Hope Now for ALS

There has been a lot of recent controversy surrounding the experimental treatment in clinical trials known as GM604. A lot of misinformation has been tossed around on both sides of the issue. I want to beg your attention for a little while to explain what's really going on.

First, as many of you know, I was the single late-stage PALS who received GM6 in compassionate use. The intent behind this was to get a look at differences in biomarker candidate levels between earlier-stage and late-stage PALS. Any outward physical manifestation of improved condition noticed would be a bonus and, due to my advanced condition, no improvement in condition was expected. Nevertheless, Genervon and I came up with the idea to try to chart improvements in the tongue. The rationale is that since my tongue is only moderately affected, and because the hypoglossal nerve contains one of the shortest motor neurons in the body, any possible improvement would be noticed there first.

Because of my growing cooperative relationship with Genervon dating back to my first blog post on GM6, I was granted the only Expanded Access outside of trial. They were interested in getting a look at GM6 behavior in late-stage PALS and I had proven to them my organizational skills in preparing my own medical surveillance team and in communications by preparing the mechanism for data capture. Even a single Expanded Access Program can be a burden on such a small company not optimized for such work. My knowledge and experience gained over the past few years was of considerable help in filling out and transmitting (and following up on) my own paperwork.

Thousands of single Expanded Access requests would be overly burdensome and even if Genervon enlisted the help of the ALS Emergency Treatment Fund, the maximum number of patients who would be able to participate would be measured in the few hundreds. Not only would patients have to pay for drug but would also have to pay for their own medical surveillance team and at least one hospital visit for the first infusion (this alone represents several thousand dollars). If you are required to give biological samples, the cost tops $10,000.

Genervon shared with me much of the top-level data from the Phase 2 to compare against my own data. Even though the trial population was small, the data were stronger in separation between treatment/placebo cohorts than in any legitimate trial results I had seen before. And GM6 was demonstrated safe over a much larger group spread over three different neurological diseases (including ALS) plus a healthy safety group. For these reasons I suggested to and worked with Genervon on applying for the FDA Accelerated Approval Program in order to get GM6 to all PALS paid for by insurance and Medicare.

And thus began the shitstorm...

Researchers, neurologists, and leaders of certain advocacy organizations who believe in the FDA's 60 year old regulatory formula - comprised of designing, completing, and analyzing Phase 1, 2, 3 trials over a period of 5-15 years - are failing in their proclaimed mission. They simply have to stop regarding patients as helpless victims willing to eat rat poison if someone said it cured ALS, Genervon as somehow the 19th Century snake oil salesman, and themselves as the White Knight riding to our rescue. The very process of obtaining an experimental drug requires a lot of medical oversight, which we appreciate and rely on. However, patients are intelligent adults whose only desire is to change the status quo of scientific research for the benefit of both the current and future generations of PALS.

The 1992 FDA Accelerated Approval Program (AAP) was designed to meet the needs of patient populations where there is an urgent and unmet need. In 2012, Congress passed and the President signed into law the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act (FDASIA), strengthening the agency's ability to advance public health by equipping the FDA with tools intended to expedite the development and review of innovative new medicines that address certain unmet medical needs. Among the objectives, Title IX expanded the scope of products that qualify for accelerated approval. Specific language in this law states that the FDA is to incorporate novel approaches to the review of surrogate endpoints based on pathophysiologic and pharmacologic evidence in such guidance, especially in instances where the low prevalence of a disease renders the existence or collection of other types of data unlikely or impractical. It is obvious that Congress and the President had in mind diseases just like ALS when passing and signing FDASIA into law, yet the FDA has done very little to incorporate these guidelines.

With Congress now discussing the 21st Century Cures Act, we at Hope Now for ALS believe that we are on the right side of history by insisting that PALS are given opportunities to access new investigational treatments through the FDA's Accelerated Approval Program which, with its requirement for post-marketing Phase 4 data surveillance to confirm efficacy and safety, will continue to provide invaluable data on new treatments for ALS. As most patients are ineligible for standard clinical trials, this is our only option to contribute to research that will provide the same data at a faster rate among a larger population of patients - providing much needed data on subsets of the patient population. The Phase 4 requirements of Accelerated Approval also have the ability to save billions of dollars in research that is better spent developing more new and better investigational treatments for a myriad of neurological conditions.

I will grant that the biomarker candidates are new and not yet "proven", but FDA did allow them as endpoints in the Phase 2. They are not brand-new fabrications by Genervon and are backed by a lot of recent research by respected researchers. And they were all quite uniform in response to GM6 while the placebo group all continued in the abnormal direction. In my n=1 case report the biomarker candidates sometimes went in the reverse direction, but ALWAYS TOWARD NORMAL LEVELS. This is a great indication that GM6 promotes neuronal homeostasis - the holy grail for ALS research.

