Dendreon: Pro-Provenge Activists Heap Abuse on Cancer Drug???s Critics

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  sstudy@...10/07/08 Report as spam
  1

  RE: Dendreon: Pro-Provenge Activists Heap Abuse on Cancer Drug???s Critics

  Here's the thing. My Dad died waiting for Provenge. Like others with this disease, it was heartbreaking for our family to sit there and watch an otherwise vibrant 65 year old man wither away and endure horrible suffering that ended in a painful death 8 months later. So yes, I get a bit emotional when I think of the fact that 1 in 5 men with terminal prostate cancer won't get more time with their families and will have to go through what we and many others have been through all because of 2%. 20% instead of 22%? For God Sake! We'd like to of had that chance for Dad.
  For us and many others this isn???t just an academic exercise. Real men with real families are dying while they wait. From here the decisions of the FDA look capricious and mean spirited. Here is a treatment that continues to show positive results with little to no discernable downsides as compared to the alternative standard treatments and yet we wait to hit just a little higher target.
  For our family it was too long a wait.
  Respectfully,
  Stephen Study
  Part of the ???pro-Provenge crowd???,
  Internet Zealot,
  and son missing his father

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  arke10/07/08 Report as spam
  2

  RE: Dendreon: Pro-Provenge Activists Heap Abuse on Cancer Drug???s Critics

  The final result has to show a 22% reduction in deaths. The interim showed a 20% reduction, closely matching previous trials. The final result of previous trials showed a 33% reduction in deaths, so it is unlikely that the trial will fail.
  
  The reason the FDA gave for denying approval before was that survival was not pre-specified as the goal of the earlier trials. Had it been, Provenge would already be on the market.
  
  The trial is testing Provenge treatment compared to the best treatment available, so the 'placebo' in this case is chemo. If the FDA was not under the influence of the big companies and oncologists that make huge profits on chemotherapy, they would certainly make a therapy that reduces death by 20% with essentially no side-effects available immediately.
  
  If the FDA withheld a treatment that saved 20% of patients dying of breast cancer, would people stand for it?

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  bull trout10/07/08 Report as spam
  3

  RE: Dendreon: Pro-Provenge Activists Heap Abuse on Cancer Drug???s Critics

  Heaped abuse? Hardly. Your inflammatory language
  seems out of place while writing an article decrying the
  militance of the "provenge crowd" (thanks for the
  gratuitous smear there).
  
  "Those folks have taken to the net to pour boiling oil
  on anyone who dares criticize Provenge."
  
  Financial "journalists" are not boy scouts and they all
  have their own agenda. I also have mine. Whether
  theirs is to try to discourage investors or just to sell
  newspapers, the tone of many, many articles about
  Provenge are decidedly negative. Matt's article was one
  such. An uninformed reader might say that attempts
  at balance were made, but to the initiated, the article
  was clearly negative in tone.
  
  While the drug showed a 20% survival benefit "there
  was a slim chance that it harmed patients" or was "not
  even as effective as the placebo". That was his focus,
  the 5% chance it was a fluke. But, this is the 3rd Phase
  3 trial that has demonstrated the same effect.
  
  Just because we don't accept Matt Herper's word as
  gospel doesn't make us a "crowd" (read mob). I hardly
  think he is as well educated about Provenge as he
  pretends. I am here just to so that people can read
  the other side of the argument.