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Cancer Treatment: China Mulls Looser Experimental Therapy Rules

56 points by prostoalex 7y ago

Golfkid2Gadfly 7y ago
Zhang Haitao was a basketball-loving teenager who dreamed of going to a specialized sports high school when he got a pain in his right arm that just wouldn’t go away. It turned out to be acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The discovery set Zhang and his family, from a village deep in the mountains of southwestern China's Sichuan province, on a journey familiar to most cancer patients — a revolving door of hospital visits, blood tests and three rounds of chemotherapy. It was then that Zhang’s doctor suggested a last-ditch option: an experimental gene therapy being trialed by a Chinese startup called Gracell Biotechnology Ltd. After spending three weeks in the hospital in May — during which white blood cells were removed from his body, genetically engineered, and then infused back in — an analysis of Zhang’s bone marrow in June showed his body was clear of cancer. Seven months later, monthly medical tests conducted at a hospital in the nearby Chinese metropolis of Chongqing show he remains cancer free. “I don’t remember much about the treatment as I had a fever throughout,” said Zhang, who’s now almost 16 and spends his days playing video games and texting his friends. “It seems like a new solution that will give people hope.” The therapy Zhang received was Chimeric Antigen Receptor-T cells, known as CAR-T, and it’s being hailed as one of the most exciting developments in the quest to cure cancer. First developed by Israeli scientist Zelig Eshhar in the 1980s, CAR-T re-works the genes of the body’s own immune cells so that they actively seek out and destroy cancer cells. While it’s been embraced by researchers and drugmakers around the world, perhaps nowhere is CAR-T having more impact — and being pushed dangerously close to its limits — than in China, home to the world’s biggest cancer population and some of the most ambitious experiments. CAR-T works by supercharging T-cells, the body’s main line of defense against disease, so that they latch onto and destroy cancer. In clinical trials, leukemia patients who failed to respond to other therapies have shown remission rates of over 90% within two months of treatment.
hamhand 7y ago
China also loosend rules for tradition Chinese medicine,which is mostly quackery and the main profit driver for public hospitals.
- DrAwdeOccarim 7y ago
  Not that I doubt your claim, but do you have any references for public hospital finances in China? Specifically looking at profit generated from traditional Chinese medicine Rx?
  - yorwba 7y ago
    There's no need for public hospitals in China to publish financials, so getting verified information on the profit generated from TCM is unlikely. However, if you're willing to trust Statista [1], TCM sales in China have been growing quickly. Considering that public hospitals in China usually offer both Western and TCM treatments, they're probably also capturing some of that growth. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/988866/china-traditional-chinese-medicine-tcm-sales-revenue/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/988866/china-traditional...
    - thaumasiotes 7y ago
      I was struck, watching 延禧攻略, that traditional chinese medicine is heavily featured on the show and is always 100% effective. That's... not how we in America would usually depict period medicine in 18th-century Europe. We don't approach that level of effectiveness now.
      - justicezyx 7y ago
        ...That's a f*king period soap opera... Same idea as Lincoln being a vampire hunter...
        thaumasiotes 7y ago
        I know it's a period soap opera. Do you really think a period drama set in Napoleonic France would depict then-current medicine as unfailingly effective?
        yorwba 7y ago
hhas01 7y ago
What could go wrong. https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/scientific-fraud-in-china/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/scientific-fraud-in-china/
- Melting_Harps 7y ago
  While you have a valid point, and one can point at the Human Right violations in Tibet, the Ugyhur camps, and Hong Kong to point and why this is all an incredibly horrid idea. I do think that China being the trailblazer in Biotech will and continue to happen, the 'Crispr babies' is an example of what should of happened in the Public domain, and now it will likely be kept indefinitely in the realms of academia and other government funded labs, we need this advancement in the Human Gene editing, Mars colonization is the most glaring one, but instead it seems that the cost of that is your career as seen with He Jiankui. He opened pandora's box, their is no going back, and for some of us in the Biohacker community we see this open, 'looser' experimentation as progress from the corrupt Western model; most of whom were actually commending Dr. Jiankui for his efforts in private, and then condemning him in public when they realized that their funding would be cut if he took his side. As a biologist and a (former?) member of the scientific community, I see the potential for good outweighing the bad here, if only we set some Humane controls in place: as in the subject(s) must be willing and consenting and doing so of their own volition. If this doesn't make any person in the Health Sciences have a grin ear to ear they need to reconsider why they even bother doing it at all: > After spending three weeks in the hospital in May — during which white blood cells were removed from his body, genetically engineered, and then infused back in — an analysis of Zhang’s bone marrow in June showed his body was clear of cancer. I can't wait to see this documentary, and not just because it has our Biohacker all-stars in it, but what it can do if we collectively embrace this as a reality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wyv3Ibxw-a0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wyv3Ibxw-a0
