Talk Cancer

Question:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I typed "Coley’s toxins" into PubMed and found 17 articles. Of these, only two appeared to be anything resembling actual clinical trials (and they dated back to 1962–unfortunately, no abstracts were available to help me decide if they were any good, and they’re too old to be available online for quick retrieval). One was an animal study in the Golden Hamster. One was a case report on a single patient. The rest were all either review articles or commentaries. The more I look into quack cures the more I see efficacy for their use and the more I see them being ignored. Really? Based on what evidence? Based on clinical evidence like Coley’s Clinical evidence that was not replicated.

Really can you show me a double blind/randomised study that demonstrates that Coley’s toxins are no better than a placebo? – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – — Orac        |"A statement of fact cannot be insolent."             |             |"If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you             | inconvenience me with questions?"

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The facts are Coley’s was effective, _is_ effective and that’s why it’s being used in quack clinics. It is quite questionable whether Coley’s toxins are effective, and even if they were somewhat effective they have been supplanted by more specific approaches. In any case, as far as I know, no other investigators were able to replicate Coley’s results. Coley is mainly remembered as a pioneer in developing the concept of immunotherapy more than as someone who actually got immunotherapy to work. There isn’t just one study on Coley’s – a quick scan of medline will provide quite a few.

I typed "Coley’s toxins" into PubMed and found 17 articles. Of these, only two appeared to be anything resembling actual clinical trials (and they dated back to 1962–unfortunately, no abstracts were available to help me decide if they were any good, and they’re too old to be available online for quick retrieval). One was an animal study in the Golden Hamster. One was a case report on a single patient. The rest were all either review articles or commentaries. The more I look into quack cures the more I see efficacy for their use and the more I see them being ignored. Really? Based on what evidence? Based on clinical evidence like Coley’s

Clinical evidence that was not replicated. — Orac        |"A statement of fact cannot be insolent."             |             |"If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you             | inconvenience me with questions?"

Response:

I think part of the problem here is the altie tradition of never abandoning a "cure" regardless of its track record.

Indeed. Once alties latch onto an "alternative therapy," it’s all but impossible to persuade them to abandon it. Coley’s therapy would probably no longer be used by mainstream medicine even if it had been accepted as a first-line treatment. There must be many modalities in medicine that "worked," but have been supplanted by methods with better risk-benefit profiles.

Oncology is replete with examples of therapies that worked at the time they were developed (and may even have been used for many years) but are no longer used because they were ultimately supplanted by newer therapies that either (1) worked better or (2) worked as well with less toxicity and complications. Examples include both surgical therapies and chemotherapies. In the case of Coley’s toxins, injecting bacterial lipopolysaccharide is a fairly toxic way to stimulate an immune reaction, and the immune reaction that is stimulated is rather nonspecific. In contrast, vaccines targeted to specific tumor proteins are much more specific and potentially much less toxic. — Orac        |"A statement of fact cannot be insolent."             |             |"If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you             | inconvenience me with questions?"

Response:

The facts are Coley’s was effective, _is_ effective and that’s why it’s being used in quack clinics. It is quite questionable whether Coley’s toxins are effective, and even if they were somewhat effective they have been supplanted by more specific approaches. In any case, as far as I know, no other investigators were able to replicate Coley’s results. Coley is mainly remembered as a pioneer in developing the concept of immunotherapy more than as someone who actually got immunotherapy to work.

There isn’t just one study on Coley’s – a quick scan of medline will provide quite a few. The more I look into quack cures the more I see efficacy for their use and the more I see them being ignored. Really? Based on what evidence?

Based on clinical evidence like Coley’s Anth – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Orac        |"A statement of fact cannot be insolent."             |             |"If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you             | inconvenience me with questions?"

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The facts are Coley’s was effective, _is_ effective and that’s why it’s being used in quack clinics. It is quite questionable whether Coley’s toxins are effective, and even if they were somewhat effective they have been supplanted by more specific approaches. In any case, as far as I know, no other investigators were able to replicate Coley’s results. Coley is mainly remembered as a pioneer in developing the concept of immunotherapy more than as someone who actually got immunotherapy to work. The more I look into quack cures the more I see efficacy for their use and the more I see them being ignored. Really? Based on what evidence? — Orac

I think part of the problem here is the altie tradition of never abandoning a "cure" regardless of its track record. Coley’s therapy would probably no longer be used by mainstream medicine even if it had been accepted as a first-line treatment. There must be many modalities in medicine that "worked," but have been supplanted by methods with better risk-benefit profiles. –Rich

Response:

The facts are Coley’s was effective, _is_ effective and that’s why it’s being used in quack clinics.

