Researchers Believe They Have Found a Single Dose Cure for Malaria | Hacker News Reader

Researchers Believe They Have Found a Single Dose Cure for Malaria

newswatch.nationalgeographic.com

107 pointsuptown42 comments

I looked up other news stories about this. Two I found added a few details to the blog post kindly submitted here.

http://scienceblog.com/56297/african-antimalarial-research-b...

http://contractresearch.pharmaceutical-business-review.com/n...

All the news stories so far are based mostly on a press release about the chemical moving into preclinical trials. The chemical is part of a category of chemicals with significant toxicity,

http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/htdocs/Chem_Background/ExSumPdf...

and it is VERY early in the stages of investigation to know whether or not this chemical, when used as a medically prescribed drug, will have benefits for malaria patients that outweigh whatever risks it may have. Effective drug therapies for infection by the malaria parasite are an important ongoing area of research, but as each new preliminary finding is reported, it is important to keep in mind the "Warning Signs in Experimental Design and Interpretation"

http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

written about by Peter Norvig, Google's director of research, and to check for follow-up research that shows actual clinical benefit in well controlled trials of human patients.

See also the recent blog post from the Science-Based Medicine group blog by a medical doctor, "Related by coincidence only? University and medical journal press releases versus journal articles,"

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/related-by-coi...

on the distinction between press releases and peer-reviewed scientific journal articles, and what each promises and what each delivers.

Thank you for taking the time to help educate us on the issue. It's comments like this that make me love reading the comments on HN. It reads like this wonderful discovery but someone has taken the time to dissect it and actually explain what's going on for those of us who don't really have a complete understanding.

Also, even if it's safe for human use, there will be problems with diagnosing early enough and making sure vulnerable populations have access to the drug at a price they can afford. Still, I hope the drug proves out as safe and effective.

I really think that DDT was needlessly discarded as a vector extermination agent. Actual research (instead of literary hyperbole) suggests that the effect on bird eggs and humans was not as severe as once supposed. How many have died of malaria in the past 40 years in areas that were once malaria-free? Off-hand I think the number is in the millions.

Added to that, DDT was being used in very high amounts as a pesticide, but didn't need to be used in nearly as high levels for suppressing malaria.

Resistance to DDT has formed anyway: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Mosquito_resistance – though again this is because of agricultural use, not from disease prevention use.

On the other hand, it's not that clear to me that DDT has actually been discarded?

The idea that DDT was not as harmful as claimed is a modern myth with no basis in fact. It's obvious to even the most casual birdwatcher with a few decades of experience that the fish-eating birds and top-of-the-food-chain birds have come back dramatically.

There are plenty of fine modern pesticides which are just as effective as DDT without the side effects. Unfortunately, DDT was so bad the many modern consumers equate pesticide with poison.

DDT, while banned in the U.S., is still used--extensively I believe--in other nations to combat malaria.

DDT is still one of the 12 pesticides recommended by the WHO for indoor spray programs in countries where Malaria is a problem.

Source: http://www.epa.gov/opp00001/factsheets/chemicals/ddt-brief-h...

DDT is being produced in China, North Korea and India. If you want an overview of the countries that use DDT, check table 1: http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/fetchArticle.action?artic... (The data is from 2009 but should still be correct)

14 countries: Mostly African countries, India, China and North Korea.

As others have pointed out, DDT is still in use for vector control, however its effectiveness is reduced because of resistance caused by excessive use for agricultural and general pesticide purposes.

Mosquito resistance to DDT was something that was noted in the years before the effects on birds were raised, and this had as much to do with the ban on agricultural use as the ecological issues.

DDT use really was out of control in the post-war period[1] and I think it is hard to say how severe the effects of a biopersistent chemical would be when its use was just increasing, increasing and increasing with no end in sight.

[1]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UiCSvQvVys

The University of Cape Town research was done in colaboration with Medicines for Malarial Venture which has received $336 million in funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation since 2005.