  - saiya-jin 7y ago
    > if only we set some Humane controls in place Sorry but that's brutally naive, even ignoring we talk about China here. Usages will be for more efficient warfare, more obedient general populace, easier surveillance of the same, and of course enhancing super-rich beyond what it means to be a human being. Some of the progress will eventually trickle down to common population, but I can see very easily how this could be a net (and huge one) loss for mankind as a whole.
rb808 7y ago
It always seemed silly that people with just months to live weren't allowed to try new medications in case they were dangerous. Surely you should be able to try anything. One protection though is that desperate people will pay for snake oil so maybe it must be free or cheap.
- Symmetry 7y ago
  It's a bit like the trolley problem. Allowing someone medicine that might kill them feels like pushing someone onto the tracks but not allowing it feels like inaction even if in the course of events someone will die. Also, the agency that is supposed to prevent medicine from killing people understandably gets blamed if medicine kills people. But they aren't doctors so it isn't them that gets blamed if lack of medicine kills someone.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    > It's a bit like the trolley problem. Allowing someone medicine that might kill them feels like pushing someone onto the tracks Huh? Surely allowing someone to take medicine that might kill them feels like letting someone jump onto the tracks. The analogue of pushing someone onto the tracks would be forcing them to take the medicine.
    - Symmetry 7y ago
      That's how I would think of it but if you work in a department under a legal framework where drugs are illegal by default and you have to do certain paperwork to make them legal it will tend to feel very different.
- NikolaeVarius 7y ago
  The problem is that people frame this issue as might help or might not help. The real issue is it might help, it might not help, it might hurt you in various unknown and interesting ways. Nobody wants to be responsible for that 3rd option.
- em-bee 7y ago
mrosett 7y ago
I'm a strong advocate for improving access to experimental cancer therapies, particularly because a drug I got access to pre-approval may have saved my life. Cancer patients should have easier access to novel therapies, and novel therapies should be easier to bring to market. There's a tradeoff between ensuring patient safety on one hand and giving patients access the treatments on the other, and I don't think we're at the right point on that spectrum. On the other hand, I don't particularly trust China to land at my preferred point on that spectrum given a penchant for questionable medical ethics. Ultimately, though, US patients may benefit from Chinese aggressiveness.
zupreme 7y ago
Human beings have the innate right to manage their own bodies. For any government or doctor to dictate to the individual adult citizen what he/she can or cannot put into or onto their bodies, is tyranny. Enforce the laws against real crime. Leave sick people, one of whom will inevitably stumble across something new which works (eventually benefiting all) alone. Doctors have, seemingly, forgotten that many of the innovators who they study and revere for their breakthroughs, had no university degrees. Arrogance and protectionism - all the while stifling innovation. It is time for this unfortunate cycle to end.
- throwaway_tech 7y ago
  >For any government or doctor to dictate to the individual adult citizen what he/she can or cannot put into or onto their bodies, is tyranny. Interesting...I worked on a case once where a pregnant woman with HIV/AIDs refused medication which would ensure the baby was born without HIV. The Court ordered the treatments against the woman's wishes/will...is that really tyranny?
  - overcast 7y ago
    Does the child count as their own body though? That sounds like it falls under government protection for child endangerment.
    - zdragnar 7y ago
      By that reasoning, abortion would also be illegal excepting maybe self defense (aka the pregnancy endagers the mother's life). I'm not weighing in either way, just pointing out that getting a rational, logical consensus on why some things can and cannot be done is next to impossible. Another example- us states where murder of a pregnant woman can be charged as two murders, yet abortion remains legal. Trying to have it both ways often ends up meaning abandoning a pretense of logic.
      - overcast 7y ago
        Abortion is a giant debate, and there should be SOME type of regulation as to how far you can go along with a pregnancy before you decide to just kill it. But this is about a human, intentionally giving another human HIV. Intentionally giving anyone HIV should be against the law.