It is quite questionable whether Coley’s toxins are effective, and even if they were somewhat effective they have been supplanted by more specific approaches. In any case, as far as I know, no other investigators were able to replicate Coley’s results. Coley is mainly remembered as a pioneer in developing the concept of immunotherapy more than as someone who actually got immunotherapy to work. The more I look into quack cures the more I see efficacy for their use and the more I see them being ignored.

Really? Based on what evidence? — Orac        |"A statement of fact cannot be insolent."             |             |"If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you             | inconvenience me with questions?"

Response:

http://www.annieappleseedproject.org/colvirininli.html "STANFORD, Calif. – Researchers at Stanford University Medical Center have been spreading colds to cancer patients, all in the hope of curing a deadly disease." BL "As the waves pass the rock, their shape is changed.  There is a hologram of the rock within the wave that comes forward and crashes on the beach, then there’s a reflected wave back."   Ralph Abraham   "I’d like to learn to windsurf."  BL

Response:

Coley’s Toxins went through double blind trials and are not used in mainstream despite the fact they were shown to be effective. Unfortuantely, other researchers could not reproduce his results. One small double-blind trial is not usually enough. I’d go so far as to say "never enough."  The history of drug development is littered with wonderfully promising pilot studies of things that didn’t work in larger studies.

Indeed, but sometimes there are single studies that are large enough to answer a clinical question pretty definitively. Usually they are cooperative group studies, as from ECOG or NSABP. But you are correct, most studies don’t reach that level of numbers. — Orac        |"A statement of fact cannot be insolent."             |             |"If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you             | inconvenience me with questions?"

Response:

The facts are Coley’s was effective, _is_ effective and that’s why it’s being used in quack clinics. The more I look into quack cures the more I see efficacy for their use and the more I see them being ignored. Anth

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Coley’s Toxins went through double blind trials and are not used in mainstream despite the fact they were shown to be effective. Unfortuantely, other researchers could not reproduce his results. One small double-blind trial is not usually enough. Shame really, because people with end stage metastatic cancer with no other options could benefit from them. There are many other things that end stage metastatic cancer patients might benefit from that are offered in Phase I studies. Some are cancer vaccines and immunotherapy based on the concepts pioneered by Coley. — Orac        |"A statement of fact cannot be insolent."             |             |"If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you             | inconvenience me with questions?"

Response:

The double blind study used a fever inducing placebo, so they compared hyperthermia to Coley’s. I too doubt that a cabinet would induce remission in cancer. IMO Coley’s Toxins _isn’t_ TNF or hyperthermia. Anth

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The hyperthermia that is necessary to have an effect on cancer requires increasing the body temperature from its normal 37 deg C to 40-41 deg C. That large an increase in bodily temperature is quite dangerous, which is why hyperthermia is usually only used on isolate parts of the body. (Raising the temperature of the whole body to that extent for the time needed would not be safe, particularly for the brain.) For instance, for extremity melanomas that have metastasized all over a limb, it is possible to get good responses with hyperthermic limb perfusion. In this technique, the surgeon isolates the blood vessels to the limb, cannulates them so that the circulation of the limb is completely cut off from that of the body, then infuses hyperthermic chemotherapy solution (usually tumor necrosis factor-alpha and Melphalan) at a high concentration into the limb for a couple of hours. Circulation is then restored. There can sometimes be quite dramatic shrinkage of skin tumors from this. This technique is also sometimes used for extremity sarcomas. Another area where hyperthermia is sometimes used is for disseminated intrabominal carcinoma. Through a peritoneal dialysis catheter, the abdomen is perfused with hyperthermic chemotherapy. This technique is less accepted than isolated limb perfusion and is generally done only in research settings, as it is not clear that it offers much, if any, advantage over more conventional treatments. I highly doubt that the hyperthermia cabinets being sold would increase the body temperature enough to make a difference. Even if they could increase body temperature sufficiently, in untrained hands they would be quite dangerous to use. — Orac        |"A statement of fact cannot be insolent."             |             |"If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you             | inconvenience me with questions?"

