
Brazil’s cancer curse - tomkwok
http://mosaicscience.com/story/brazils-cancer-curse
======
chromano
You know what is interesting? In the city I currently live (São Carlos, an
inner city in the state of São Paulo, Brasil), there's a 20 years old research
that is helping victims of cancer with a new drug. The idea is pretty simple,
but unfortunately I don't have a source in english, so the following is in
portuguese:

[http://www.jornalciencia.com/saude/mente/5372-brasileiro-
ter...](http://www.jornalciencia.com/saude/mente/5372-brasileiro-teria-
encontrado-a-cura-do-cancer-mas-estaria-sendo-impedido-de-registrar-o-
medicamento)

Here's the interesting part though, the Brazilian government and even ANVISA
(Brazilian Health Surveillance Agency) are not giving a fuck about his
discovery, thus the researcher is covering the costs of fabrication of drug
and giving it away for free.

Thousands of people from all the country is coming to my city for this drug --
people who used it before says it is a miracle, it really works.

I guess the media can help pressing the government/ANVISA, and it is what is
already happening (very slowly though). I hope this text I'm writing spread
his discovery further and someway reach someone who can help us. I'm here for
whatever questions you have and I will do my best in answering them.

Please share.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
This sounds exactly like every quack scam out there. The mean old medical
authorities are ignoring me! They must be jealous. Yeah, that's it.

~~~
chromano
Except the researcher is distributing the drug without charging for it. He's
not interested in the money.

~~~
facepalm
How does he finance his operation?

~~~
chromano
He has more than one research, he even has a factory where he provides
materials to a big company here in Brasil. It is irrelevant for this
discussion anyways, since it is completely unrelated.

~~~
facepalm
Well it could have been the case that he still makes money from the drug, just
not from directly selling it. People could make donations, or he could give
seminars where people pay to learn how to get healthy, or whatever. Or people
prefer to do business with him because he has such a good reputation. So it's
not irrelevant.

------
ackfoo
Southeastern Brazil sits most directly under the SAA, which increases
background levels of ionizing radiation for those in the geographic area.

If there existed a map of these Li-Fraumeni variant cases, which it seems
there does not, it would be interesting to compare that with the position of
the SAA.

It seems reasonable that a P53 mutation combined with higher background
radiation would lead to increased cancer risk in those with the mutation, so
the location in southeast Brazil seems like it might not be a coincidence.

One also has to wonder if the P53 mutation itself is an artifact of high-Z
exposure, even though it looks to be identical in all cases, but the genetics
may rule that out.

It may be that the Brazilian Li-Fraumeni variant situation gives us our only
model of cancer risk in a low geomagnetic field environment, which is very
interesting for human space exploration.

~~~
dekhn
It's more likely the P53 mutation came from a Founder (individual who had the
mutation quite some time ago) that passed it on to many individuals. Whether
that original mutation was caused by a higher than average level of ionizing
radiation is entirely speculative. This does not rule out increased cancer
rates due to unrepaired ionizing radiation damage that went unrepaired to
mutant P53, although that is also pretty speculative (I mean, it's a known
fact that happens, but it's also not particularly necessary to explain the
observations here).

The part about cancer risk models and geomagnetic fields and space exploration
are a tangent, and not even a relevant or scientifically plausible one.

------
Grazester
This is an interesting article. I knew of a family that was nearly all wiped
out by cancer. One family member was my sister's best friend. She had
leukaemia and died at 13. Her younger brother and sister both lived into their
early 30's but both died of cancer. Their elder half sister(on the father's
side) died of cancer along with their mother(thought the cancer gene was on
the dad side).

I did think it was like a curse indeed.

------
MegalSlime
I hope one day works like the one of Dr. Crescenti come to the light of
public.

[http://www.crescenti.com.ar/tratamiento/informacion-
general/](http://www.crescenti.com.ar/tratamiento/informacion-general/)

------
stefantalpalaru
> a mutation in a gene called p53

The gene is called TP53 and p53 is the protein it produces:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P53](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P53)

------
ape4
Sad but true. I suppose families with a high cancer rate will die off -
evolution.

~~~
Asbostos
The article mentions that this isn't happening here and that's the problem.
It's not so severe that families die off but is severe enough to cause a lot
of ongoing casualties.