56 points by prostoalex 7y ago

Zhang Haitao was a basketball-loving teenager who dreamed of going to a specialized sports high school when he got a pain in his right arm that just wouldn’t go away. It turned out to be acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The discovery set Zhang and his family, from a village deep in the mountains of southwestern China's Sichuan province, on a journey familiar to most cancer patients — a revolving door of hospital visits, blood tests and three rounds of chemotherapy. It was then that Zhang’s doctor suggested a last-ditch option: an experimental gene therapy being trialed by a Chinese startup called Gracell Biotechnology Ltd. After spending three weeks in the hospital in May — during which white blood cells were removed from his body, genetically engineered, and then infused back in — an analysis of Zhang’s bone marrow in June showed his body was clear of cancer. Seven months later, monthly medical tests conducted at a hospital in the nearby Chinese metropolis of Chongqing show he remains cancer free. “I don’t remember much about the treatment as I had a fever throughout,” said Zhang, who’s now almost 16 and spends his days playing video games and texting his friends. “It seems like a new solution that will give people hope.” The therapy Zhang received was Chimeric Antigen Receptor-T cells, known as CAR-T, and it’s being hailed as one of the most exciting developments in the quest to cure cancer. First developed by Israeli scientist Zelig Eshhar in the 1980s, CAR-T re-works the genes of the body’s own immune cells so that they actively seek out and destroy cancer cells. While it’s been embraced by researchers and drugmakers around the world, perhaps nowhere is CAR-T having more impact — and being pushed dangerously close to its limits — than in China, home to the world’s biggest cancer population and some of the most ambitious experiments. CAR-T works by supercharging T-cells, the body’s main line of defense against disease, so that they latch onto and destroy cancer. In clinical trials, leukemia patients who failed to respond to other therapies have shown remission rates of over 90% within two months of treatment.

hamhand 7y ago

China also loosend rules for tradition Chinese medicine,which is mostly quackery and the main profit driver for public hospitals.

DrAwdeOccarim 7y ago
Not that I doubt your claim, but do you have any references for public hospital finances in China? Specifically looking at profit generated from traditional Chinese medicine Rx?
- yorwba 7y ago
  There's no need for public hospitals in China to publish financials, so getting verified information on the profit generated from TCM is unlikely. However, if you're willing to trust Statista [1], TCM sales in China have been growing quickly. Considering that public hospitals in China usually offer both Western and TCM treatments, they're probably also capturing some of that growth. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/988866/china-traditional-chinese-medicine-tcm-sales-revenue/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/988866/china-traditional...
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    I was struck, watching 延禧攻略, that traditional chinese medicine is heavily featured on the show and is always 100% effective. That's... not how we in America would usually depict period medicine in 18th-century Europe. We don't approach that level of effectiveness now.
    - justicezyx 7y ago
      ...That's a f*king period soap opera... Same idea as Lincoln being a vampire hunter...
      - thaumasiotes 7y ago
        I know it's a period soap opera. Do you really think a period drama set in Napoleonic France would depict then-current medicine as unfailingly effective?
        yorwba 7y ago

hhas01 7y ago

What could go wrong. https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/scientific-fraud-in-china/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/scientific-fraud-in-china/

Melting_Harps 7y ago
While you have a valid point, and one can point at the Human Right violations in Tibet, the Ugyhur camps, and Hong Kong to point and why this is all an incredibly horrid idea. I do think that China being the trailblazer in Biotech will and continue to happen, the 'Crispr babies' is an example of what should of happened in the Public domain, and now it will likely be kept indefinitely in the realms of academia and other government funded labs, we need this advancement in the Human Gene editing, Mars colonization is the most glaring one, but instead it seems that the cost of that is your career as seen with He Jiankui. He opened pandora's box, their is no going back, and for some of us in the Biohacker community we see this open, 'looser' experimentation as progress from the corrupt Western model; most of whom were actually commending Dr. Jiankui for his efforts in private, and then condemning him in public when they realized that their funding would be cut if he took his side. As a biologist and a (former?) member of the scientific community, I see the potential for good outweighing the bad here, if only we set some Humane controls in place: as in the subject(s) must be willing and consenting and doing so of their own volition. If this doesn't make any person in the Health Sciences have a grin ear to ear they need to reconsider why they even bother doing it at all: > After spending three weeks in the hospital in May — during which white blood cells were removed from his body, genetically engineered, and then infused back in — an analysis of Zhang’s bone marrow in June showed his body was clear of cancer. I can't wait to see this documentary, and not just because it has our Biohacker all-stars in it, but what it can do if we collectively embrace this as a reality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wyv3Ibxw-a0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wyv3Ibxw-a0
- saiya-jin 7y ago
  > if only we set some Humane controls in place Sorry but that's brutally naive, even ignoring we talk about China here. Usages will be for more efficient warfare, more obedient general populace, easier surveillance of the same, and of course enhancing super-rich beyond what it means to be a human being. Some of the progress will eventually trickle down to common population, but I can see very easily how this could be a net (and huge one) loss for mankind as a whole.