Response:

Coley’s Toxins went through double blind trials and are not used in mainstream despite the fact they were shown to be effective.

When, by whom, and where is the data published?   Tsu Dho Nimh — When businesses invoke the "protection of consumers," it’s a lot like politicians invoking morality and children – grab your wallet and/or your kid and run for your life.

Response:

Coley’s Toxins went through double blind trials and are not used in mainstream despite the fact they were shown to be effective. Shame really, because people with end stage metastatic cancer with no other options could benefit from them. Show me the money, Anth.

(I’d scan the pages from the Moss The Cancer Industry but my scanner isn’t working) Here’s some info from the net. In 1962, Dr. Barbara Johnston, M.D. published a double blind study on Coley’s toxins. This study was conducted at New York University-Bellevue Hospital. The results were clear-cut. In the control group treated with fever inducing placebo, only one patient of 37 showed any signs of improvement. Of the 34 patients treated with Coley’s toxins, 18 showed no improvement, 7 noted decreased pain while 9 showed such benefits as tumor necrosis, apparent inhibition of metastases, shrinkage of lymph nodes, and disappearance of tumors [12]. [12] Johnston, Barbara, "Clinical Effects of Coley’s Toxin. 1. Controlled Study. 2. A Seven-Year Study." Cancer Chemotherapy Reports 21:19-68, August 1962. In 1982 at the conference held in Cologne, Germany, Mrs. Nauts reported the first results of randomized trials of MBV (Coley’s toxins) begun in 1976 at Memorial Sloan-Kettering: Advanced non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma patients receiving MBV had a 93 percent remission rate as opposed to 29 percent for controls who received chemotherapy alone [13]. [13] Nauts, Helen Coley, Bacterial Products in the Treatment of Cancer: Past, Present and Future. Paper read at the International Colloqium on Bacteriology and Cancer, Clogne, Federal Republic of Germany, March 16-18, 1982. http://www.cancerguide.org/coley.html 1. As I have said, this kind of trial was virtually unknown in the days when Coley’s toxins were widely used.

[12] was conducted in the 60’s. 2. Double-blind studies are not usually needed anyway, in assessing a cancer treatment as it is easy to tell if a cancer is shrinking and whether a person is alive or dead.   The only circumstance where they may be needed is when symptomatic treatments are being tested.

I’m not sure there’s a clear relationship between between shrinking a tumour and life expectancy? For instance in the Oasis clinic, the Laetrile therapy does not usally remove the tumour, but there’s reports of greater quality of life and life extension. 3. A double-blind trial incolves randomising patients and blinding both patient and doctor as to whether the patients is receiving the active treatment or not.   How does one blind the patient and doctor with Coley’s toxins, where treatment had to be adjusted until a high body temperature was achieved?

Agreed, they used a fever inducing placebo and randomisation. This casts a doubt in my eyes over the quacks who use devices to induce hyperthermia. They compared a fever placebo vs Coley’s which also induced a fever.   4.  None of the quacks who are still using Coley’s toxins ever publish anything.

Maybe they do, who knows what’s blocked by ‘the biased facists in medicine’? 5. I am certain the only evidence you will find is a few case series, which will have been done in the days when cancer diagnosis, grading and follow-up were much less accurate than is possible today and which cannot be compared with contemporary treatments.

There have been other studies on Coley’s toxins in conjuntion with chemo etc. a quick google search will get you them. 6.  I am sure that the  mainstream doctors who were using them gave them up because the results were not good enough to justify the medical and patient resources expended upon them.  It was an arduous and difficult treatment. I suspect the true cure rate was close to nil, and the temporary remission rate scarcely worthwhile.  Are you aware that even chemotherapy treatments that sometimes work are abandoned if  they cannot produce a reasonable remission rate?

I think the results speak for themselves. Coley’s was on a whole eclipsed with the radium boom. As a mainstream doctor yourself I think you would rapidly be scorned at and called a quack for using them I suppose you can make a case for patients being entitled to try it out at their own expense, but I’ll bet the quacks don’t offer such patients a realistic view of their chances.

