Answer the question, according to text 1.
TEXT 1
Brazilian courts tussle over
unproven cancer treatment
Patients demand access to compound
despite lack of clinical testing.
A court in the Brazilian state of São
Paulo has cut off distribution of a compound
that is hailed by some as a miracle cancer
cure — even though it has never been
formally tested in humans. On 11 November,
to the relief of many cancer researchers, a
state court overturned earlier court orders
that had obliged the nation’s largest
university to provide the compound to
hundreds of people with terminal cancer.
The compound, phosphoethanolamine,
has been shown to kill tumor cells only in lab
dishes and in mice (A. K. Ferreira et al.
Anticancer Res. 32, 95–104; 2012). Drugs
that seem promising in lab and animal
studies have a notoriously high failure rate in
human trials. Despite this, some chemists at
the University of São Paulo’s campus in São
Carlos have manufactured the compound for
years and distributed it to people with
cancer. A few of those patients have claimed
remarkable recoveries, perpetuating the
compound’s reputation as a miracle cure.
The Brazilian constitution guarantees
universal access to health care, and it is
common in Brazil for patients to turn to the
courts to access drugs that the state healthcare
system does not dispense because of
their cost. But phosphoethanolamine
presents a different situation because it is
not really a ‘drug’ at all. It is not approved by
Brazil’s National Health Surveillance Agency.
Those who argue that people who are
terminally ill have a right to try experimental
medicines saw a decision in favor of a patient in October 2015 as a significant
victory. But to the university administration,
drug regulators and cancer researchers, it
showed blatant disregard for the basic
scientific principle that a drug should be
demonstrated to be safe and effective before
being given to patients outside of a clinical
trial.
Source: Nature 527, 420–421 (adapted).
http://www.nature.com/news/brazilian-courts-tussleover-unproven-cancer-treatment-1.18864.
Access:
March 21st, 2016.