The Phase 2 was indeed also only a very small population, and in previous ALS trials of similar size it was impossible to collect reliable efficacy data in such a small cohort. However, this trial was very different from previous trials. The effect registered was much larger than in previous such trials (especially dexpramipexole) and was backed up by multiple secondary measurements not subject to any placebo effect. The combination of surprisingly-large effect size and objective biological markers sets this aside from previous trials (which also used the ALSFRS almost exclusively). There was an erroneous though well-intentioned attempt to use the released FVC information as evidence of poor trial design. However, the comparison used a very inappropriate analogy population and was built on an assumption based on incorrect data.

I do have serious issues with a point used in arguments against GM6: The lithium debacle. The media reports which came out obviously created a lot of excitement within the patient community. Our first reaction was asking and pleading the research community to quickly follow up with more trials to confirm that study and the response from the research committee was absolute disinterest. Therefore the patient community took it upon themselves to create a verification study, which we did. We did *NOT* merely go out and start using lithium off-label. In fact, it was only after our trial data was being released that the research community decided to do a confirmation study. By then we had already demonstrated that lithium had no effect in ALS and begged the research community to not waste time and millions of dollars.

But again, the research community ignored the patient community.

The Hope Now for ALS movement isn't for GM6 to skip the regulatory process. It's to get FDA to use its existing programs and Congressional mandate to provide potentially life-saving treatment to PALS. This is especially important now that truly-effective treatments are very near (including NP001, Neurown, etc.). Caution is obviously warranted but ALS is a race against a clock that doesn't care. More aggressive strategy is thus required which necessitates a little less caution and a lot more courage.

In summary, the facts are:

• Genervon asked FDA for Accelerated Approval at the post-Phase 2 meeting where they presented the complete trial data plus the case report for my Compassionate Use project. I know this to be true because I co-wrote the cover letter to the data package and it specifically asked for Accelerated Approval (and it was me who urged Genervon to pursue AAP).
• The FDA should have responded with specific instructions on how to file. They did not and thus we were all left in a state of confusion. Then FDA took the unusual step of calling on Genervon to publicly release proprietary data. Genervon has no duty to do so and FDA has no authority to make such a request.
• Genervon has perfectly complied with law and regulation. All they want is to help and they believe GM6 can do that. The data so far looks good (and I can say that, having actually seen it where all others commenting otherwise have not). It's not a slam-dunk, but it's positive and safe enough that I think all PALS should have access to it - not just those eligible for clinical trial.
• The FDA Accelerated Approval Program, in place since 1992 to deal with fatal diseases for which no other treatments exist, is the best way to save lives. It opens access WHILE CLINICAL TRIALS STILL CONTINUE. It's used for cancer and other diseases with less-severe prognosis. Why not ALS?
• GM6 has a perfect safety record in over 50 patients across 3 separate neurological conditions plus a healthy initial safety cohort.
• This is about patients deciding for themselves what risk to take in treatment. This is NOT about a company trying to avoid the clinical trial process or enrich itself on patients desperation. The AAP is an existing program which gives patients access to potentially life-saving treatment while collecting the valuable efficacy data.
• Contrast Genervon's completely legal and transparent actions to other companies marketing unproven products such as lunasin and aimspro directly to patients using email. Those companies use slick pitches with "proof" based purely on non-accepted metrics and anecdotes.
• The movement behind GM6 is entirely grassroots.

The above are facts. All of the "expert opinion" going around is just biased speculation.

Scuttle Rebuttal

I am a little peeved at a new attack on the push for FDA's Accelerated Approval Program for the ALS treatment called GM6 (known as GM604 in clinical trials). This attack basically follows the same line as the one from the ALS Association (and in fact incorporated it by reference). Both are sloppy and disingenuous in style and content. They attempt false comparison to other previously-failed trials without including the reasons for those previous failures and they also try a very clumsy smear by comparison to an act of intentional clinical fraud. I am disappointed that such comparisons are presented to a public looking for facts as well as hope.

First let me discuss the false comparison to previous trial:

1. The comparisons are false primarily because the old trials exclusively used the ALS Functional Rating Scale (ALSFRS) which is a horrible metric by even the most generous interpretation. This is the only way a call for large trials can be justified, because the numb insensitivity of the ALSFRS (even the Revised version) requires such to make any kind of meaningful conclusion in a heterogeneous disease like ALS. However, the GM6 trial used several biomarker candidates and other objective clinical measurements as surrogate end-points (keep that phrase in mind) which correlated which the subjective end-points such as the ALSFRS-R. The biomarkers used were suggested and evaluated by Dr. Robert Bowser, a 2015 winner of the Sheila Essey Award for significant research contributions to fighting ALS.
2. Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF), one of the neurotrophic factors listed in Dr. Dickie's post, doesn't cross the Blood Brain Barrier (BBB). It's almost impossible to get a therapeutic dose into the patient without an intrathecal infusion (directly into spine) using a pump over time. This has numerous obvious drawbacks. It's also very unclear whether a single neurotrophic factor is useful in ALS, which encompasses a host of deficiencies.
3. Cilliary Neurotrophic Factor (CNTF) does cross the BBB and early animal model tests indicated efficacy. However, two human trials in 1996 using subcutaneous delivery and intrathecal delivery as well as a review in 2004 revealed no efficacy in lower doses and serious side-effects at high doses. It's also important to note that the animal data came well before the excellent work ALSTDI did characterizing the extreme difficulties in using that model. Any ALS mouse data released prior to 2009 (and any subsequent found to not strictly follow those guidelines) should be considered suspect. I have personal knowledge of the difficulty in using this model and the false-positive data which can result from improper use.
4. Next, Insulin-like Growth Factor 1 (IGF-1) also crosses the BBB but has a very very short biological half-life, meaning it is broken down and excreted in a matter of hours. That makes therapeutic levels almost impossible to maintain. A form was created with a buffering agent attached to IGF-1 which roughly doubled the half-life but even that was woefully inadequate. Anyone who remembers the IPLEX debacle of a few years ago knows the story.

