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Biotech / Medical : Essential Therapeutics (ETRX) formerly Microcide (MCDE -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LLCF who wrote (226)	11/11/1999 11:45:00 PM
From: scaram(o)uche	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 415

>> I was at the dentist the other day and she claimed evidence out linking 'bad bacteria' in the mouth [don't forget to floss!] to heart disease for instance. << There's quite a bit of intriguing evidence for such. Again, as I mentioned in some other thread where you were glocking (- g -), there are even those that believe that heart attacks are caused by tooth brushing in the morning. >> "But what if bugs start the process for some or many of these diseases? Are we perhaps looking in the wrong places for cures and preventative measures? << Preventives, yes, cures, no. You don't cure stomach cancer that is linked to H. pylori with antibiotics. I tend to think that inflammatory reactions that mimic foreign body reactions can be a part of the trigger for many cancers, and that some cancers just plain wouldn't occur without them. >> Does any of the above make any sense? << Well.......... uh...... (yes, just kidding..... I am firmly in the "acetominophin may take out your liver, but you won't have as much trouble with Alzheimer's" camp) (also a member of the "nicotine is good stuff for some people but the delivery vehicle stinks" camp, of the "aspirin in moderation truly is a wonder drug" camp and of many other off-beat camps) >> But assuming that one took the tact that bugs caused far more disease than is currently given them credit, wouldn't MCDE's business plan of discovering new anti-infectives be a great long term investment? << First you'd need to make the disease association. There's active work here, but little beyond Chlamydia that is much advanced, that I know of. Then you'd need to have a bug that can develop resistance to a given existing antibiotic, then you'd need to invent and test it's replacement. So, yes, but..... by long-term, you're talking about your kid's kids. I think there's better rationale for investing in MCDE. - g - But, again, most of the "meat" in the article, apart from H. pylori, dealt with viral disease. I differ with the statement attributed to Fauci..... 20 years ago, retroviral oncologists were madly searching for the viruses that many were certain would be found to cause various human malignancies. There were very well studied models of breast Ca in mice and sarcomas in chickens. In the years since, the examples of cancers in man that ARE associated with viruses (e.g., Burkitt's lymphoma, Kaposi's sarcoma, B cell lymphomas, cervical carcinoma) have trickled in. Again, Cantab is a reasonable place to start further exploration.