I read this from the following link:

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070116/cancer_dca_070116/20070116/


If this is true, then I am concerned about their real concern about finding a cure for cancer.

I found this blog on another website:

-----beginning of blog-----

It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and
simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching
off their “immortality”. The drug, dichloroacetate
(DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare
metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively
safe. It also has no patent, meaning it could be
manufactured for a fraction of the cost of newly
developed drugs.
Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta in
Edmonton, Canada, and his colleagues tested DCA on
human cells cultured outside the body and found that
it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells, but not
healthy cells. Tumours in rats deliberately infected
with human cancer also shrank drastically when they
were fed DCA-laced water for several weeks.
DCA attacks a unique feature of cancer cells: the fact
that they make their energy throughout the main body
of the cell, rather than in distinct organelles called
mitochondria. This process, called glycolysis, is
inefficient and uses up vast amounts of sugar.
Until now it had been assumed that cancer cells used
glycolysis because their mitochondria were irreparably
damaged. However, Michelakis’s experiments prove this
is not the case, because DCA reawakened the
mitochondria in cancer cells. The cells then withered
and died (Cancer Cell, DOI: 10.1016/j.ccr.2006.10.020).
Michelakis suggests that the switch to glycolysis as
an energy source occurs when cells in the middle of an
abnormal but benign lump don’t get enough oxygen for
their mitochondria to work properly (see diagram). In
order to survive, they switch off their mitochondria
and start producing energy through glycolysis.
Crucially, though, mitochondria do another job in
cells: they activate apoptosis, the process by which
abnormal cells self-destruct. When cells switch
mitochondria off, they become “immortal”, outliving
other cells in the tumour and so becoming dominant.
Once reawakened by DCA, mitochondria reactivate
apoptosis and order the abnormal cells to die.
“The results are intriguing because they point to a
critical role that mitochondria play:
they impart a unique trait to cancer cells that can be
exploited for cancer therapy,” says Dario Altieri,
director of the University of Massachusetts Cancer
Center in Worcester.
The phenomenon might also explain how secondary
cancers form. Glycolysis generates lactic acid, which
can break down the collagen matrix holding cells
together. This means abnormal cells can be released
and float to other parts of the body, where they seed
new tumours.
DCA can cause pain, numbness and gait disturbances in
some patients, but this may be a price worth paying if
it turns out to be effective against all cancers.
The next step is to run clinical trials of DCA in people
with cancer. These may have to be funded by charities,
universities and governments: pharmaceutical companies
are unlikely to pay because they can’t make money on
unpatented medicines. The pay-off is that if DCA does work, it
will be easy to manufacture and dirt cheap.
Paul Clarke, a cancer cell biologist at the University
of Dundee in the UK, says the findings challenge the
current assumption that mutations, not metabolism,
spark off cancers. “The question is: which comes
first?” he says.

-----end of blog-----

This really bothers me in the sense that I personally know a person who will soon die of cancer, if she doesn't receive this drug. They took her off chemotherapy as it will no longer help her in this final stage of her cancer.

All this harmful chemotherapy that she went under, when there seems to be a common and cheap drug available that could very well save her life. The sad thing about this is that this is a drug that has been around and used for other medical problems.

This might be worth checking out on the published articles directly...

How would you do that?

It is possible that the Uni has a subscription on the appropriate papers.

As this is a commonly used substance, does anybody know where it can be obtained in Canada?

I think I would approach my physician about this, and ask to be switched to DCA (dichloroacetate) for treatment.
Its worth a shot, speak to a pharmacist as well to ask if they carry this item, there may also be a generic name for it dichloroacetate is the generic name.
Worth looking into, especially considering the nature of the person you know Daryl. Do this ASAP!!
God Bless,
Will

Well I was looking for a place to post relating to Barbara Kerr's treatment and you must have brought this forum up while I was posting it under:

What Do You Know About Naturalpath Doctors? The Contradiction.

Sorry, sometimes there are subjects that I don't find an appropriate forum topic for.

Some topics are related, therefore, it really doesn't matter where you post it.

It could have also been posted as a new topic.