DCA: Is this the cure for cancer?

"If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." The key word here, though, is "probably." Two years ago, I blogged about a promising new drug that held out hope for a major breakthrough in the treatment of many forms of cancer. It's called dichloroacetate, or DCA for short. Two trials have been completed at the University of Alberta. Also, clinical trials in patients with solid tumors that have failed standard therapies, as well as in patients with malignant brain tumors have begun.

Desperate people, however, can not and will not wait for the formal clinical trials to be completed, published, reviewed, and submitted to governmental authorities for approval. They don't have the luxury of time. And, thanks to the miracle of the internet, people are finding out about DCA, and are self-administering their own treatment programs.

Forums, blogs, and journals have sprung up across the web to bring the needed information to families who are willing to grasp at any available hope. Normally, I would suspect these people would be ripe prey for a con artist, and a healthy skepticism of generally anecdotal evidence would be called for. But, what impresses me the most is that these folks who are blogging their experience are not doing so to make money. They are offering no advertising, nor selling a product. They seem to be motivated only by their desire to share their experience, and to pass along any helpful information that they discover.

I don't know how long it will take before the FDA will approve DCA for use in cancer treatment. At this point, however, it really doesn't seem to matter. People are taking the matter into their own hands, and their reported results are truly remarkable.

In this blogger's humble opinion, this is what the internet is all about.

People-powered news indeed.

Related Links:

This is the original news story from two years ago: "New Scientist"

It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their "immortality". The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe. It also has no patent, meaning it could be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of newly developed drugs.

Curing Cancer: The DCA Story

The DCA Site

Pure DCA

DCA: Is this the answer?

University of Alberta, DCA Research Information