Well what do you know? Marijuana can stop lung cancer.
The administration of THC significantly reduces lung tumor size and lesions, according to preclinical data presented this week at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) in Los Angeles.
Investigators at Harvard University’s Division of Experimental Medicine reported that THC inhibited the growth and spread of cells in vitro from two different lung cancer cell lines and from patient lung tumors. They also reported that THC administration reduced the growth of lung tumors in mice by more than 50 percent compared to untreated controls over a three-week period.
Researchers noted that THC appeared to block a specific cancer-causing protein in a manner similar to the pharmaceutical anti-cancer drugs Erbitux (Cetuximab) and Vectibix (Panitumumab).
Results of a large-scale, case-controlled population study published last year found that smoking cannabis, even long-term, is not positively associated with increased incidence of lung-cancer. Investigators in that study noted that one subset of moderate lifetime users had an inverse association between cannabis use and lung cancer, leading them to speculate that cannabinoids may possess certain protective properties against the development of lung cancer in humans.
So what do you think a plant extract might do to the market for anti-cancer drugs like Erbitux (Cetuximab) and Vectibix (Panitumumab)?
I will let you draw your own conclusions about why the pharmaceutical companies are the biggest supporters of the Drug Free America Campaign.
Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values
Comments
2 responses to “Lung Cancer Stopper”
Very little, since there are huge numbers of cancers that aren’t lung cancers – and there’s no evidence here that any other cancer is significantly affected by cannabinols.
Plus there is, as usual, no guarantee that in-vitro and in-mouse results will be replicated in people – even with a single subset of people in a single study suggesting some efficacy. (If there was such a guarantee, we’d have more “miracle drugs” that you could shake a very easily shaken stick at!)
(And if Pharma companies are the biggest “supporters” of DFA, they sure aren’t the biggest donors (PDF). Major League Baseball seems to donate as much as all the pharma companies combined.
The RW Johnson foundation provides most of the funding… but they’re not part of Johnson and Johnson.
General Johnson’s dislike of drug abuse – even of legal drugs (reflected in his foundation’s mission) – seems to be unrelated to any desire to Drive Out Cheaper Therapies From Plants That Wouldn’t Make Evil Big Pharma Any Money.
Sigvald,
Thanks for the DFA update. When I last looked big pharma was in the lead.
Here is a part of the article you must have missed:
Separate preclinical studies indicate that compounds in marijuana inhibit cancer cell growth in animals and in culture on a wide range of tumoral cell lines ?– including human breast carcinoma cells, human prostate carcimona cells, and human colectoral carcinoma cells, among others. Most recently, investigators at Madrid’s Complutense University, School of Biology, reported in the British Journal of Cancer that THC administration decreases recurrent glioblastoma multiforme (brain) tumor growth in patients diagnosed with the disease.
If you go to the link I provided in the article above you will find links to sources.