I'm getting a piece of the article, with a message to subscribe if I want to read more. Typically, if I cut and paste the article title in my address bar I can get the whole thing.

Bottom line.......................are we drowning in a sea of bullsh*t?

It's a good thing I don't believe in conspiracies.........................if I did, I'd be pondering the incredible loss of revenue that a cancer cure would represent.

I'm also getting just a piece of the article but that piece already rubs me the wrong way. The lead claims that scientists were too hasty in their cancer research studies but are taking to long to correct this. Which is it, are cancer researchers foolishly impulsive or methodical creatures stuck in their ways?

Remember that the Wall Street Journal specializes in finance and marketing, not science. Twelve years ago they were projecting a glorious financial future for most and housing would be a place for booming growth. More than likely I can find a WSJ article six to eight years ago that praised the assets of Lehman Brothers. If they cannot analyze their own complicated field correctly, why would I pay them anything to hear their comment outside of their field.

Sorry about the link, I guess when you access through Google it allows full article...here is a link to the search terms on google, as you can see it's everywhere...

Here one article discussing just esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) cell lines...

http://www.biotechniques.com/news/Major-cancer-cell-lines-contaminated/biotechniques-186762.html

This is a more comprehensive discussion including the HeLa cells....excerpt..

"Cancer and virus research and "immortal" HeLa cells

The history of human tissue cell culture began with Henrietta Lacks, a young black woman from Baltimore, who died from a highly malignant cervical cancer in 1951. Despite radiation and surgery, her tumor spread rapidly. Within eight months she was dead, at age 31. But part of Henrietta's cancer remained alive. At surgery, a few pieces of her tumor were donated to a laboratory specializing in tissue cell culture. In those days, this was a frustrating business. Most attempts to grow human cells outside the body failed. Rarely, a few cells would thrive for a while, and then die off. Henrietta's cells were kept alive by feeding them a concoction more like a witch's brew that a lab recipe for cell culture. Nevertheless, the success of the recipe heralded a new age of modern virology. As chronicled by Michael Gold, A Conspiracy of Cells (1986), the laboratory concoction consisted of: 1. Blood from human placenta. (The placenta, which nurtures the developing fetus, contains powerful hormones and a host of viruses and bacteria, as yet not fully investigated.) 2. Beef embryo extract (the ground-up remains of a three-week-old unborn cattle embryo. 3. Fresh chicken plasma obtained from the blood of a live chicken heart. For some unknown reason, Henrietta's cancer cells continued to grow vigorously. The cells did not age. Instead, if fed properly they could live and multiply indefinitely. Amazingly, her new tissue culture "cell line" proved to be "immortal." These malignant cells became the first successful human tissue culture cell line in medical history-the now famous HeLa cell line commemorating the legendary HEnrietta LAcks."

http://www.rense.com/general89/immot.htm

This from Wiki..." Studies suggest anywhere from 15-20% of the time, cells used in experiments have been misidentified or contaminated with another cell line."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_culture

http://classic.the-scientist.com/blog/display/56273/

I remember reading both a Scientific American article and a Science (the magazine) article on this contamination and complication of the HELA cells and other research stock contamination sources. This is old news that you're just finding out about. I've also chatted with a few researchers about this, too.

The HELA cells came from the tumor of one woman, Henrietta Lacks. (I highly recommend reading the book.) This tumor that killed this woman are not just surviving somewhere. This collection of tumor cells refuse to die and have crept into almost every cancer research facility. These invaluable cells are certainly a nuisance in many levels of cancer research but their proclivity to spread and thrive among cells of other tissues and individuals will continue to help us to understand cancer, immunity responses and many other aspects of our biology.

Another complication of this cross contamination that is recently being discussed in the cancer research community is the question of tumor identification itself. A single or tiny cluster of precancerous cells can metastasize to another location before becoming a tumor. So a cancerous tumor disrupting the functions of the thyroid maybe actually kidney cells that metastasized to the thyroid but the patient has two healthy, cancer free kidneys. So this brings into question what was the origin of tissue contamination when tumorous kidney cells are found in thyroid tumour cultures used in research. Did the cross contamination happen inside or outside of the patient?