The comparisons to such single-target neurotrophic factors as BDNF, CNTF, and IGF-1 are therefore flawed in logic and fact. It is very disingenuous for Dr. Dickie to compare GM6 to them as GM6 is a master regulator and acts in 12 relevant pathways simultaneously. This information is already in the public domain freely available for anyone to look up.

Next, Dr. Dickie compares the GM6 results with those of the initial results of NP001 (actually he links to his own blog post where he addresses the anecdotal reports which came before the official results were published). What he failed to mention was the updated post-hoc analysis which showed a halt of disease progression in 27% of patients in the trial. Further, the analysis showed statistically significant evidence of two biomarkers which identified responding sub-groups. This is a tremendous achievement in ALS clinical trial history. Unfortunately the biomarkers aren't the same in the GM6 trial so the comparison of the two is incomplete at best. The only real similarity is that both trials used biomarkers as secondary end-points. However, the GM6 trial used them in a way that didn't require post-hoc analysis.

The comparison with lithium is especially troubling. First, it was far from "recent", with patient excitement starting in 2007. You can find the data collected in the first PALS-led and created clinical trial which coincidentally also involved lithium. What both ALSA and MNDA failed to report about the study which started the excitement ("Fornai, et al., 2008") was that the study essentially "cooked the books" by assigning PALS with slow progression of disease to the treatment group while putting the more standard PALS in the placebo group. This was revealed only after the paper was published. In the GM6 trial, run by two leading and internationally well-respected ALS researchers and clinicians, all participants were randomly assigned to receive either drug or placebo. The only way the comparison to the lithium study would be accurate is if the researchers deliberately placed certain patients in each cohort. Genervon merely supplied GM6. The trial was run and data collected by the two principle investigators (fancy name for doctors who run clinical trials). The analysis was then also done by a contract research facility. So any implication that Genervon somehow fabricated the data is false and besmirches the reputations of two prominent ALS doctors.

It must be noted and repeated that the standard FDA clinical trial practice is indeed extremely important in terms of protecting the public from the unscrupulous. The collection of objective scientific data is the foundation of good medical care. Nobody calling for the Accelerated Approval of GM6 disputes this. However, because ALS is so rapidly and uniformly fatal, we are calling for FDA to utilize the discretion it was granted in the face of an earlier similar crisis (the AIDS epidemic). Further, we call on everyone to realize that the GM6 trial used much more than the ALSFRS as a metric and thus smaller trial populations are much more statistically significant than before. The other end-points used in the Phase 2 are objective and not subject to placebo effect. Therefore, the indication of efficacy observed in the trial should be considered stronger than in previous trials which relied almost solely on the ALSFRS.

The Accelerated Approval Program was created to bridge the gap between the need for data and the urgent unmet needs of patients with rapidly-fatal diseases. The GM6 trial was unique in the strength of the preliminary efficacy signal, largely due to the objective biomarker end-points used. Just like the early days AIDS crisis, PALS have no meaningful treatment options and thus no hope. We want to use the very FDA program created to deal with that situation. We admit the need for more scientific data. But we don't want to die while it's collected.

Condition Green

As many of you might already know, I was the late-stage PALS mentioned in the recent Genervon press release. I got interested in this drug some time ago, did some research on it and wrote a blog post about it. I had contacted the company, Genervon, to get information for my post. Thereafter, a dialogue was maintained regarding clinical trial status and future development plans. Being that I am a late stage PALS and still extremely active in awareness, advocacy, and science, they agreed to my request for compassionate use. It was another 9 months going through the process of authorization (mostly because my local hospital had never done anything like this before and together we created a new protocol).

During that time the Phase 2A results came out and I was given access to some of the data. Those, combined with my own experience, gave me the satisfaction that this drug was safe and quite likely effective. I share the concerns about trial size, but like all PALS am concerned for the time required to go through the usual phases of clinical trials. The clinical trial program actually has four parts:

• Phase 1 - single dose usually in healthy subjects for gauging safety
• Phase 2 - use in actual patients looking at safety and initial efficacy
• Phase 3 - larger patient population with different doses, efficacy and SAEs
• Phase 4 - market surveillance for adverse events

Not only does it take time to fully enroll and execute a large clinical trial but it takes even more time to secure the funding necessary to begin each phase. This is especially true in this current era of venture capital avoiding biotech investment.

