and the debate will center on
scientific or regulatory issues? There can't
possibly be enough new science to have stirred up
a debate and presumably you would invite Padzur to discuss
regulation, not science. Offhand, this looks like it has taken time from science which doesn't seem to be a good thing for future patients.
Any "trade group," including those involving scientists, needs to discuss
the larger environment from time to time but I wouldn't
view this discussion as a positive. I think my initial
reaction to the panel meeting, as an infommercial more
than anything, may parallel the perceptions of the larger community. Partisan science, the chemo versus the bio parties, could be a step in the wrong direction. Unfortunately, this
is shaping up like another branch of science similar to Creationism. While this group does have a lot of committee membership from commercial and academic institutions, it does seem intent upon promoting one specific theory or approach which could lead to separation from "science" at large.
I'd be much happier, for DNDN and patients, if they had
new empirical or theoretical results to debate as this would provide new information about provenge. Is anyone at DNDN doing science? If the others in this field had so much
faith in the product, you'd think they could manage to
get funding to look at provenge with the cooperation of DNDN and publich more provenge science.
Have you obtained a copy of any of the cd54 work and
compared the claims made there to the earlier
causality(drug/prognostic effects separation)
comments related to cd8 measurements? I haven't but
I'd be curious to know if you or anyone else have. A data and content centered debate would be more helpful than a regulatory debate.