These are Notes on Diabetes that I have posted elsewhere

Faustman in General (Posted 2006-05-16)

I'm curious to know what you thought of Denise Faustman's work? She is working under Lee Iaccoca's diabetes cure foundation. I thought they were doing some human trials as well.

Faustman's work is listed on my page, because Nathan is going to start human trials

by the end of this year (they expect).

You are asking for my personal opinion about Faustman's work, and I will give it, but

I will choose my words very carefully, because I know her work has generated a lot

of emotion, and I have thought about this topic quite a bit. I expect the list owner

will ask to end this discussion if it becomes too off topic, which it might. Faustman's

research is complex

As background I want to say that in the past I have donated money to both JDRF

and Lee Iaccoca's foundation; both to try to cure diabetes.

The one thing that I am absolutely sure of is that the problems outlined by other

researchers who questioned Faustman's work were absolutely correct. They felt

the spleen cell part of the work was wrong, and all three groups that tried to

replicate the experiment found that the spleen cell part was wrong. They used

techniques that Faustman did not use to show in detail how wrong it was. The

JDRF should be proud of it's technical review process. They were right on in this

case.

Now Faustman can still claim that her approach worked even without the spleen

cells, and the replication experiments worked to (also without the spleen cells helping).

More over she can claim that without the spleen cells it is a simpler process, so

Nathan's soon to be human trials will be even closer to a cure! I am very doubtfull.

The other parts of her possible cure have both been tested before and found to

work in mice and fail in humans. It was the spleen cells that were novel, and that

is the part that was clearly wrong. Now Faustman can say (truthfully) that her

experiments used different dosing of the previously used techniques, so hopefully

her stuff worked because of this different dosing. If this turns out to be the case,

then her work can lead to a cure. But I'm doubtfull.

I guess my summary is this: Diabetes is full of unknowns. We don't know the cure

so we don't know where it will come from. However, of the trials that I list, I think the Faustman/Nathan research is in the BOTTOM third in terms of likelyhood of success.

Two thirds of the other trials are more likely to lead to a cure quicker.

Faustman: all talk, no human results

I don't have time to write a full post, but when I saw Lisa's quote (below) I suddenly realized why so many people like Faustman's work!

Lisa wrote:

"For me, there is one cure in the works. That is at Dr. Faustman's lab. Since there is nothing really compareable to what she is doing, she will be the first."

The "advantage" of Faustmans work (and I mean that most sarcastically) is that SHE HAS NEVER DONE ANYTHING WITH PEOPLE. She has never cured anybody, she has never even tried to cure anybody! She has not even raised a single person's C-peptide generation or lowered insulin usage. Therefore, she can say anything, and some people will believe her. She can say her research is a cure! Is cheap! Has no side effects, works by magic! Solves the real problem. Whatever. Because she's never treated one person, there is no pesky data to show any problems in her work.

The "problem" (again, sarcasticly) with Dynamid Develogen and all the rest, is that they have done trails on people, so we know the weaknesses of their research. (Because Faustman hasn't done human trials, we don't know the weaknesses of her research.) Maybe this is the real reason why the first thing she did after getting her 10.6 millon from Lee, is to delay human trials by two years! As long as she doesn't test anything, her research will continue to be perfect!

On a slightly more serious note, Lisa, Faustman's big human trials will be testing BCG. BCG has been previously tested as a type-1 cure and as a type-1 prevention. It did neither. Faustman's only unique component is going to be different dosing. Same drug different dose. Seems like a long shot. Hopefully in 2011 when we finally hear about it, it will be redundant.