This is an interesting theory, but I have one problem with it. Paraphrasing a comment made by Linda Powers after the halt was made public, she basically said, 'They're trying to turn good news into bad.' I can't make a connection between that comment and your tempting theory. Can you or anyone?
A theory that I'm more comfortable with is that either the DMC or some member thereof or the FDA saw what appeared to be an unusual amount of early progression and concluded that that meant failure of PFS. This would be the bad news. What the company were aware, and becoming more and more convinced of due to numerous data that were becoming available, was that immunotherapy can and often does cause inflammation of the tumor due to necrotic tumor tissue, infiltration of T-cells, etc., and that inflammation causes imaging to show an increase in tumor mass which would, according to measures established for SOC, otherwise indicate progression. This would be the good news. Inflammation=immune response. Wouldn't DMC be aware of this? Perhaps, but if the protocol was written in such a way (remember, it was created a few years before this time when a lot less was know of the effects of immunotherapy) that mandated assessment of tumor growth via imaging, then inflammation (i.e., immune response) would be reported as progression of the disease.
I know that there are differing opinions regarding the incidence of apparent pseudo-progression due to DCVax. That there are significant numbers of cases of treatment-induced enlargement is my conclusion.
And, getting back to Linda's comment from that time, I find it interesting wording. I am fairly certain that she said, 'They're trying to turn" good news into bad. Who are They? And, if they are trying, doesn't that mean some intentional activity? The question remains open. However....
