Nobel Prize for immunotherapy, Cancer drug studies and quality of life, Cancer hijacks the microbiome, Vaccine and drug financial kickbacks to doctors, Rotavirus vaccine deadly

Advanced Medicine with Dr. Rashid A. Buttar!!

If you missed any of the Advanced Medicine radio shows with Dr. Rashid A. Buttar and Robert Scott Bell, be sure to go to www.MedicalRewind.com to listen to the show replays.
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Get ready to learn things not traditionally taught to medical doctors!
Some of the things you will hear Dr. Buttar and Robert talk about in this week’s show are:

Nobel Prize in Medicine awarded to two researchers who discovered how to make the immune system fight cancer – This morning, the Nobel Prize committee awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine to two scientists who, separately, discovered proteins that “brake” the immune system — work that paved the way for what the committee calls “an entirely new principle for cancer therapy.” The winners are James P. Allison of the United States and Tasuku Honjo of Japan. Working in the 1990s, both scientists studied proteins that regulate the immune system and keep it in check. For Allison, this protein was CTLA-4 protein, while Honjo studied a protein called PD-1. Both CTLA-4 and PD-1 regulate the immune system and keep it from being too aggressive. Therefore, it’s possible to use an antibody to target these proteins and shut them down. When these proteins are shut down, and the brakes “released,” our body’s immune system can go on the attack against cancerous tumors, a form of treatment today called immunotherapy. (Both proteins brake the immune system, just in different ways.)

Health-related quality of life overlooked in cancer drug studies – A McMaster University-led review and analysis of randomized clinical trials is questioning whether interventions which prolong progression-free survival in cancer patients, improve their health-related quality of life. The systematic review and quantitative analysis of 52 articles reporting on 38 randomized clinical trials involving 13,979 cancer patients across 12 cancer types revealed no significant association between survival when the disease is not getting worse, or “progression-free survival”, and health-related quality of life. The results were published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Internal Medicine. “Given the increased use of progression-free survival as the primary outcome in new oncology drug trials, and uncertainty of overall survival, it remains possible that patients are receiving toxic and/or expensive treatments without experiencing important benefit,” said Feng Xie, senior author of the study and a professor of the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact at McMaster.

Cancer hijacks the microbiome to glut itself on glucose – Cancer needs energy to drive its out-of-control growth. It gets energy in the form of glucose, in fact consuming so much glucose that one method for imaging cancer simply looks for areas of extreme glucose consumption—where there is consumption, there is cancer. But how does cancer get this glucose? A University of Colorado Cancer Center study published today in the journal Cancer Cell shows that leukemia undercuts the ability of normal cells to consume glucose, thus leaving more glucose available to feed its own growth. “Leukemia cells create a diabetic-like condition that reduces glucose going to normal cells, and as a consequence, there is more glucose available for the leukemia cells. Literally, they are stealing glucose from normal cells to drive growth of the tumor,” says Craig Jordan, Ph.D., investigator at University of Colorado Cancer Center, division chief of the Division of Hematology and the Nancy Carroll Allen Professor of Hematology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine

Financial Incentives for Doctors to Vaccinate as Many Children as Possible – Keep Patients on Statins – There are monetary awards for doctors and other mainstream medical practitioners who maintain high levels of compliance for prescription drugs (including vaccines), and doctors’ visits. These incentives to get more patients into their offices and to receive as many vaccines and prescription drugs as possible come from the insurance industry. In 2016, the evidence for these medical financial kickbacks was displayed online with a pamphlet from Blue Cross (BC), Blue Shield (BS), and Blue Cross Network (BCN). Here’s a screenshot of page 15 from their 2016 Provider Incentive Program pamphlet that offers financial awards for maintaining CDC vaccination schedules.

New Zealand Parents Say Rotavirus Vaccine Nearly Killed Their Baby – The rotavirus vaccine is one of the most popular immunizations on the schedule. While it is mostly an understated part of the vaccine process, some parents in New Zealand are raising awareness for the vaccine’s potential deadly side. David and Sonya Cooper were interviewed in the New Zealand Herald following their infant’s battle with the rotavirus vaccine side effects. “Ripped to shreds with stress,” they said as their baby was wisked away by surgeons at Auckland’s Starship children’s hospital. While their baby Jude made it through surgery, he remains under close watch by hospital staff. Sonya says that following the rotavirus vaccine, Jude changed. “He started refusing feeds, his nappies dried up and he was constantly grizzly, lethargic and spent his day flopped in pain in my arms.” He was vomitting and his conditioned worsed, symptoms which were seemingly derived from the rotavirus vaccine.

The gut bacteria and genetics research trying to unlock the secrets of autism In Northland in mid-winter, 10-year-old Amy was worried the unwell and unwanted animals at the local SPCA branch must be getting cold. She drew an abstract artwork, had it photocopied and sold the copies across the neighbourhood. “We went to the SPCA and gave it the money,” says her mother, Lynne Hansen. “It was all her idea. She has an amazing little mind, and so much empathy.” Even as a preschooler, however, there were signs something “wasn’t quite right”. Amy was emotive, reactive and easily frustrated when she could not convey her feelings. “She was a very independent little girl, not very huggy, very inflexible in her thinking. You felt at a loss because you didn’t know how to help this lovely, curly-haired little girl – it was an awful time.” Amy was seven when she was diagnosed with autism but Hansen recognised the signs long before then. “She is intelligent, animated, but she struggles to manage herself. She is a perfectionist – if she hasn’t got a clear pathway from start to finish where she can succeed, she will have a meltdown. So I knew Amy was on the spectrum – I just did not have the diagnostic piece of paper.”