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Biotech / Medical : EntreMed (ENMD) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: marc ultra who wrote (1014)	5/16/1998 6:41:00 AM
From: Cage Rattler	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2135

Folks: Downloaded today from Times of London site: <QUOTE> $2m writes and wrongs of scoop on 'cancer cure' BY NIGEL HAWKES THE reporter who wrote a "cancer cure" story for The New York Times and sent the share price of a small biotech company soaring has turned down the chance of a book deal worth $2 million (œ1.3 million). Gina Kolata, the paper's science reporter on the paper for ten years, pulled out after an outcry about the story, which has been criticised by experts as exaggerating the potential of a technique that treats cancer by cutting off the blood supply to the tumour. On May 3, the day her story appeared on the front page, she was rung by John Brockman, an agent famous for securing huge advances, who represents 175 scientists and science writers. "I can get you $2 million," he promised. Although initially reluctant, she e-mailed him an outline the same day and he sent it on to publishers. By 9.30 the next morning, he had the first offer from a major New York publisher. The next day she withdrew, after discussing the proposal with editors at the paper. Her story, which quoted James Watson, the Nobel Prize winner, as saying the new technique would cure cancer "in two years", created a storm. The technique has so far been applied only to mice, and no drug actually exists. "You have to think twice before you put a story on the front page about a drug and use the word cure when it really doesn't exist in drug form today," David Kessler, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, told Nature. Dr Allen Lichter, the president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, told the same journal that it was "cruel" to raise hopes about a treatment that might never translate from mice into human beings. Dr Watson has denied the quote attributed to him. The paper says it stands by the story, and the quote. Instant cures are a long way from reality in cancer research, says Professor Craig Jordan, of Northwestern University in Chicago. Nearly 30 years ago, as a young postgraduate at Leeds University, he was one of the first to study a new compound synthesised by ICI chemists in Cheshire. This week that drug, tamoxifen, was saluted as a trial showed that it could save tens of thousands more lives than it already does. These were "the best results I have ever been involved with", said Professor Richard Peto, of Oxford University. <END QUOTE> Ciao, Ted