It is up to the person to try it, but if they are not aware of it then they never know. When the usual ’slash and burn’ fails, then what? (Please note that Coley’s isn’t TNF or hyperthermia) Anth N.B. Coley’s is really cheap to manufacture, it is that quacks who charge stupid amounts of money for a $2 injection at 1000x markup. I’d _love_ to get hold of those papers in non abstract, if you find a whole net reference to it, then let me know.

Response:

Coley’s Toxins went through double blind trials and are not used in mainstream despite the fact they were shown to be effective.

Unfortuantely, other researchers could not reproduce his results. One small double-blind trial is not usually enough. Shame really, because people with end stage metastatic cancer with no other options could benefit from them.

There are many other things that end stage metastatic cancer patients might benefit from that are offered in Phase I studies. Some are cancer vaccines and immunotherapy based on the concepts pioneered by Coley. — Orac        |"A statement of fact cannot be insolent."             |             |"If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you             | inconvenience me with questions?"

Response:

Coley’s Toxins went through double blind trials and are not used in mainstream despite the fact they were shown to be effective. Unfortuantely, other researchers could not reproduce his results. One small double-blind trial is not usually enough.

I’d go so far as to say "never enough."  The history of drug development is littered with wonderfully promising pilot studies of things that didn’t work in larger studies.   — David Wright :: alphabeta at prodigy.net      These are my opinions only, but they’re almost always correct.        "If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants            were standing on my shoulders."  (Hal Abelson, MIT)

Response:

 Thanks for the further information. Peter

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – In article .au, Why not take saunas?  I don’t have cancer but am intrigued with infrared sauna for heart problems… Anyway, the toxin thing doesn’t surprise me at all, what with pinworms possibly helping autoimmune disease, the hygiene hypothesis, etc.   But maybe saunas could do the same thing.  Pinworms don’t cause fever, but maybe they stir up the same cytokines, etc. that fever does. Who knows?  Not many funders for studies on infrared saunas or pinworms. Hyperthermia does seem to affect some cancers, but I am not sure that saunas will produce the required rise in body temperature without considerable risk.   Does anyone know?  Hyperthermia cabinets are being sold to cancer patients on the pretence that they offer effective treatment of cancer, but I suspect that these have as much potential for harm as good if used unsupervised. The hyperthermia that is necessary to have an effect on cancer requires increasing the body temperature from its normal 37 deg C to 40-41 deg C. That large an increase in bodily temperature is quite dangerous, which is why hyperthermia is usually only used on isolate parts of the body. (Raising the temperature of the whole body to that extent for the time needed would not be safe, particularly for the brain.) For instance, for extremity melanomas that have metastasized all over a limb, it is possible to get good responses with hyperthermic limb perfusion. In this technique, the surgeon isolates the blood vessels to the limb, cannulates them so that the circulation of the limb is completely cut off from that of the body, then infuses hyperthermic chemotherapy solution (usually tumor necrosis factor-alpha and Melphalan) at a high concentration into the limb for a couple of hours. Circulation is then restored. There can sometimes be quite dramatic shrinkage of skin tumors from this. This technique is also sometimes used for extremity sarcomas. Another area where hyperthermia is sometimes used is for disseminated intrabominal carcinoma. Through a peritoneal dialysis catheter, the abdomen is perfused with hyperthermic chemotherapy. This technique is less accepted than isolated limb perfusion and is generally done only in research settings, as it is not clear that it offers much, if any, advantage over more conventional treatments. I highly doubt that the hyperthermia cabinets being sold would increase the body temperature enough to make a difference. Even if they could increase body temperature sufficiently, in untrained hands they would be quite dangerous to use. — Orac        |"A statement of fact cannot be insolent."             |             |"If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you             | inconvenience me with questions?"

Response:

Coley’s Toxins went through double blind trials and are not used in mainstream despite the fact they were shown to be effective. Shame really, because people with end stage metastatic cancer with no other options could benefit from them.

