Congratulations to the team at King’s College London, who have managed to achieve the first claimed “cure” of Type 1 Diabetes via transplanted islet cells. Just to drive the point home, the technique that they used was originally developed in Canada, so it’s a double win for socialized medical research.
The temptation is almost overpowering to speculate that the reason this particular procedure was developed outside the USA might have something to do with the fact that curing a disease with a single operation doesn’t produce a lifelong dependence on patented pharmaceuticals. But this temptation probably ought to be resisted; it’s only a single case. But well done King’s College, and perhaps this will shame our government into funding London’s hospitals properly.
{ 11 comments }
eudoxis 03.10.05 at 7:32 pm
Congratulations to the team at King’s College London, who have managed to achieve the first claimed “cure†of Type 1 Diabetes via transplanted islet cells.
The first such case in the UK, that is. Succesful islet transplantations have been carried on for a number of years in the US. The U of M has a longstanding program.
Jake 03.10.05 at 8:41 pm
Richard Lane, 61, becomes the first diabetes 1 patient in the UK to be cured after receiving beta cells (insulin making cells) from dead patients.
…
Prof. S Armiel, said … that more needs to be done to get donors, as there is a shortage of them.
hmmm
neil 03.10.05 at 8:42 pm
A number of years indeed: The transplant was performed successfully for the first time in 1999.
dsquared 03.10.05 at 9:00 pm
Just goes to show how wrong you can be I suppose.
Alan 03.10.05 at 9:08 pm
It’s possible the procedure has been performed in the UK for a while as well. The newsworthiness of the item is that this is possibly the first 100% cure, isn’t it?
antirealist 03.10.05 at 10:00 pm
But this temptation probably ought to be resisted; it’s only a single case.
So why even suggest it?
Take two other examples: CT and MR scanning were both initially developed in the UK, but the technology was rapidly adopted and extended in the US, where high-tech imaging is now a multi-billion dollar industry.
Now, I’ve heard it suggested that this shows that the US prefers to exploit other country’s innovative research, rather than invest in it itself.
Any explanation will do really, as long it serves our purposes.
beowulf888 03.10.05 at 10:28 pm
Well, as a Type I diabetic, I’ve been hearing these wonderful pronouncements about islet transplants for the past 15 years. Either there are some drawbacks to this procedure, or Eli Lilly and the other insulin barons are keeping this technology out my hands.
So where are my islets, Dude?
dsquared 03.10.05 at 7:14 pm
So where are my islets, Dude?
As far as I understand it, in somebody else’s pancreas, of which there are a shortage of donors. Also (doing a bit of research which I arguably ought to have done before), this is the second transplant case (the Canadian one was the first) where they’re actually claiming a cure, rather than a mere reduction in insulin dependence.
t. rev 03.10.05 at 9:46 pm
Aside from the facts that 1) insulin isn’t a patented pharmaceutical and 2) the recipient of the operation in question can expect a lifelong dependence on patented immunosuppresant pharmaceuticals, your point is spot on.
neil 03.11.05 at 10:59 am
Beowulf, as I understand it the drawback is extreme shortage of donors and inefficiency of process (it takes something like 20 donors to treat one patient, but there are 200 patients for each donor).
neil 03.11.05 at 11:30 am
Oh, and daniel, this is neither the first nor the second transplant where the researchers are claiming a cure. There are maybe as many as a hundred recipients around the world who no longer need insulin injections. See for instance, here, or here: “Of the 75 patients treated with islets, 64 patients were insulin-free after one year, and 52 remained insulin-free after two years.”
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