Intelligent people ask questions...
This is science, not kindergarten. You can't draw a cause and effect relationship without a control group....The 10 patients who are still in the trial might all have survived without treatment. There is only one conclusion that seems reasonable based on the very little data presented.
The trial is meeting the goal of a ph-I study...its proving safety. If people started suffering Adverse Events (AE) or death after taking the treatment, then you have to stop. Thankfully there's only been one death, hopefully it had nothing to do with the treatment...and I assume it didn't.
But to infer that the reason the 6 patients dosed longer than 6.2 months are still alive, and the 5 dosed less than 6.2 months as well, that its due to Ziopharm's treatment....you can't do that and only an idiot would.
Yes they're receiving treatment, and yes they're still alive...but that doesn't mean one led to the other. Using that logic one could say that as the population of whales has decreased world wide, the incidence of divorce has increased in the United States, ergo killing whales causes divorce...or divorcing causes whales to die.
Obviously that's ridiculous...which is why you need control and placebo groups if you want to draw cause and effect relationships.
If you want to taste the fruit, you have to go out on a limb. But if you wait for the herd to move out on the limb....the branch tends to snap.
