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Biotech / Medical : Neuroscience -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: NeuroInvestment who wrote (182)	3/11/2001 8:55:31 AM
From: scott_jiminez	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 278

It is an unfortunate characteristic of those most involved in the biotech field to place ad hominem responses to viewpoints contrary, although equally substantiated, to their own. I am as well aware and certainly more familiar, with the history of degenerative CNS diseases than those whose criticism is pathetically selective and self-fulfilling. I am as well aware, and certainly more familiar, with the history of treatments for these pathologies than those who have a financial stake in their success. Freed and others have been conducting fetal implant studies for more than a decade. This was the first fully double blinded, sufficiently controlled study to be reported. The study did not rely on retrospective reports of investigator analysis of patient improvement, as Freed would spin his data, but rather on strictly defined patient self analysis set forth prior to the onset of the study. The data showed no improvement precisely because the results were based on such a strict protocol. Under appropriately controlled conditions, fetal cell implants showed absolutely no improvement in Parkinson’s symptoms as reported by the patients themselves. There should be no surprise that post 182 focused on the exacerbation of the symptoms, which only occurred in a fraction of a small subgroup of the patients, and glossed over the most important result of the study: there was NO IMPROVEMENT FOUND WITH FETAL CELL IMPLANTS FOR THE NORMAL, MAJORITY COHORT OF PARKINSONS PATIENTS. This field is chock-full of seriously flawed experimental designs where rigorous scientific protocol has been compromised to satisfy prevailing neuroscience dogma, overbearing egos, and the highly corrosive influence of the corporate mindset in the lab. The field certainly does not deserve to be ‘indicted’ for its idealism and good intentions. An equally reassuring statement certainly cannot be made of the cheerleaders, from bench scientists, to BT CEO’s, to twice removed investment advisors, whose giddy blindness towards scientific rigor is only revealed upon the publication of devastating articles such as Freed’s. Needless to say it is ‘sadly’ revealing, and emblematic, of those representing the biotech investing community that they truly believe an incredibly complex and daunting neurodegenerative disease can be stabilized and/or cured by what amounts to a magic bullet. Cells are injected into the striatum where they will establish some (if any) random synaptic ‘associations’... a fraction of these contacts will be with putative targets previously driven by nigral afferents. The firing of the these ectopic cells will be, by definition, stochastic, and the novel neuroanatomy established will resemble nothing heretofore extant in human physiology. Firing patterns aside, the chronic release of dopamine by the implants will produce equally stochastic events and has a greater likelihood of producing deleterious changes in dopamine receptor distribution and physiology than any possible long term benefits. I will present a balanced history of this procedure in the near future. I will respond to all of the comments made in post 182 (and please re-read that before informing me that I’ve not responded to any of the comments therein). I will re-examine as much of the scientific literature as is available. If Diacrin and other biotech firms chose not to publish their data, then their studies cannot and will not be considered as part of the database. And the only ‘histrionics’ going on here is the desperate spin so many BTs and PIs are creating to justify a field that is doomed to create more problems then it will ever solve.