Canadian researchers find a simple cure for cancer, but major pharmaceutical companies are not interested.

Researchers at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton, Canada have cured cancer last week, yet there is but little ripple in the news or on TV. It is a simple technique using a very basic drug. The method employs dichloroacetate, which is currently used to treat metabolic disorders, so there is no concern of side effects or other long term effects.

The drug doesn’t require a patent, so anyone can employ it widely and cheaply compared to the costly cancer drugs produced by major pharmaceutical companies.

Canadian scientists tested dichloroacetate (DCA) on human cells; it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells and left the healthy cells alone. It was tested on rats inflicted with severe tumors; their cells shrank when they were fed with water supplemented with DCA. The drug is widely available and the technique is easy to use, but why are the major drug companies not involved, or the media not interested in this find?

In human cells there is a natural cancer fighting organelle, the mitochondria, but it needs to be triggered in order to be effective. Scientists used to think that the mitochondria of cancerous cells were damaged and thus ineffective. They used to focus on glycolysis, which is less effective in fighting cancer and wasteful. The drug manufacturers focused on the glycolysis method to fight cancer. DCA treatment on the other hand doesn’t rely on glycolysis but instead on reactivating the mitochondria; which allows the cell to die and preventing the cancer from spreading.

This reactivation is a process called apoptosis. You see, mitochondria contain an all-too-important self-destruct button that cannot be pressed in cancer cells. Without it, tumors grow larger as cells refuse to be extinguished. Fully functioning mitochondria, thanks to DCA, can once again allow them to die.

With glycolysis turned off, the body produces less lactic acid, so the bad tissue around cancer cells doesn’t break down and seed new tumors.

Pharmaceutical companies are not investing in this research because DCA method cannot be patented, and without a patent they cannot make money. They’re currently making fortunes with their AIDS patent. Since the pharmaceutical companies won’t develop DCA drugs, independent laboratories should start researching DCA more to confirm all of the above findings and begin producing drugs. All of the groundwork can be done in collaboration with the universities, who will be glad to assist in such research and can develop an effective drug for curing cancer.

This article hopes to raise more awareness of dichloroacetate, and to hopefully inspire some independent companies and small startups to pick up on this idea and begin producing life-saving drugs… because the big companies won’t be touching it for a long time.