New vaccine trials bring hope of cure for diabetes
: report
Sun Dec 12, 7:14 PM ET Health - AFP
LONDON (AFP) - A vaccine against the most serious form of diabetes
is to be tested on humans for the first time, raising the prospect
that a cure could be widely available within 10 years, The Times
reported.
Eighteen sufferers of type 1 diabetes, which usually appears before
the age of 40, will begin the trial in August, the daily newspaper
reported, citing scientists from the University of Bristol in
southwest England, and King’s College London.
“If the principal works, we will then want to conduct a further 18-
month full clinical trial,” Colin Dayan, a consultant senior
lecturer in medicine at Bristol, told The Times.
There are 300,000 sufferers of type 1 diabetes, which develops when
the pancreas stops producing insulin, in Britain. They need daily
injections of synthetic insulin and risk blindness, loss of limbs
and death. The disease has increased four-fold among the under-fives
in the past 20 years. Type 2 usually appears in older people,
particularly the overweight, but is also affecting the young with
the increase in childhood obesity.
The vaccine, being produced by Clinalfa, an offshoot of the
pharmaceutical giant Merck, contains a molecule identical to part of
the insulin-producing islet cells. When added to human blood, it
generates protective cells that block the aggressive white blood
cells responsible for destroying the islets.
“The beginning of human trials marks one of the most significant
advances against the disease since the widespread prescription of
insulin began in the 1920s. This has been the only way to treat
diabetes for the past 80 years,” The Times reported.
December 17th, 2004 at 11:03 am
I have a couple of questions….
Is it a cure, or a preventative?
In the US, the drug companies are so huge, will they REALLY allow us to be cured, if, indeed, it really works? The drug companies would be out millions of dollars with the loss of so many diabetics.
Endocrinologists are not going to be in favor of this, either. It makes me wonder why the US does not have any research available on this, but the UK does?
In the US, the preferred target of research dollars appears to be transplantation. This transplantation is done at the client’s expense, and there is a study in Wisconsin that costs $35,000 for the transplant and any subsequent surgeries/injections of additional islet cells. This cost is in addition to transportation costs. However, the drugs on which the transplant recipient must remain for the lifetime are expensive, and the pharaceutical companies still get their money, not in the profits from insulin, but from anti-rejection drugs.
Sorry if I appear to ramble. These are just gut reactions to what I HOPE is a truth and success.
Joan