Show me the money, Anth. 1. As I have said, this kind of trial was virtually unknown in the days when Coley’s toxins were widely used. 2. Double-blind studies are not usually needed anyway, in assessing a cancer treatment as it is easy to tell if a cancer is shrinking and whether a person is alive or dead.   The only circumstance where they may be needed is when symptomatic treatments are being tested. 3. A double-blind trial incolves randomising patients and blinding both patient and doctor as to whether the patients is receiving the active treatment or not.   How does one blind the patient and doctor with Coley’s toxins, where treatment had to be adjusted until a high body temperature was achieved? 4.  None of the quacks who are still using Coley’s toxins ever publish anything. 5. I am certain the only evidence you will find is a few case series, which will have been done in the days when cancer diagnosis, grading and follow-up were much less accurate than is possible today and which cannot be compared with contemporary treatments. 6.  I am sure that the  mainstream doctors who were using them gave them up because the results were not good enough to justify the medical and patient resources expended upon them.  It was an arduous and difficult treatment. I suspect the true cure rate was close to nil, and the temporary remission rate scarcely worthwhile.  Are you aware that even chemotherapy treatments that sometimes work are abandoned if  they cannot produce a reasonable remission rate? I suppose you can make a case for patients being entitled to try it out at their own expense, but I’ll bet the quacks don’t offer such patients a realistic view of their chances. Peter Moran – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Anth I suspect that these have as much potential for harm as good if used unsupervised. Peter Moran You may be right.  Somebody needs to do some controlled experiments.  I know an oncologist here in the USA that uses hyperthermia quite a bit but has given up on getting things related to what he does approved by the FDA– not enough money in it to run the required experiments. But it *is* probably one of those things that can be misused.  I don’t have cancer though, so I doubt if I can misuse it. BL "As the waves pass the rock, their shape is changed.  There is a hologram of the rock within the wave that comes forward and crashes on the beach, then there’s a reflected wave back."   Ralph Abraham "I’d like to learn to windsurf."  BL

Response:

In article .au, – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Why not take saunas?  I don’t have cancer but am intrigued with infrared sauna heart problems… Anyway, the toxin thing doesn’t surprise me at all, what with pinworms possibly helping autoimmune disease, the hygiene hypothesis, etc.   But maybe saunas could do the same thing.  Pinworms don’t cause fever, but maybe they stir up the same cytokines, etc. that fever does. Who knows?  Not many funders for studies on infrared saunas or pinworms. Hyperthermia does seem to affect some cancers, but I am not sure that saunas will produce the required rise in body temperature without considerable risk.   Does anyone know?  Hyperthermia cabinets are being sold to cancer patients on the pretence that they offer effective treatment of cancer, but I suspect that these have as much potential for harm as good if used unsupervised.

The hyperthermia that is necessary to have an effect on cancer requires increasing the body temperature from its normal 37 deg C to 40-41 deg C. That large an increase in bodily temperature is quite dangerous, which is why hyperthermia is usually only used on isolate parts of the body. (Raising the temperature of the whole body to that extent for the time needed would not be safe, particularly for the brain.) For instance, for extremity melanomas that have metastasized all over a limb, it is possible to get good responses with hyperthermic limb perfusion. In this technique, the surgeon isolates the blood vessels to the limb, cannulates them so that the circulation of the limb is completely cut off from that of the body, then infuses hyperthermic chemotherapy solution (usually tumor necrosis factor-alpha and Melphalan) at a high concentration into the limb for a couple of hours. Circulation is then restored. There can sometimes be quite dramatic shrinkage of skin tumors from this. This technique is also sometimes used for extremity sarcomas. Another area where hyperthermia is sometimes used is for disseminated intrabominal carcinoma. Through a peritoneal dialysis catheter, the abdomen is perfused with hyperthermic chemotherapy. This technique is less accepted than isolated limb perfusion and is generally done only in research settings, as it is not clear that it offers much, if any, advantage over more conventional treatments. I highly doubt that the hyperthermia cabinets being sold would increase the body temperature enough to make a difference. Even if they could increase body temperature sufficiently, in untrained hands they would be quite dangerous to use. — Orac        |"A statement of fact cannot be insolent."             |             |"If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you             | inconvenience me with questions?"

Response:

I suppose you can make a case for patients being entitled to try it out at their own expense, but I’ll bet the quacks don’t offer such patients a realistic view of their chances.

