One of the oldest tricks in marketing textbooks is to grossly inflate the price of something in order to increase its perceived value to people. Ironically, the lower the intrinsic value of a product, the more effective this tactic can be. This could explain what is happening with one of the most expensive and most useless chemotherapy drugs on the market today.
This chemotherapeutic agent is known as ipilimumab (trade name YERVOY) and costs about $ 120,000 for a full course of treatment. While the manufacturer touts YERVOY as offering tangible hope for those with unresectable or metastatic melanoma, it also boldly warns on its website that the drug's effects can be quite lethal:
What are the serious side effects of YERVOY?
YERVOY can cause severe side effects in many parts of the body that can lead to death. Serious YERVOY side effects may include:
- intestinal problems (colitis), which can cause tears or holes (perforation) in the intestines;
- liver problems (hepatitis), which can lead to liver failure;
- skin problems that can lead to a severe skin reaction;
- nerve problems that can lead to paralysis;
- problems with hormonal glands (especially the pituitary gland, adrenal glands, and thyroid gland);
- and vision problems.
In the Journal of Clinical Oncology, a 2015 report found that 85% of patients treated with ipilimumab had immune-mediated adverse events (IONNs), with 35% requiring a systemic corticosteroid and 10% for tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF- Alpha), apparently in order to try to save them from the ill effects of their initial ipilimumab treatment. The estimated mean time to treatment failure (defined as time to start of new treatment or patient death) was only 5.7 months.
How can you advertise a supposedly “immune-boosting” drug that causes most serious immune-related side effects, including death, with the implication that it will enable “long-term survival”?
The promotional text on the Bristol-Myers Squibb website for YERVOY reads:
Promotional video:
What "proofs" of the saving properties of YERVOY do they mean? First, let's take a look at what ipilimumab really is.
What "proofs" of the saving properties of YERVOY do they mean? First, let's take a look at what ipilimumab really is.
Tumor-derived monoclonal antibody for tumor control?
Ipilimumab (trade name YERVOY) belongs to a class of drugs known as monoclonal antibodies. Monoclonal antibodies are essentially byproducts of a very specific type of cancer. They are produced by creating chimeric tumors known as hybridomas. Hybridomas are formed by the fusion of human myeloma (a type of B-cell cancer) and rodent spleen cells. These biofactories produce monoclonal antibodies that are engineered to bind to specific biostructures / biological targets, although whether they are in fact as specific in their effects as suggested is open to question. One of the obvious problems with monoclonal antibodies is that, like most live biological products used to make vaccines,hybridomas are infected with endogenous retroviruses, which can cause a wide range of health problems.
So is there anything surprising in the fact that these tumors derived from cancer cells can produce secretions that can lead to harmful effects in the human body?
YERVOY is thought to support the anti-cancer activity of cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) of the immune system by targeting the protein receptor CTLA-4, a protein receptor that regulates the immune system. The theory is that when the CTLA-4 protein receptor is deactivated by ipilimumab, the CTL activity is increased, which has a positive effect. This highly linear and simplified one-cause-one-effect logic has yet to be convincingly proven. One would assume that, in the absence of clear evidence of a plausible mechanism, the clinical results would speak for themselves, and because the FDA requires placebo-controlled, randomized, double-blind trials to establish efficacy,this drug would already be considered mandatory. This is not true.
"Proof" that never existed
What was the clinical evidence presented by the manufacturer Yervoy (Bristol-Myers Squibb) to support his claim that it creates a “long term survival opportunity”?
In 2007, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Medarex published three studies, one of which showed that the drug failed to achieve its primary goal of shrinking tumors in at least 10% of the 155 patients in the study (1).
Even more suspicious, their phase III clinical trials did not use a genuine placebo or standard treatment group for their control group. Instead, the study tested ipilmumab alone, ipilimumab with an experimental vaccine known as gp100, and the vaccine alone.
Although the survival rate for patients using ipilumamab alone was slightly higher (10 versus 6 months), it was unclear if the experimental vaccine was harmful, which would likely make the drug more effective than other drugs. The one-year survival rate was 46% in patients receiving ipilimumab alone, compared with 25% in patients receiving gp100 and 44% in patients receiving both drugs (2).
A more recent 2015 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Oncology found that ipilmumab did not increase survival when used in addition to radiation therapy for patients with metastatic brain melanoma, further strengthening the evidence against the manufacturer's claims that the drug has proven to be beneficial for those suffering from cancer.
Insecure, unproven and 4,000 times more expensive than gold
Yervoy is one of the most expensive chemotherapy drugs on the market. In fact, at the 2015 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, Dr. Leonard Saltz, Head of Gastrointestinal Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discussed the high cost of cancer drugs, citing the cost of ipilimumab (157.46 / mg), which is “approximately 4000 times the value of gold”. As of 2013, the cost of treatment was about $ 120,000 for a full course.
In a previous essay, entitled “Has Medicinal Medicine Become a Form of Human Sacrifice,” I identified the pharmaceutical industry’s fundamentally immoral orientation toward cancer treatment, drawing parallels to financial institutions that rely on paper, fiat currencies to accumulate enormous power and control:
Turning Diseases into Gold on a Medicinal Printing Press
Obviously, the currently accepted cancer treatment is not only destructively toxic and can even kill the patient faster than the cancer itself, for which he is being treated, but can also lead to financial ruin.
The reality is that numerous preliminary studies indicate that safe, effective, inexpensive, and affordable drug alternatives for the treatment of melanoma already exist. Because they are natural substances that do not grant exclusive rights to patents, they will never receive the $ 800 million to $ 11 billion in upfront capital needed to fund the trials required to obtain FDA approval. To research potential natural alternatives to melanoma treatment, use GreenMedInfo.com's database on the topic here. Also, learn about the true nature of cancer by studying the role of cancer stem cells, as well as natural substances that have the ability to selectively kill these tumor cells without harming healthy ones.
Also, for a reliable database of natural cancer interventions, including thousands of published studies and articles on the topic, please refer to Health Guides: Cancer Research.
Author: Sayer G. Translation: Basareva Alena