the_colonel

I came across this site (http://www.grouppekurosawa.com) whilst researching coconut milk. They offer 'natural' OTC/herbal/food-based treatments for disease such as HIV and cancers. Here is a page on cancer that they have. It seems a bit funny to me that there are no refs to peer reviewed journals and on other parts of the site they even advise specific dosages of e.g. curcumin (what they term a 'natural medicine') Some quotes from the page "..we will show that direct contact of a metastatic tumor mass and a Kurosawa kocktail can induce massive and virtually immediate necrosis in the cancer cells. Although this seems like an ideal treatment protocol, it has its risks.." (kidney damage I think they said from being unable to cope with remains of tumour) "The natural medicines in YUCKKO™ and QUERCUR™ have no or very low toxicity towards normal cells, yet, under certain circumstances, they interfere significantly with the growth pathways of cancer cells, resulting in their death by programmed cell death or necrosis" A bit disturbing from the main index page "..We utilize volunteers, Kurosawa Mice, to test these treatment protocols on a wide variety of disease conditions. These volunteers use their own bodies as experimental organisms and report their results to our discussion group.." Any oncologists want to critique this site?

So we end up with no 'good' objective measure for 'intelligence' whatever that is defined as. What a surprise

Hiya, apologies that my initial post was badly composed and had spelling mistakes (e.g. homo sapeins rather than homo sapiens - not a good start!) What I was aiming to ask is simply "Is germline gene therapy/modification technically easier to do than somatic gene therapy?"

It is quite an intersting one (sorry spiderman) but one of my friends has similar stuff. He used LSD at the age of circa 14 y/o. He also continued to use drugs such as LSD, MDMA, Ketamine and THC plus other stuff throughout his teenage years. He has spent a lot of money on rehab but always 'tells me' he feels like he is under the influence of LSD. It has somehow changed his 'brain chemistry' long-term. (sic) As many have said you will be lucky to find a doctor who is interested. As I have said to my friend you could do worse than looking for people who are interested in your 'problem'. Most GP's want the easy life but i'll ask around.

We have used germline on other animals. Why should it not be used on humans? Somatic gene therapy for CF is an example - major problems getting the adenoviruses to the target cells in the lungs. Either we have to many viral genes expressed (big immune response) or not enough to get past the immune system. Most scientists say we shouldn't use germline on humans but some might say we have been using it on mice (and other non-human animals) for a while. Any views on this? (erm, no theists please!).