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A drug discovered more than 100 years ago may hold the key to combating autism symptoms, according to a study.
Researcher Dr Robert Naviaux of the San Diego School of Medicine gave suramin, a drug first developed in 1916, to 10 autistic boys between the ages of five and 14, and noted transformative results.
"After the single dose, it was almost like a roadblock had been released," he said. "If the future studies show that there's continued health benefits, this could be a game-changer for families with autism."
The study, which has been published in the Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology, saw five of the participants receive suramin, while the remainder were given placebos. Included in the group were four non-verbal children – two six year olds and two 14 year olds.
"The six year old and the 14 year old who received suramin said the first sentences of their lives about one week after the single suramin infusion," Naviaux told the UC San Diego Health website. "This did not happen in any of the children given the placebo."
Source: https://www.rt.com/usa/390222-autism-research-suramin-symptoms/
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 31 2017, @05:59PM (17 children)
From Wikipedia:
Bold added by me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suramin [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday May 31 2017, @06:02PM (15 children)
You can bet that will change.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 31 2017, @06:06PM
No bet
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 31 2017, @06:15PM (11 children)
It's almost as if it takes resources to do to things in this universe.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday May 31 2017, @06:40PM
It's almost as if some people have no problem vastly enriching themselves on the back of other people's pain and suffering in this universe.
And those television commercials don't come for free you know.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday May 31 2017, @06:47PM (9 children)
I have to WTF at that a little bit, they dosed 10 kids at apparently far over $50K per kid although the dose itself cost about $27. I'm sure they spent in excess of $49973 per kid on something, but I donno what.
Could I make a working nuclear reactor with half a million bucks? I think maybe. It would have to be a heavy water homogenized "CANDU" style, but yeah.. If I need 100 pounds or so of heavy water and its about a buck a mL thats like fifty grand and lets say a hundred pounds of natural uranium ore and some gear... Now could I find a way to spend the other $400K on P.I. (that being me) salary, well sure...
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 31 2017, @07:02PM (1 child)
Medical evaluation of the patients, checking for adverse effects, tracking outcomes, study design, data analysis, regulatory paperwork, etc.
The cost of the drug itself is usually minimal compared to the rest of a trial's cost (possibly exempting biologic drugs such as antibodies).
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday June 03 2017, @10:59PM
Even with all of that and assuming we give them a 100% ROI on their research, each patient can kick in a 1 time fee of $1.00 and cover the lot of it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Translation Error on Wednesday May 31 2017, @07:07PM (6 children)
(Score: 2, Disagree) by VLM on Wednesday May 31 2017, @07:19PM (4 children)
Yeah OK putting "medical" on anything makes the price 100x whatever.
None the less, just saying, from a normie non-medical perspective, for way over $500K we're expecting a real world implementation of "The Fly" or "Spiderman"
Either that or we're expecting better sets and special effects for "The Fly" or "Spiderman"
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Wednesday May 31 2017, @08:56PM (2 children)
The fun part here is that he became The Fly by failing to perform sufficient animal studies before progressing to humans. A clear case of when proper testing procedures would have been beneficial.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 31 2017, @09:05PM (1 child)
Not at all true since he did plenty of rigorous testing and yet he still became The Fly because the machine had a failure mode which he had not even considered to be possible.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Immerman on Thursday June 01 2017, @12:58AM
Hardly rigorous if something as ubiquitous as a fly hadn't occurred yet. And why *wouldn't* he have considered such a failure mode (I'm assuming it was simply the presence of the fly, not some other independent failure mode that happened simultaneously? I don't think I ever actually saw it)
And that's ignoring the fact that the entire premise is a bit ridiculous - if a teleporter accident somehow fused the DNA of the beings being teleported - both man and fly would heavily outnumbered by skin mites, not to mention bacteria - our cells are outnumbered by what, like 100-to-one by the bacteria living within us? Though I'll admit "The Bacteria" would have been a much tougher sell as a horror movie.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 31 2017, @10:33PM
OK, I agree let's skip it. No research into anything that costs more than $5 upfront.
How about we also do no military adventures unless they pay for themselves with sweet oil revenue?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday June 03 2017, @11:09PM
Most of that is FAR less expensive to provide than the end patient will be charged. On a one off basis, you're kind of stuck with it, but if you own your own lab and do the tests at cost, it's not that much. Of course when you want to make it look dreadfully expensive, you pretend that the cost you would bill someone for the work is what it actually cost you to use your otherwise idle lab.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 31 2017, @06:59PM (1 child)
A course of treatment for autism may be very different (chronic?) than that of sleeping sickness (acute). The paper mentions "low-dose suramin", but the real cost of the treatment would probably be monitoring the patient response and not the drug itself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 31 2017, @10:37PM
SHUT UP!!! THEY SAID IT COSTS $27 WHY ARE YOU GOUGING PATIENTS $$$$ WHO WOULD OTHERWISE HAVE AUTISM FOR LIFE??????
THINK OF THE.... THINK OF THE.... THINK OF SOMETHING OUTRAGEOUS!!!!!!!!! MAKES ME MAD!!!!!!!!!!!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday May 31 2017, @07:26PM
From the same source:
If they start charging ridiculous prices, I foresee a notable increase of medical tourism towards African countries, where the drug is available and doctors have wages in hundreds of dollars/year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford