Faulty headline....as usual.
Modify.....THEIRS....not yours.[img style="CURSOR: pointer" onclick=url(this.src); src="vny!://www.cheesebuerger.de/images/smilie/liebe/g038.gif" border=0]
[H1]Cancer patients told to avoid DCA drug[/H1][!-- CONTENT CONTROL START --]<=radEditorContainerHTML>[img class=ipf-featureimage id=ctl00_imgPage style="DISPLAY: none; FLOAT: left" src="" border=0] [P align=right]2007/3/23
The [A href="vny!://www.cancer.ca/"]Canadian Cancer Society[/A] is warning people not to self-medicate with dichloroacetate, or DCA, a cheap, widely available drug used to treat lactic acid buildup in children as well as people with diabetes and AIDS. The drug was never designed to treat cancer and has not been tested on human cancer patients.
"The challenge is with this drug, we don't actually know whether this may hasten their death, and it may also seriously impact their quality of life for the months that they have remaining," Heather Logan told CBC Newsworld on Thursday. Logan is the director of cancer control policy at the society.
People taking the drug at home may not be aware of DCA's side-effects, ignore the symptoms, and end up with permanent nerve damage, Logan said. Side effects of DCA include [A href="vny!://www.healthyontario.com/Conditions/P/Peripheral_neuropathy.htm"]peripheral neuropathy[/A] that damages nerves in the hands and feet.
