[imark3000]

Recent successes are giving drugmakers and patients hope

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...6027902498.htm
Imad

[lindylanka]

I feel very ambivalent about reports like this, this thread has drawn no response, like Tena's link to the Dr Oz report on organ replacement.

[vlhperry]

Joan and Paula post many informational posts that get no responce. Because a post gets no responce, does not make it any less important. Just less controversial, for example, the post on if Parkinson's disease is a Mental Health Disorder (over a thousand people read the thread) or Poetry.

Many people do not read threads because the topic is too scientific to understand, (the title of the thread was too descriptive and complex) or the title was more appealing, (poetry.) I read this thread, (it has personal interest to me because I have 2 mutations of my Parkin gene,) I read the link posted and found it interesting and informative, and then I returned and thanked the person who placed the post.

Lindy Lanka, your remark, "I feel very ambivalent about reports like this, this thread has drawn no response, like Tena's link to the Dr Oz report on organ replacement." is unclear. Are you ambivalent because of the subject or because of the lack of responce? Your responce ean be interpreted either way and I find both ways unsupportive of the both of the authors and the topics important to them.

[lindylanka]

My ambivalence comes not from the pure science, that I have little problem with, but more from the direction that medicine is taking, and the potential for these quite amazing developments resulting in a world where, even more than now, there are huge gaps between the haves and the have nots. I am always at a loss when there is something like a report on how to extend peoples lives to +100 good years, and then there are wholly preventable things in the world like starvation, or poor infant mortality....... Personally I do not want a world where my quality of life comes at the expense of others. That is how business operates....... In the world of other consumers goods it is being at last recognised that things like the cup of coffee you drink come at a price to others, and this needs to be recognised with medicine too, the ethics need airing.

I do not mean at all to under-rate or negate the discoveries that are being made, it is the application, and the context that I wonder about. How will these things actually be used, who will they be marketed to, who will never in 20 lifetimes ever be able to afford them........

Hence, I am ambivalent.

I am still that way about sinemet, with all its attendant issues, when I know that there are still people with PD with no access to treatment of any kind. Why not about this....

Lindy

[paula_w]

VIcky,

Speaking for myself, not lindy- unless she happens to agree, I have become cynical, and must sound critical to younger in age or illness length. It doesn't mean I don't have my personal stakes on this and that and certain hopes.

GDNF is giving it another try....there are two trials it appears - one gene therapy and the other is convection enhanced delivery; we aren't sure what that is 6 years after the halt. New and improved by Andy Grove as second largest investor. I heard the convection enhanced delivery is trying to begin at phase II [sort of like where they left off ]and i really hope this is granted to them. [again not confirmed] Everybody wins the quicker it moves.

The neurologix trial and perhaps others have helped pave the way for deliveries that are safe and effective. I haven't heard much yet but i'm sure many are awaiting the data. i have heard that it compares to DBS - is as good as your best on. If they come out quickly, as Ceregene has, we can stop, take a deep breath, and think about that time span. We need it to go faster.

GDNF is in the hands of exactly who we wished would get it.[ NIH, Andy Grove, earlier researchers who will champion it, and I believe Dr. Steve Gill -original investigator from UK]

Two possible deliveries at the same time. Amgen sees money and needs redemption. Fine with me - i'll be Amgen's patient advisor - we all could be right here and will anyway ...lol

Together is better...................duh!