No. An eight-year-old girl did not find the cure for cancer in the Daily Mail
Well, has a “girl of eight found a cancer cure”? The Daily Mail wants to know on its page 5.
Questions in the form of headlines can be answered very simply with a ‘No’. But let’s look at the Mail’s story:
In most families, dinner table conversation is restricted to what happened at school or whether homework has been completed. But Michael Lisanti asked his eight-year-old daughter how she would cure cancer, and it seems she may have got it right.
May.
Camilla Lisanti suggested using antibiotics, ‘like when I have a sore throat’. Her parents, a husband-wife cancer research team were sceptical at first but tested out her theory in their Manchester University lab. And to their surprise, several cheap and widely-used antibiotics killed the most dangerous cancer cells.
The cancer specialist was surpised to see that antibiotics can kill cancer cells. The Mail adds:
Unknown to Camilla, a bubbly bilingual child who wants to be a teacher, some antibiotics stop cell from making mitochondria, the tiny engine rooms that supply them with energy.
When the cure for cancer is padded out with Camilla’s ability to speak you know the story is in trouble. And so it turns out.
A look around the webs turn up such stories as:
* Novel Use of Antibiotics to Treat Colorectal Cancer
* Therapeutic anticancer antibiotics have become an accepted treatment for certain types of cancer
* Antibiotic Used To Treat Fungal Infections Also Kills Cancer Cells, Research Suggests – July 9, 2007
On the Manchester University website, where Professor Lisanti is Muriel E. Rickman Chair in Breast Oncology, the scientist is quoted in full – these words do not appear in the Mail’s sensation:
“This research makes a strong case for opening new trials in humans for using antibiotics to fight cancer. Many of the drugs we used were extremely effective, there was little or no damage to normal cells and these antibiotics have been in use for decades and are already approved by the FDA for use in humans. However, of course, further studies are needed to validate their efficacy, especially in combination with more conventional therapies.”
Now to get funding for that research…
Also in the Daily Mail:
Such are the facts…
Posted: 29th, January 2015 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