I have helped launch other initiatives to get PALS access to experimental treatments. It is critical that patients get more than one or perhaps two chances at early access to treatment while they are newly diagnosed. Drugs that are possibly effective must be made broadly available to patients who are facing otherwise-certain death. Based on the safety and the indication of efficacy in GM6 (mainly borne of my personal experience), I got behind the effort to seek what FDA calls Accelerated Approval so that many more PALS can try it and see where it takes us. Accelerated Approval requires full data surveillance for efficacy, not just serious adverse events (SAEs). The efficacy data determines whether final approval is made. Basically, Accelerated Approval is like a Phase 3 where patients/insurance pay for participation. I believe all PALS would gladly participate in such a program.

If the wider data don't support the continued use of GM6 I will be the first to admit it. But right now I believe GM6 has the capability to effectively treat ALS in a way no previous drug ever has. And I want to get that opportunity as quickly as possible to as many PALS as possible.

After publishing the press release and posting it on social media and online forums, another PALS started a petition to the FDA to demonstrate the support in the ALS Community for this Accelerated Approval. I would like to urge all who are concerned about ALS - PALS/CALS/Friends - to sign this petition and share it among your social circles. At that link you can sign the petition and post comments to be included with your name. You can also find links to email Senators who oversee FDA and proposed text for those messages.

It is imperative that the comments left on the petition signatures be respectful. FDA isn't the enemy. They really would like nothing better than to approve a treatment for ALS but need the data to support it. I think we have the data because even though the population was small, the slope of decline as measured by the ALSFRS-R was reduced significantly during the short treatment window. Also, certain biomarker candidates were tracked and correlated with progression. Nevertheless, FDA has to be very careful with the precedent it sets so we as patients must be partners with them in these decisions.

My own experience with GM6 has been positive. The worst part of the entire project was getting the PICC line and the lumbar punctures for CSF samples to make biomarker measurements. I experienced absolutely no adverse events related to the drug. Insofar as benefits, I must admit that the small gains in function noted in the press release are most likely due to surviving neurons branching out new axon terminals to cover the neuromuscular junctions (NMJs) abandoned by the dying motor neurons affected by ALS. GM6 will NOT regrow dead motor neurons. However, it does induce healing in injured ones. In my case, I probably don't have many injured motor neurons - most of mine are gone. But people who are more recently diagnosed have a higher chance of regaining some lost function in addition to stopping progression.

Based on the information I have seen and my own positive experience, along with the considerable (at best) delay in commencing a larger Phase 2 or 3 trial, I think GM6 deserves Accelerated Approval. I also think this could set a beneficial precedent for future drugs which show similar safety and efficacy signals in early trials. Hence my hope for GM6 getting into the larger population of PALS.

IceBucket The Blue Sky

The #ALSIceBucketChallenge has been nothing short of a miracle for patients and researchers. Internet memes are rather capricious, having a nearly random hit/miss ratio. That this became so huge is a stroke of incredible luck. The awareness, and resulting increase in donations, has been a huge windfall. This surge couldn't have come at a better time as researchers now have exquisite investigational tools not available even 5 years ago.

There is then the begged question, "Why did it take a patient and a tractor trailer full of luck to bring awareness to the public?" For decades there have been organizations claiming to represent ALS patients. Yet never has there been a sustained national awareness project executed. Patients were left largely on their own to create awareness. This is a question to which we as patients should demand an answer.

Nevertheless, the windfall is upon us. I believe that this boost in funding should be used to create a critical mass of awareness and outreach. As stated, Internet memes are capricious and subject to fading from the public memory with all the speed and ferocity with which it entered. This is the perfect time to keep the message sustained in the public view. Certainly the money to do so is now available.

Another question the ALS patient community should be asking is how much of the massively increased donations are going to be actually used for research, and in what programs. Some donations are going directly to research facilities but the bulk of them are not. Is that bulk to be hoarded and doled out in tiny slices and without focus to a wide variety of basic research projects, never giving any sufficient amounts to fully complete the work? Or will a significant effort be launched which will fund focused work on high-value pathways, including helping fund clinical trials in humans (there are a few promising treatments languishing for lack of funding to pay clinics to conduct Phase 2-3 trials).

This is the time for organizations representing the ALS patient community to step up. The shelf-life of popular public awareness is notoriously short. We need to take this opportunity to create a program of sustained awareness and lobbying for research funding, along with a focused research effort encompassing basic research through to human trials. It is also the time for all research and advocacy organizations to come together as a united front in order to make ALS nothing more than an unpleasant memory.

Eye Caramba!

I would like to urge all of my readers to immediately visit this Kickstarter project. So much better than potato salad, this device is a revolutionary step forward in personal portable Speech Generating Device (SGD) technology. It's wearable and allows eye contact with your conversation partner while using eyegaze.

DIG THE BEAUTY OF THIS DESIGN:

The keyboard and other controls are displayed right before your eyes. The generated voice comes from the glasses so it appears to come from you, creating a more natural conversation experience. You're outside in bright sunlight? No problem! The glasses come with pop-on shades and because the eye-tracking camera is inside, it's shielded from solar infrared glare. And best of all, the control unit is basically an Android-powered smart phone. This means superior portability and an open-source platform for future app development!