I’d also be very interested to see how the quacks apply them.  I’ll bet it is nothing like the authentic version.  The patients will eb given the odd jab and told that they are getting Coley’s Toxins.  In Tijuana they rarely hang onto any patient for more than a three weeks, as that is when the money is runnning  out and the cancers are often starting to show they are worsening depite the treatment. Perter Moran

Response:

Coley’s Toxins went through double blind trials and are not used in mainstream despite the fact they were shown to be effective. Shame really, because people with end stage metastatic cancer with no other options could benefit from them. Anth

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I suspect that these have as much potential for harm as good if used unsupervised. Peter Moran You may be right.  Somebody needs to do some controlled experiments.  I know an oncologist here in the USA that uses hyperthermia quite a bit but has given up on getting things related to what he does approved by the FDA– not enough money in it to run the required experiments. But it *is* probably one of those things that can be misused.  I don’t have cancer though, so I doubt if I can misuse it. BL "As the waves pass the rock, their shape is changed.  There is a hologram of the rock within the wave that comes forward and crashes on the beach, then there’s a reflected wave back."   Ralph Abraham "I’d like to learn to windsurf."  BL

Response:

I doubt a sauna would raise the body temp as much as a fever from a strep infection. Surely they would be classed as dangerous if they did? Anth

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Why not take saunas?  I don’t have cancer but am intrigued with infrared sauna heart problems… Anyway, the toxin thing doesn’t surprise me at all, what with pinworms possibly helping autoimmune disease, the hygiene hypothesis, etc.   But maybe saunas could do the same thing.  Pinworms don’t cause fever, but maybe they stir up the same cytokines, etc. that fever does. Who knows?  Not many funders for studies on infrared saunas or pinworms. Hyperthermia does seem to affect some cancers, but I am not sure that saunas will produce the required rise in body temperature without considerable risk.   Does anyone know?  Hyperthermia cabinets are being sold to cancer patients on the pretence that they offer effective treatment of cancer, but I suspect that these have as much potential for harm as good if used unsupervised. Peter Moran

Response:

Why not take saunas?  I don’t have cancer but am intrigued with infrared sauna heart problems… Anyway, the toxin thing doesn’t surprise me at all, what with pinworms possibly helping autoimmune disease, the hygiene hypothesis, etc.   But maybe saunas could do the same thing.  Pinworms don’t cause fever, but maybe they stir up the same cytokines, etc. that fever does. Who knows?  Not many funders for studies on infrared saunas or pinworms.

Hyperthermia does seem to affect some cancers, but I am not sure that saunas will produce the required rise in body temperature without considerable risk.   Does anyone know?  Hyperthermia cabinets are being sold to cancer patients on the pretence that they offer effective treatment of cancer, but I suspect that these have as much potential for harm as good if used unsupervised. Peter Moran – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text –

Response:

I understand they passed double blind clinical trials, and are effective against metastatic cancer, the question is how? Any ideas? Anth

Response:

I understand they passed double blind clinical trials, and are effective against metastatic cancer, the question is how? Any ideas? Anth

Coley published in 1890 and possibly the early 1900s and the first double blind clinical trials were not done until at least half  a century later. Well-designed research was unknown in those days, and cancer diagnosis and means of follow-up were primitive.   So far as I know he had only isolated cases of cancer remission.   Such remissions had also been observed occasionally after severe infections. He used mainly streprococcal toxins that can induce hyperthermia, could have a cytotoxic effect on cancer, or might stir up the immune system in one of several ways. Peter Moran

Response:

Why not take saunas?  I don’t have cancer but am intrigued with infrared sauna problems… Anyway, the toxin thing doesn’t surprise me at all, what with pinworms possibly helping autoimmune disease, the hygiene hypothesis, etc.   But maybe saunas could do the same thing.  Pinworms don’t cause fever, but maybe they stir up the same cytokines, etc. that fever does. Who knows?  Not many funders for studies on infrared saunas or pinworms. BL "As the waves pass the rock, their shape is changed.  There is a hologram of the rock within the wave that comes forward and crashes on the beach, then there’s a reflected wave back."   Ralph Abraham   "I’d like to learn to windsurf."  BL

Response:

I suspect that these have as much potential for harm as good if used unsupervised. Peter Moran

You may be right.  Somebody needs to do some controlled experiments.  I know an oncologist here in the USA that uses hyperthermia quite a bit but has given up on getting things related to what he does approved by the FDA– not enough money in it to run the required experiments. But it *is* probably one of those things that can be misused.  I don’t have cancer though, so I doubt if I can misuse it. BL "As the waves pass the rock, their shape is changed.  There is a hologram of the rock within the wave that comes forward and crashes on the beach, then there’s a reflected wave back."   Ralph Abraham   "I’d like to learn to windsurf."  BL

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