Similar studies have been tried in the past by the NIH. The problem was that it was not possible to tell if the cells were killed by the drug or if they died from other causes like being out of their usual environment or injury from improper handling (necrosis) or from programmed cell death (apoptosis) which all cells eventually experience. All cells are going to die at some point and it is sometimes really difficult to determine whether they are killed or just die of old age.

Maybe this is one of those programs that should be put on hold for the time being. After all, there a lot of generic drugs that are not being manufactured right now because of the same groups that are advocating this study (PhRMA and the FDA). Maybe the $75,000,000 should be used to get these less expensive drugs back on the market first. Cytosar has not been available for months and it is integral in the treatment of acute leukemia and certain lymphomas. Research is important but expensive and in thiscurrent economy we need to fix some things that are broken before doing something else that is expensive. After all $75million here and $75million there adds up to a lot of money after a while. It might even eventually exceed the salary of one of the big pharmaceutical company's CEOs.

The $1 billion to develop and bring a drug to market is false and pure big pharma propaganda. CBO investigated this and found that the record was a mere $74 million for Vioxx. And this was because so many trials had to be conducted to find the two that were presented to show safety and efficacy greater than a placebo.

This seems somewhat unlikely to work for the fact that drug toxicology usually has little or nothing to do with its direct chemical effect on individual cells, but rather is resultant from one or more of a wide variety of influences including changes it prompts to the endocrine and nervous system and how its metabolites effect complete organs and organ systems. Most of the direct-application toxicity that this chip would reveal is not only a non-factor (that's simply not how the drugs reach the organs and tissues) but would have already been revealed on paper or in much cheaper tissue culture tests.

To the author: are you SURE you have your facts straight on this? Are you certain you're not (deliberately or otherwise) misreading a research paper or a press release to spin it into a "science" story on a lazy Sunday?

time to check the statins..

time to check the statins..