Category: Clinical trials

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Clinical trials Medicine Politics Popular culture

The Koch Brothers and Vice President Mike Pence back a final push to pass the cruel sham known as “right-to-try”

Vice President Mike Pence
Vice President Mike Pence signing Indiana's right-to-try legislation when he was still governor there.

So-called “right-to-try” laws have passed in 38 states. A cruel sham whose real purpose has nothing to do with helping terminally ill patients and everything to do with the libertarian war on FDA regulation, these laws claim to allow terminally ill patients to bypass the FDA and obtain access to experimental drugs that have passed phase I testing. They do nothing of the sort, which is why right-to-try advocates have “gone federal.” A right-to-try bill has passed the Senate, and Vice President Mike Pence and Koch Brothers-backed groups are lobbying hard to pass it in the House. There is still hope to stop it.

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Clinical trials Medicine

Do angioplasties and coronary stenting improve symptoms in patients with angina?

Coronary artery angioplasty and stenting
Coronary artery angioplasty and stenting

Last week, the results of ORBITA were published. This clinical trial tested coronary angioplasty and stenting versus optimal medical management in patients with single-vessel coronary artery disease. It was a resoundingly negative trial, meaning that adding stenting to drug management didn’t result in detectable clinical improvement. What was distinctive about this trial is that it used a sham procedure (i.e., placebo) control, which few trials testing surgery or a procedure use. The results of ORBITA emphasize how important sham procedure controls are, whenever they can be ethically used, and how resistant physicians can be to change.

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

A conversation with a Rigvir flack

My skeptical analysis of Rigvir, a “Virotherapy” from Latvia being promoted by alternative medicine clinics as a cancer cure, caught the attention of the International Virotherapy Center (IVC). The result was a long and very telling e-mail exchange between its Assistant of Business Development and myself. I post it because the arguments used in the discussion are very telling about where the IVC is coming from when it comes to science. Hint: It’s not a good place.

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Why a case report being circulated by advocates doesn’t show that the ketogenic diet combats cancer

it’s October, which means that it’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which means that it’s time for dubious breast cancer case reports. Here’s one about ketogenic diets that doesn’t show that such diets cure cancer.

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Cancer Clinical trials Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Rigvir: A cancer "cure" imported from Latvia that cancer patients should avoid

No, this is not a cancer cure-all.

Recently, the Hope4Cancer Institute, a quack clinic in Mexico has added a treatment known as Rigvir to its other offerings. But what is Rigvir? It turns out that it’s an import from Latvia with a mysterious history. Its proponents claim that it targets cancer specifically. Unfortunately, there is a profound paucity of evidence for its efficacy. The story of Rigvir is the story of an unproven treatment that, because of its origin in a small country, has flown mostly under the radar. Until now, that is.