MMV Press Release: http://www.mmv.org/sites/default/files/uploads/docs/news/Afr...

Background on research team: http://www.mmv.org/sites/default/files/uploads/docs/news/Bac...

Search Gates Foundation grants: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/grants/Pages/search.aspx

Reminds me of the quote that decades from now, no one will from Africa will remember who Steve Jobs was, but they will know Bill Gates as the man who funded the research that saved millions of lives. Can't remember the exact words or who said it...

If true this would be of phenomenal benefit and this alone could boost the economies of whole regions of Africa.

A protection against HIV would also do this, if only.

One medical miracle per day. That's the rule.

I would love to see some research about low dose chlorine dioxide and it's effect on parasites like malaria. ClO2 is a strong oxidizer and in very low doses can kill pathogens without causing harm to the body; incidentally, ClO2 is used on our food while washing it.

Note that by very low doses I mean one to two drops per 8oz of water.

The ClO2 is cheap though and would cause some drug companies to lose a large amount of revenue if it were proven to be effective in killing a wide range of pathogens. I'd love it if there were more research in this area.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/bleaching-away...

Kind of amazing that he found something worse than homeopathy.

To be fair, is it really hard for "alternative medicines" to be worse than homeopathy? By definition homeopathic "remedies" do absolutely nothing, so being worse should be easy. ;)

Indeed. Cue suitable mocking and derision: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0

"Worse" could mean that the theory behind the mechanism of action for homeopathy is worse. However, in this case the worse is about it causing harm, and the extent of harm from homeopathy is pretty much limited to patients not seeking needed medical treatment.

Scientifically speaking homeopathic remedies are placebos, and many studies have shown that placebos are remarkably effective treatments with minimal side effects.

Placebo side effects can also occur.

Typical FUD. Where is the research? Start with animals like you do with everything, and RESEARCH it. Don't just dismiss it with labels like bleach when you have no idea what kind of action it has. The action of ClO2 is different than that of Chlorine bleach; it oxidizes instead of chlorinates!!

People need to understand some basic chemistry instead of regurgitating buzz words (like bleach); and we need real research, not just empty words.

Surprisingly enough that's mostly true. http://www.lenntech.com/library/clo2/chlorine-dioxide.htm ClO2 is a bleach, but it's not what most people think of when they say "bleach". It's effective as a disinfectant even against spore-forming bacteria like anthrax. http://www.lenntech.com/library/clo2/chlorine-dioxide.htm I appreciate that you're not advocating high doses, or cures for random things like autism.

Thanks for the links. It is interesting to read about the chemistry behind the various oxidizing agents and the selectivity of each.

The links you kindly shared are commercial links posted by a water treatment chemical company that has a commercial interest in promoting using ClO2 rather than other chemicals for water treatment. It may be that everything they say about ClO2 as a water treatment chemical checks out with what independent researchers say, but there is no support here for the idea that ClO2 is an effective internal medicine for malaria infection.

AFTER EDIT: To reply to your kind reply below, I am aware of what reply layer we are in here. But the submitted article, after all, was about treatment of human patients who have already been infected by the malaria parasite. For a top-level comment then to come in under that article that has nothing to do with internal medicine use of the advocated chemical is, at least, a sign of careless reading, and possibly a sign of greater tendentiousness. (Other participants here have pointed out the several words and phrases in several of the comments to which I am replying that suggest that that subthread is not based on familiarity with medical research and the methods of medical research.)

This is the comment I was replying to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4454819 It makes no claims that ClO2 is an effective in vivo treatment for malaria.

Are you seriously advocating INTERNAL use of ClO2 in living human patients who have been infected by the malaria parasites, which is the topic of the submitted article that opened this thread? Remember that for in-vivo experimentation, even for in-vivo experimentation on animals before experimenting on human patients, it is only ethical to perform the experiment if there is prior probability of therapeutic effect without undue harm to the patient. Where is there any evidence whatsoever that ClO2 is effective without undue harm when used as an internal medicine?