The man behind this innovation, Ivo Vieira, has a history of successful optical technology in satellites (his original company, Luso-Space, has a very exciting mission nearing launch to measure gravity waves with orbiting lasers). His father has ALS and is very disappointed with current eyegaze technology. Furthermore, we have met personally and I am very impressed not only with his development, but with his future plans to increase quality while decreasing costs. I am proud to recommend this project to you all. Please support this Kickstarter and help get the Eyespeak into commercial production ASAP.

Of Mice And Me

As many of my readers know, about two years ago I came across a study investigating a novel molecule for the treatment of Alzheimer's. The molecule, J147, is a synthetic derivative of curcumin. Curcumin and other similar molecules have long been under study for neurodegenerative diseases. Unfortunately curcuminoids have rather poor bioavailability, meaning they are quickly excreted from the body and require high amounts to have a therapeutic value. Like curcumin, J147 is "orally available" (meaning it is introduced to the body by eating it) but is more than 100X as potent. This means a much smaller quantity is necessary for therapeutic effect. So far, we haven't found a toxic dose of J147. Work on toxicity is ongoing.

In the Alzheimer's study J147 had remarkable results in that model. The pathways acted upon were quite relevant to ALS. These include potent antioxidant effects, significant reduction of microglia activation and migration, and reduction of heat-shock protein expression which indicates a shift back toward cellular homeostasis. More recent data (unpublished) indicates an effect in reducing astrocyte activation, which is sufficient to rapidly kill even healthy motor neurons.

Unfortunately, because J147 is pleiotropic, pharmaceutical companies weren't interested. The current research paradigm is to focus on single molecular targets. For diseases with a single mechanisms, that's a fine method of attack. But ALS has quite a few things going on simultaneously. All prior single-target treatments have failed and the current growing opinion is that successful treatment would require a cocktail of drugs. Better to have a single pleiotropic substance than a mixture of chemicals with uncertain interactions.

In April, 2013, I created SciOpen Research Group in order to have an entity capable of negotiating research and licensing of novel molecules with the promise of treatment of ALS. J147 is our first project. In the early summer of 2013, SRG applied to Prize4Life for access to their colony of G93A transgenic research mice at Jackson Laboratories. Our research proposal for J147 was accepted and we were given granted sufficient animal numbers to properly conduct our study. We received the mice and started the experiment at the end of January.

We are very excited to have commenced our first research program and demonstrate that guerrilla biotechs can perform quality science. To that end, we created a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo to obtain funding for the next step of the experiment - microscopic tissue examination. This will tell us exactly what J147 did to help the motor neurons in the mice.

Please donate if you can. All donations are tax-deductible. If you cannot donate please spread word about SRG and our need for funding this new and exciting research.

Pot Luck

An article appeared on social media about a group of parents using cannabidiol (CBD) for their children's epilepsy. Unlike the usual reports of people using marijuana and subjectively reporting "improvements", this group of patient advocates went and filed an Investigational New Drug (IND) with the FDA. Don't get me wrong - I support the medical (and recreational) use of marijuana, but heretofore the real scientific data available has been extremely thin. Rather than going on Silk Road to get a bunch of medicine then post wonderful stories on social media, this group created a real clinical trial in cooperation with FDA and a company named GW Pharmaceuticals which supplied a pure oil formulation of CBD. This is a very important development in patient-driven access to investigational drugs. Far better than the usual DIY projects (even the handful started by yours truly), this type of project can deliver real, verifiable, and scientifically-accepted results.

The body contains cannabinoid receptors both in the CNS and periphery. The most well-known cannabinoid ligand is THC (a CB1 agonist) which is responsible for the euphoric psychoactive effect in marijuana. Both natural and synthetic cannabinoids long been of interest in treating disease. What's of most interest in medicine are the anti-inflammatory effects of CB2 agonists such as cannabidiol or CBD. Endogenous CB2 receptors are upregulated in the spinal cords of SOD1 transgenic mice. CBD agonists show symptomatic improvement in several inflammatory diseases. There is evidence that CB2 receptors are upregulated in response to the inflammatory microglial activation in ALS. Several studies have shown that CB2 agonists have a beneficial effect in transgenic SOD1 mice. This data shows that more work, perhaps in in human patients, is warranted.

Alternative medicine is very popular in the ALS Community because, frankly, there is nothing currently available proven to extend the lives of PALS. Unfortunately most experiments are done without adequate objective observation and recording of data. Instead all that is reported are vague descriptions of improvement, skewing any rational perception of the particular alternative medicine. This causes more desperate patients to attempt the alternative with the same lack of adequate reporting.

This post, however, is not about calling for an IND for CBD (which would nevertheless be a good idea). The point here is to spotlight that a group of patients and/or advocates got together to do an experiment outside of an institutional clinical trial. They led the way and did it themselves while preserving the valuable objective data. They created their own hope in a seemingly hopeless situation. This is the ultimate expression of DIY Medicine, done properly and openly. Any other method is a waste of time, money, and health.