rb808 7y ago

It always seemed silly that people with just months to live weren't allowed to try new medications in case they were dangerous. Surely you should be able to try anything. One protection though is that desperate people will pay for snake oil so maybe it must be free or cheap.

Symmetry 7y ago
It's a bit like the trolley problem. Allowing someone medicine that might kill them feels like pushing someone onto the tracks but not allowing it feels like inaction even if in the course of events someone will die. Also, the agency that is supposed to prevent medicine from killing people understandably gets blamed if medicine kills people. But they aren't doctors so it isn't them that gets blamed if lack of medicine kills someone.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  > It's a bit like the trolley problem. Allowing someone medicine that might kill them feels like pushing someone onto the tracks Huh? Surely allowing someone to take medicine that might kill them feels like letting someone jump onto the tracks. The analogue of pushing someone onto the tracks would be forcing them to take the medicine.
  - Symmetry 7y ago
    That's how I would think of it but if you work in a department under a legal framework where drugs are illegal by default and you have to do certain paperwork to make them legal it will tend to feel very different.
NikolaeVarius 7y ago
The problem is that people frame this issue as might help or might not help. The real issue is it might help, it might not help, it might hurt you in various unknown and interesting ways. Nobody wants to be responsible for that 3rd option.
em-bee 7y ago

mrosett 7y ago

I'm a strong advocate for improving access to experimental cancer therapies, particularly because a drug I got access to pre-approval may have saved my life. Cancer patients should have easier access to novel therapies, and novel therapies should be easier to bring to market. There's a tradeoff between ensuring patient safety on one hand and giving patients access the treatments on the other, and I don't think we're at the right point on that spectrum. On the other hand, I don't particularly trust China to land at my preferred point on that spectrum given a penchant for questionable medical ethics. Ultimately, though, US patients may benefit from Chinese aggressiveness.

zupreme 7y ago

Human beings have the innate right to manage their own bodies. For any government or doctor to dictate to the individual adult citizen what he/she can or cannot put into or onto their bodies, is tyranny. Enforce the laws against real crime. Leave sick people, one of whom will inevitably stumble across something new which works (eventually benefiting all) alone. Doctors have, seemingly, forgotten that many of the innovators who they study and revere for their breakthroughs, had no university degrees. Arrogance and protectionism - all the while stifling innovation. It is time for this unfortunate cycle to end.

throwaway_tech 7y ago
>For any government or doctor to dictate to the individual adult citizen what he/she can or cannot put into or onto their bodies, is tyranny. Interesting...I worked on a case once where a pregnant woman with HIV/AIDs refused medication which would ensure the baby was born without HIV. The Court ordered the treatments against the woman's wishes/will...is that really tyranny?
- overcast 7y ago
  Does the child count as their own body though? That sounds like it falls under government protection for child endangerment.
  - zdragnar 7y ago
    By that reasoning, abortion would also be illegal excepting maybe self defense (aka the pregnancy endagers the mother's life). I'm not weighing in either way, just pointing out that getting a rational, logical consensus on why some things can and cannot be done is next to impossible. Another example- us states where murder of a pregnant woman can be charged as two murders, yet abortion remains legal. Trying to have it both ways often ends up meaning abandoning a pretense of logic.
    - overcast 7y ago
      Abortion is a giant debate, and there should be SOME type of regulation as to how far you can go along with a pregnancy before you decide to just kill it. But this is about a human, intentionally giving another human HIV. Intentionally giving anyone HIV should be against the law.