And as for understanding basic chemistry, my late father the chemistry major (who performed experiments at home with me as a child, and who was my mentor in the philosophy of science) would be APPALLED at not noticing the distinction between using chemicals outside the human body as disinfectants and using them as internal medicines in living human beings.

Are you seriously advocating INTERNAL use of ClO2 in living human patients

No. Did you even read the GP? He said (even in caps) he's looking for "RESEARCH". Also, you don't need a whole animal to do the first tests, you just need a tissue or blood sample from an infected animal to test effectiveness vs. toxicity, and go from there.

What he is really looking for is a conspiracy. These alternative medicine quacks all claim they just want their product (and it always is already a product...) researched. When asked why they don't have it researched, like any other prospective treatment is, they drop hints at "big pharmacy" silencing them (as you can see he has done in his original post).

The entire point is to turn the lack of evidence into evidence of its effectiveness.

I clearly stated beginning research in animals. Your metric for determining if in-vivo experiments should be done on animals is interesting. Based on your notion, you should only perform these experiments if you think they will actually work. The problem here is that the metabolic processes of mammals for instance is so complex that we often times have no idea what will be effective and what will not. Oxidizers is a classic case. It is commonly understood that anti-oxidants are good for the body. But you can find research that states that too many anti-oxidants can be bad b/c it inhibits some amount of oxidation which can be good (b/c it kills pathogens).

I am simply advocating investigation based on research, realizing that we actually know very little about oxidation vs anti-oxidation within complex organisms. If we only ever think "inside the box" with what we "think is probable" we will almost certainly never discover many of the mysteries in our biological world.

Shouldn't the people advocating its use be the ones researching it? Why is the onus on critics to prove it?

I really can't tell if you are serious, because you are displaying most of the usual tells for sarcasm.

In case you are serious though, NaClO (aka Chlorox) is an oxidant too. Anyone who forgot to dilute it or wear gloves while cleaning their kitchen or bathroom should be familiar with exactly why "oxidize" does not convey, in any sense, "safe".

Did you happen to read the HN story from a couple days ago?

http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/semmelweis

It'd be interesting if in 100 years we were reading the same story about ClO2. Everyone thought the doctor suggesting that everyone wash their hands before delivering a baby was a "quack" when the evidence suggested otherwise. I am only saying I'd like to see objective research here. If the result is that ClO2 is not effective in any way or that it does more harm than good then that is fine; BUT, if the result was that it was effective in very low doses, we should accept that as well. Let hard science prevail... not the quacks or the quack police.

The difference is that all you have to do to avoid the "quack" label today is produce evidence that your treatment works. If this crazy-ass bleach treatment actually works like they say it does, it shouldn't be hard to produce evidence to back it up. Until and unless they can produce such evidence, it's only right to criticize those promoting the treatment.

To be fair, that's exactly what he's asking for.

And yet, the proponents for it's effectiveness have yet to provide any evidence that it's worth studying. People who have no reason to believe it will work don't have a lot of incentive to test whether it works. Then again, the people who benefit from it's popularity and don't care if it works don't have much of an incentive to test it either.

The key was in my last sentence: "Until and unless they can produce such evidence, it's only right to criticize those promoting the treatment."

Semmelweis was an asshole who nobody liked. Doctors of the time _did_ wash their hands, the just didn't do it with lime as Semmelweis wanted.

Semmelweis made-up some crackpot theory about "cadaveric" particles causing disease. That's what made doctor's ridicule him. If he had stuck to experimental evidence, he probably would have been listened to.

Interesting. Do you have sources for that?

If you mix that with colloidal silver and ground up quartz crystals I bet you'd literally live forever. You could probably walk on water, too.

"We gotta give him just enough [industrial bleaching agent] that he don't get sick but he's on the edge of getting sick! So we've got to keep him just on the very edge and therefore it's pretty intense for cancer, he needs to take it 4/5 times a day, small amounts instead of a big batch."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/sep/15/miracle-minera...

(These guys also appear to be anti-vaxers).

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