There is actually much more opportunity than just experiments with speculative alternative medicine. Hope exists for the approximately 60% of living PALS who don't qualify for clinical trials. That hope is the FDA Expanded Access Program (EAP). PALS should request EAPs for those investigational treatments which have passed the Phase 2 endpoint requirements of safety and suggested efficacy. Furthermore, they should support efforts to bring EAPs to the ALS Community. Living, even for the healthy, requires hope. We, the ALS Community, like everything else we have accomplished, must create our own hope by being pioneers and responsible citizen scientists.

Jumping Joan!

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Precision Stem Cell

The following should not be taken as a recommendation (or warning) regarding Precision Stem Cell. However, that facility was recently rendered an injustice which requires correction.

On March 19, 2013, ALS Worldwide (ALSWW) published a report on the procedure carried out by Dr. Jason Williams at Precision Stem Cell in Gulf Shores, Alabama (PSC). The report was particularly scathing. However, it was replete with inaccuracies. I would like to contrast points from the ALSWW report with facts reported to me from a number of independent sources which include Dr. Williams, persons who have visited his clinic, and patients treated by Dr. Williams in the subject stem cell procedure. To begin with, I will briefly explain the theoretical underpinnings of the procedure Dr. Williams performed, as well as his motivation for doing something outside of his original medical training.

Dr. Williams explains his history, procedure, rationale, and plans for development in a recently-released video. He had been doing mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) extraction and delivery into joints for a time, a somewhat routine procedure done in many clinics as a sports rehabilitation therapy. A friend, Frank Orgel, approached him about trying the procedure to treat his own ALS. Dr. Williams was initially skeptical but after online literature research learned of studies done using this technique in laboratory settings. Note that the link here is not necessarily the one used by Dr. Williams. The reader can search PubMed using the terms "autologous stem cells amyotrophic mesenchymal" and be presented with results which are representative of the applicable published studies.

Selegiline (Anipryl, L-deprenyl, Eldepryl, Emsam, Zelapar) is a drug used for the treatment of early-stage Parkinson's disease, depression and senile dementia. Dr. Williams found published studies suggesting that selegiline treatment of MSCs was sufficient to trans-differentiate them toward a neural lineage. Dr. Williams extracts the MSCs via machines made exactly for the purpose of extraction of adipose (fat) tissue and real-time separation of MSCs from the adipose tissue. The extraction and separation process is all done in a sterile closed system. The MSCs are then bathed in selegiline solution created by from powder mixed with sterile saline using a professional compounding protocol. After treatment, the cells are then injected into the spine via lumbar puncture The idea is that the treated cells are a mixture of MSCs and neural-lineage cells which then quell the inflammatory aspect of ALS and provide neurotrophic factors. The extent and duration of benefit is presumed based on severity of progression (ie patients with a slower, less aggressive, progression would experience more benefit and of a longer duration).

TCA Cellular of Louisiana had been previously conducting a clinical trial using intrathecal delivery of MSCs to treat ALS until they were shut down for improperly administering the procedure outside of trial (including allogenic products delivered to some patients). Currently, The Mayo Clinic is conducting a similar trial. Clearly there is scientific rationale for investigating this procedure as a treatment for ALS. While Dr. Williams started with the cart before the horse, if you will, he has matured his operation into a true investigative research program. He is partnering with accredited researchers and is forming a company specifically to handle the research program. Together they are working on a genetic modification of the MSCs to more abundantly deliver anti-inflammatory and neurotrophic factors as well as concurrent delivery of the treatment vehicle to the patient cells to help the host cells defend themselves from disease process. This can be likened to the Brainstorm product which nearly everyone is excited about.

1. Precision Stem Cell is conducting a trial
As discussed above, Dr. Williams never claimed that his procedure was a clinical trial. He expanded his current practice of treating joint damage to ALS by request of a friend seeking the possibility of relief via MSC injection. Labeling the procedure as a "trial" and then remarking that there is no rigorous data collection is disingenuous at best. Further, discussion of pricing in the report appears deliberately worded to taint Dr. Williams as a con artist of the sort endemic in the world of life-threatening diseases. Dr. Williams is indeed now planning a trial, in preparation for which he has ceased treating patients, but none of the previous treatments were ever represented as a trial. Dr. Williams had been planning to transition to a trial many months prior to the ALSWW visit.

2. Dr. Williams has no credentials as a neurologist/plastic surgeon
This is true. However, neither of these qualifications are necessary to perform the subject procedure. Mechanically it is almost no different from the joint therapy he has been performing for years. Injection into the spine does carry extra risk. However, nurses without neurology credentials routinely administer spinal taps and injection of spinal block anesthesia daily around the United States, and without benefit of the imaging equipment employed by Dr. Williams. Insofar as the liposuction, Dr. Williams is certified in the use of that equipment since 2010 and can produce a copy of such certificate upon demand.

