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Yet Another Cancer Cure

What have we learned from the media hullabaloo regarding the latest cancer "cure" hype? Not a lot, if we regard the lessons of history...

"Members of the press and media were much happier to be given prepared material than to follow suggestions for doing their own homework."

That's Professor Sir John Scott, commenting on the Milan Brych affair of the 1970s. Brych, for those who don't know or have forgotten, convinced many that cancer could be cured by laetrile extracted from apricot kernels. Brych was convicted in the US of practicing medicine without a license, grand theft and grand theft by false pretenses. In 20 years of scientific study, laetrile has shown no antitumor activity, only life-threatening toxicity.

The Lyprinol affair is depressingly similar to that of laetrile and numerous other substances identified by eager marketeers as "promising" anti-cancer agents. It too has been sold as a dietary supplement while gaining extensive and, for the most part, uncritical coverage of its alleged anti-cancer effects. Such an approach means you gain huge sales from desperate patients without having to provide any evidence of your claims.

Lyprinol apparently did well in killing cancer cells in vitro, but then so would, say, a dose of petrol. The $64 million dollar question is do these effects hold up under the gold standard scrutiny of animal and human clinical trials?

It is only by careful testing that we can figure out if a substance can help, as well as assess what harm it can do. This does take time, but it is vital if we are to learn why and how things work and whether they do, in fact, live up to early claims. For every positive development there are thousands of substances that showed early promise and which have since proved not to be effective or, worse, downright dangerous.

We will, of course, keep our fingers crossed that this will be the long-promised "magic bullet" but, judging from past results, I would not suggest that you hold your breath.

Vicki Hyde is the editor of New Zealand Science Monthly.