Well I think what we're talking about here is the failure of research scientists to properly identify the cells they are working with.....The act of obtaining a culture and working on a cure without verifying the identity of the cell type...The taking for granted that the cells are properly labeled, and by act of omission, injecting an unknown into your research at the get go...This to me is unacceptable scientific methodology...or perhaps it's just irresponsible sloppy laboratory work....For the money we're spending, we deserve better....imo

I think you should not comment so viciously about something you obviously know nothing about.

Well why don't you explain it to me then, why this is perfectly acceptable...

Why are you misquoting me? I never said that it was perfectly acceptable. Nothing is perfect. I said that you should not be vicious about something you obviously know nothing about. Are you saying that it is acceptable to viciously attack people and a profession you know nothing about?

I think it's appropriate to question the methods being used, when they don't seem to be working properly....You seem to be the one on the attack...have I hit a nerve?

So now you're going for the ad hominen attack. Fine, that shows to me that you not only do not understand anything about bio-research but you cannot even project at all what are the ethics and complications that it takes to do bio-research.

Let me start with some simple ethics.

It is clearly more ethical to do initial testing of promising drugs and medications on a culture than it is to give the drugs untested to a human being. When the culture is a bacterium or parasite that can easily live by itself in a Petri dish supported by agar and moisture then research is relatively easy. A cancerous cell though requires the rest of the human host to survive for it to survive. We cannot culture healthy, unaltered human tissue to grow and thrive in a Petri dish. If we could then stored blood would be kept warm and fed nutrients instead of chilled and given anticoagulants to retard decomposition before use.

The first human tissue cells that were ever cultured outside of the human body were the tumour cells of Henrietta Lacks. These cells informed researchers major parts of the changes needed for human cells to be altered so that tissue could exist outside of a human body. Healthy cells do not have these modifications. HELA cells do. So researchers tried to make healty cells to be more like HELA cells so they could be cultured. Now for my first question, how would you do this?

I can honestly say this,,,,It would be almost a crime to allow this conversation to lie dominant,continue please.

I know I am not alone when I ask this thing.

Bravo

J.

Well I see that you still have not tried to answer my question, nor have you admitted that you know nothing about trying to do bio-research. Maybe you're taking the time to actually read about HELA cells. That would be nice. I hope that you are reading about HELA cells but I doubt that you would after you've condemning bio-researchers of wasting money. Had you taken the time to do a web search on identifying HELA cells you'd find that no accurate identification technique exists that does not kill the cells being identified. You can only tell what you had, not what you have. So even the best sample size measurement technique will always have an uncertainty if the sample accurately represents the sampled lot as a whole. Additionally at every measurement for any purpose, one introduces the possibility that one can contaminate a clean batch of cells. Now many, many improvements have been made over time to minimize accidental contamination. However, unlike most accidental debris results, contaminating a growth culture with a few undesired cells can now make for either a corrupted result or a brilliant revelation. Alexander Fleming made his initial discovery not by deliberately introducing a contaminant.

What Fleming did was to not be deceived by the God complex.* It is easy enough for people highly trained in any complicated field to be lured by the God complex. People who have no working knowledge of a complicated system should not condemn people for reporting an error in their work to understand the complicated system. Errors are how knowledge is created.

* Sys-Admin this link is anything but a religious reference. This 18 minute video is also the most important of all of the links I've provided here. I recommend that everyone here at CR4 should take the time to view this.

I haven't read the news articles but think I am going to follow this thread. I am a cancer survivor for 2-1/2 years now. Lost my older brother to lung cancer 11 years ago. I was more fortunate than him. God has blessed me with good health again and completed a half marathon. Hadn't really thought about the research aspect of this but this thread has piqued my curiosity.