3. Positive effects lasted only 1-4 days
While the positive effects noted by some patients could indeed merely be placebo effect (impossible to determine either way absent double-blind trial), how Mr. Byer makes this claim is a puzzle. He never contacted any of the patients referred to him by Dr. Williams. The "days" time estimate Mr. Byer repeated in the ALSWW report appears to have come from a public post from a person on the ALSTDI forum. That person denies having been contacted by Mr. Byer.

4. The clinic is a poorly-equipped "stem cell facility"
Leaving aside a discussion of exactly what a "stem cell facility" is, PSC is a radiological facility. No surgical procedures are performed. The equipment used to extract, manipulate, and reintroduce the MSCs are all routine equipment useful in many procedures involving filtering and extraction of select fluids/tissue. The protocol for harvesting MSCs has been well-documented for decades. The liposuction and extraction are done with machines built exactly for those tasks in a closed system which guarantees sterility. The mention of the equipment not being FDA-approved for extracting MSCs is a total red herring apparently intended to taint the reader's opinion of PSC.

5. Sterile procedures are not followed - infection risk
Sterile procedures are indeed not followed. The reason for this is that they are unnecessary. The entire movement of cells is done via hypodermics, transferring from the patient from one sealed sterile container to another throughout the entire process and back to the patient. Alcohol swab wipe on external surfaces prior to injection is all that is necessary. There is no open surgery requiring a sterile environment. Despite the claim in the ALSWW report, surgical drapes are indeed used during liposuction. Talking about the radiology suite as an "OR" is another disingenuous attempt to discredit PSC. The table talked about is a standard flouroscopy table so Dr. Williams can use imaging guidance for his procedure. Photographs reveal the table to be very clean and in fine shape. Since patients are not under general anesthesia or sedation, the risk of "easily falling off" is a function of zero.

6. Patients have retracted statements of benefit
This claim is a mystery because the patients to whom Dr. Williams referred Mr. Byer deny having been contacted. The patient Mr. Byer apparently used in this example denies having been contacted by Mr. Byer. Further, he maintains his original statement.

7. Williams uses a 0.8 micron filter making MSC harvest impossible
Dr. Williams uses an 80 micron filter. It is possible that Mr. Byer was observing another filter type or misread the label. Dr. Williams admits the possibility of having handed Mr. Byer a 0.8 micron filter by accident. Nevertheless, this question could have been resolved by email or phone call prior to publication.

8. The selegiline mixture is unsanitary
The selegiline is not, as claimed in the ALSWW report, ground in a mortar and pestle at PSC. The selegiline solution used for bathing the MSCs is made with sterile saline (not distilled water) under the guidance and protocol of David Rothbardt, a registered compounding pharmacist. According to Dr. Williams, neither Mr. Byer nor his medical adviser Dr. Hematti ever observed compounding of selegiline at PSC. Further, the selegiline is removed via rinse after bathing period and prior to reintroduction to the patient.

9. The PSC facility has no vapor lock system
Perhaps Mr. Byer has confused PSC with a biohazard facility? This allegation makes no sense and appears another in a long string of comments included to confuse the uninformed and unwary.

As demonstrated above, the report by ALSWW is full of inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and diversions from truth. The motivations for Mr. Byer to publish that report are beyond the scope of this blog post. The facts are that PSC is a clinic offering a treatment used by many clinics for joint rehabilitation. The equipment and techniques are common and well-documented. The facility is clean and the procedure is carried out under appropriately-sterile conditions. The applicability of this treatment to ALS is unknown, although the study data available is compelling enough for The Mayo Clinic to run a clinical trial.

There are some questions regarding the treatment provided by Dr. Williams. The dosages administered are estimates based on instrument capacity rather than actual flow cytometry count. The data regarding selegiline needs further independent verification. Without evaluation, it's impossible to know how complete is the presumed process of trans-differentiation of MSCs to neural lineage. The efficacy of either straight or selegiline-treated MSC intrathecal injection is still an open question.

However, one thing is clear: PSC did not deserve such a baseless derogatory review from ALSWW.

PSAwesome

On Monday of last week, this excellent PSA was released by Team Gleason. It was shown on the big screens inside the Superdome but needs to be shown repeatedly on major network television (ie ABC/CBS/NBC). Please watch, share with friends, and send to your local network television stations. This is the kind of message that needs to get in front of the eyeballs of America. This is the celebrity action we have been asking for. Now let's do our part in getting it out there.

Sugar Smack

Sugar, Sugar (The Archies - 1969)

I am not a real "food crusader". I eat a lot of meat and drink my share of alcohol, and didn't mind tossing down the occasional fast-food burger or pizza. But since the late 20th Century a shift began toward the use of fructose as a cheap sweetener. Instead of cane sugar, manufacturers started using high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) to sweeten things like beverages (ever notice how Coca-Cola tastes better in other countries? It ain't just the glass bottle, son...). Not only is this highly-subsidized sweetener cheaper for manufacturers, it reacts hormonally different in the body from regular glucose sugar.Fructose does not provide the same feeling of satiety nor does it calm the pleasure centers of the brain responsible for food and reward seeking.

