Health issues

Experts weigh in after researchers claim to discover ‘cancer cure’

Jan 30, 2019

Researchers claim they've developed a treatment that works like an antibiotic and uses multi-target toxins to kill cancer cells, but is all as it seems? Source: Pexels

Earlier this week, an article published in the Jerusalem Post claimed that a small team of Israeli scientists had discovered what they thought was the first complete cure for cancer. Given that 18.1 million new cancer cases are diagnosed worldwide each year and that cancer is the second leading cause of death globally, the news has spread like wildfire across the internet.

According to the article, Dan Aridor and his company Accelerated Evolution Biotechnologies Ltd. developed a treatment that works like an antibiotic and uses multi-target toxins to kill cancer cells. While research is conducted daily around the world to find a possible cure and new ways of treating and diagnosing cancer, the research team said they would have the complete cure within a year.

“Our cancer cure will be effective from day one, will last a duration of a few weeks and will have no or minimal side-effects at a much lower cost than most other treatments on the market,” Aridor told the publication.

The treatment, known as multi-target toxin, uses a toxin and peptides to destroy cancer cells. While there are more than 100 different types of cancer, researchers claimed the treatment could be used to successfully cure them all. What’s more, the researchers believe the treatment will work quickly.

“We used to give AIDS patients several drugs, but we would administer them one at a time,” Ilan Morad, CEO at Accelerated Evolution Biotechnologies Ltd. Morad explained to the publication. “During the course of treatment, the virus mutated, and the AIDS started attacking again. Only when patients started using a cocktail, were they able to stop the disease.”

While the news is giving hope to millions of cancer patients, health professionals warn that it may be too soon to start celebrating.

American Cancer Society deputy chief medical officer J. Leonard Lichtenfeld wrote a blog explaining that while it would be great if the researchers were correct, their method is “far from proven” as a legitimate cancer cure. He explained that the report is based on little information and that it wasn’t published in the scientific literature where it would be subject to review.

What’s more is the trials so far have only been conducted on mice and aren’t yet in the human trial phases.

“As experience has taught us so many times, the gap from a successful mouse experiment to effective, beneficial application of exciting laboratory concepts to helping cancer patients at the bedside is in fact a long and treacherous journey, filled with unforeseen and unanticipated obstacles,” Lichtenfeld explained.

In response to the researchers’ claim the cure could be available within a year, he added that based on similar experiments in the past, the odds are that the treatment won’t be successful.

Lichtenfeld added that most hope is given to new breakthroughs when it comes to diagnosis and treatments of cancer and said while he’s hopeful the latest research is successful, he also has to be realistic.

“At the same time, we must always offer a note of caution that the process to get this treatment from mouse to man is not always a simple and uncomplicated journey,” he added.