to stop the foundation's claims that vitamins could treat or cure HIV/AIDS. Rath's lawyer however said that he had never claimed his vitamin products were a cure for HIV/AIDS, adding that Rath's only involvement in the affair was the donation of vitamins to the South African National Civics Organisation. TAC and SAMA prevailed in court over Rath and the Medicines Control Council on unauthorized trials and advertising of Rath's nutrients as a replacement therapy for HIV....

In September, 2008, Rath was ordered to pay court costs in an unsuccessful libel action against The Guardian (UK) after the paper reported on his foundation's unauthorized drug trials in South Africa. en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by Phage
One problem is the toxicity of DCA

A controlled clinical trial of DCA for the treatment of congenital lactic acidosis in children found that the drug was well tolerated at a dose of 12.5 mg/kg every 12 hours and blunted the increase in circulating lactate following a meal [5]. Patients received placebo for 6 months and then were randomly assigned to receive an additional 6 months of placebo or DCA. However, the drug failed to improve neurologic outcome. The efficacy of DCA was also evaluated for the treatment of mitochondrial myopathy, encephalopathy, lactic acidosis and stroke-like episodes (MELAS) [6]. The clinical trial ended early because of onset or worsening peripheral toxicity; all 15 of 15 patients randomized to DCA (25 mg/kg/day) were removed from the trial compared to 4 of 15 patients randomized to placebo. The authors concluded that DCA-associated neuropathy dominated the assessment of any potential benefit in MELAS.

www.highlighthealth.com...

Perhaps more testing is in order to find out how it can be used in such a way to avoid the toxicity.

[edit on 9/22/2009 by Phage]