HFCS is now found not only in candies and other common sugary foods, but it is being added to EVERYTHING. You can find it in nearly every snack food such as chips, to condiments, to even sliced loaf bread! It's not very difficult to draw a correlation between the new ubiquity of HFCS in food and the growing obesity/diabetes issue in America. And don't think the food conglomerates aren't aware of the power of this addictive ingredient.

So why am I bringing this up on a blog about ALS and related issues? Eventually PALS will require a PEG tube for adequate nutrition. The formula given for use in the PEG is loaded with HFCS. In fact, it's in the first 3 ingredients. HFCS is the way the manufacturers boost the calorie density of the formula. My own personal experience with PEG formula is that it ended up crashing my pancreas. I was in such a diabetic shock that the doctors actually said that I might not survive the night (hogwash, I say!).

I struggled for a few weeks with my new diabetic condition. Finally I said enough to the drugs and insulin injections and started having real food pureed with fortifications such as milk products, avocados, and other vitamin supplements. Getting off that formula was the best health decision since getting my vent. I urge all PALS to eschew formula and use real pureed food. Getting a healthy diet isn't hard at all.

Wide Open

Tonight I found a double-helping of tasty news: "Regulatory T-lymphocytes mediate amyotrophic lateral sclerosis progression and survival" (PDF). So what's the big deal? Let me explain in two parts - the scientific then the soapbox.

Open Book - Pt. 2

(sorry for the long delay between parts but I was engaged in other projects, and I had to find the top of my head)

As I said in Part 1, Elsevier, a multibillion-dollar scientific publishing company, is trying to present itself as a friend of Open Access.

Is this a joke?

Residentiality

Last night (at time of writing) I was treated to a personal guided tour of the Steve Saling ALS Residence in Chelsea, MA. My tour guide, via laptop webcam, was my friend Lisa Jones-Wyhlidko, the dynamo who does such excellent volunteer work for ALS Guardian Angels. She dialed me up using Google Hangout (up to 9 people in a group teleconference - a really wonderful free tool!) and said she was going to walk me around and show off the Residence.

Response-able

I was recently alerted to a blog called Science-Based Medicine which had a post that was rather critical of me. The post was written by David Gorski, a managing editor of Science-Based Medicine. If you read the post, you can probably understand why I took a little umbrage to Dr. Gorski's characterization of my efforts. Below is my response to him, shared here for my readers' convenience.

Tobii Or Not Tobii

As many readers may already know, I am really outraged by the pathetically weak computer systems that underlie the Tobii (and some other systems...). For a device costing $20K one would expect more than a low-power 32-bit CPU and 1-2GB of RAM. The computer hardware would fetch around $500 by itself. Is the software and eyegaze device really worth $19K? Having licensed high-end software for corporate development use in my career, I can comfortably say no.

Thomas Ohlson - Guest Blog

I would like to introduce to my readers my friend Tom Ohlson. He was diagnosed the same year I was and we are both "venterloquists". Although the circumstances suck, I am glad to have met him and am excited to present the following as a guest-blog entry. I feel exactly the same way.
Last week, on the 4th of July, scientists announced they may have discovered the Higgs boson. Frankly, I think if it were not a holiday and if there was nothing else newsworthy taking place, this announcement would have still have received little notice despite the significance of this discovery. This is unfortunate for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which is how American scientific curiosity has been replaced by a need for superficial sensationalism. Dont take my word for it--just look at the amount of major network news airtime devoted to the Higgs boson announcement vs. the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes divorce announcement. Still, the discovery of the Higgs boson sounded a clarion call across the planet--great discoveries are still out there to be made and with them, comes great hope.

UnBearable

The hit movie "Ted" has stirred up some controversy in the ALS Community. I usually ignore such jokes (and sometimes even laugh along, including bits involving Stephen Hawking and a recurring "Hawking-esque" teacher character in Family Guy a few seasons ago). But this was over the line. I have lived with ALS for 7 years. In 5 years, ALS took away from me everything I had built in the previous 20. It is currently robbing me of the most productive years of my life. Man to man, I hope you DON'T get Lou Gehrig's Disease.

MacFarlane and Wahlberg owe the ALS Community some awareness.

PALS can't bear Ted.

Petition for awareness.

Pet The Petition

A few months ago, I posted about publishing companies trying to charge for access to research studies paid for by taxpayers. Today my friends at The Doctor Weighs In posted about a way for each of us to really make a difference in this fight.

The White House has an online petition system where citizens can weigh in on issues before the President. If the petition gets 25,000 "signatures" within 30 days of it being created, it will be presented to the President where it must become part of the policy discussion. This is a great way for We, The People, to address and direct our government (especially in these times of corporate-captured government).

There is a petition currently in circulation to demand that scientific research paid for with taxpayer dollars remain freely accessible to anyone wishing to read it. The current signature count is just shy of 16,400 and I strongly urge my readers to sign and share this petition by email and/or social media. Working together we can ensure our intellectual property isn't stolen and we are then charged for its return by the very thieves who stole it.

All Alone

It's the middle of ALS Awareness Month. Individuals have been doing an excellent job of pushing awareness in their local circles. This includes pet groomers holding awareness and fundraising events,