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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><br><br>On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'>Subject: Re: [ExI] Jaw-dropping CWRU Alzheimer's breakthrough?<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'>>>>Any work done in amyloid mice is likely to be useless - the models are wrong<br>on many levels<span style='color:#1F497D'>..</span>.Rafal<br>_______________________________________________<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>>>Thanks Rafal, I came to the same conclusion with great regret<span style='color:#1F497D'>…</span><o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-size:7.0pt'> </span><span class=apple-converted-space><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#222222'>>“</span></span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#222222'>It is maddening</span> difficult to tell if these medications work.”<span class=hoenzb><span style='color:#888888'> …spike</span></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>></span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#222222'> </span><span style='color:#1F497D'>>…</span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#222222'>It is very sad that we live in a time and milieu where physicians and pharmaceutical industry, biomedical research establishment and popular and special press, are not to be trusted, and where the responsibility for testing and advancing new therapies lies with individual enthusiasts. Really sad. But is it hopeless? </span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> Ilia</span><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>That is one way to look at it, but I have an alternate take for you. The finding was announced on the internet a week ago. It perfused the internet immediately. Within hours I found annual sales of Targretin at 140 million per year and the cost per year, divided through and estimated about a hundred thousand Targretin devourers. Next I asked myself, if I had a bottle of Targretin (or any other of half a dozen medications that contain bexarotene) what would I do upon reading the announcement? What would you do? What I would do is take my bottle of medications and immediately give it to the nearest Alzheimer’s patient. Most of us know one or more, a parent, a grandparent, parent of a friend, a suffering neighbor, perhaps a former colleague. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>If you are one of the fortunate few whose family has been untouched by this disease, you might go down to the local memory care facility, find a person visiting a patient, and quietly slip the bottle of meds to that person, perhaps without saying a word, for words would be unnecessary. Everyone who is down there has heard of this stuff and would know what to do if a kind stranger offered them the meds. The kind of skin cancer Targretin treats is not likely to slay the patient, at least not immediately, but if Targretin does in humans what it does for mice, then you could save countless lives by your act of charity. I would be down there to that care facility that day, not tomorrow, not next week, NOW! Yesterday isn’t soon enough.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>So, I can’t imagine I am so different from others. If I would do this, at least some of the hundred thousand Targretin eaters would do likewise, and would sit down there for a few hours to see if the medication did anything, and if so, the chatter on the internet about that would be so loud it would drown out most other discussion. But I can find nada. So apparently this stuff doesn’t do anything, in which case we have another Aricept equivalent on our hands.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>So on the contrary to sad and hopeless, we now have the infrastructure for information to pervade the patient community quickly, with results (if positive) being learned by all involved. Within days I had already figured out approximately how to make reagent grade bexarotene available for Alzheimer’s patients to use for washing hands (dissolved in dimethyl sulfoxide so that it permeates the skin, carrying with it solutes) so that it technically is not a medication but rather a hand soap you know. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>This is the poster child medical discovery in the age of widespread internet use, and a perfect example of what Gregory Stock wrote about in Metaman. We are wired together. Information moves quickly. This is a good thing, even though it turned out to be disappointing: the lack of signal causes me to conclude the promise of bexarotene was apparently a mirage.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></div></body></html>