Stephen Davies Update

[GRAMMY]

I think there should be a funding of research and clinical trials in Italy. So many seem unhappy with the U.S. efforts maybe there would be better success other places.

Hum...crickets chirping.

[skeaman]

Hi I was looking over old posts!! Dose any body know what happened Dr. Davies ! Can anyone tell me is he still working or has he give up looking for a cure. For when you read some of his posts he was quite positive.

[khmorgan]

Hi I was looking over old posts!! Dose any body know what happened Dr. Davies ! Can anyone tell me is he still working or has he give up looking for a cure. For when you read some of his posts he was quite positive.

He's at The Florey. See http://www.florey.edu.au/about-flore...stephen-davies

[lynnifer]

At least he has some publications. lol

[nrf]

Hum...crickets chirping.

Still chirping away!

[Nicksdad]

Hi I was looking over old posts!! Dose any body know what happened Dr. Davies ! Can anyone tell me is he still working or has he give up looking for a cure. For when you read some of his posts he was quite positive.

Unfortunately, this is on us. We run from researcher to researcher like teenage girls run from one boy-band to another boy-band. Whether it be Dr. Davies, Dr. Kessler, Frank Reynolds, Dr. Silver, or even Dr. Young, we show how really desperate we are. The reality is by the time anyone's research appears to be ready to come out of a lab, somebody else has a better idea and the earlier hope and research gets dropped. There will never be incremental steps to a cure, who wants to invest money for a trial when there is already a "better idea" in a different lab someplace.

[lynnifer]

Agree with the above!!!

[Scaper1]

Really? You think that's "on us"?

[lynnifer]

No of course not .. but it does seem true that by the time something tangible seems to come out, there's already someone on to something else. Over the last year or so, I've given up hope of seeing anything.

It's just an interesting hobby to observe at this point (read with surreal sarcasm) ... so many lucky to live and never go paralyzed. Tired of living to read/hear of advancements that never make it to the end-user.

The reality is that I'll die of some sort of sepsis, having never felt my legs ever again. It's time to accept that fate. I did the best I could with what I had. That's all any of us can do.

[Dlevy]

Makes you wonder if the research community shouldn't bear some responsibility to make something available. They enjoy a funded career performing interesting research. No stress whatsoever. Yet none fight to get their results to people that want to risk the consequence of an experimental therapy. My inquiry to Silver is a dead end. Do they not care that we are ready to die to try? Harkama's epic stem is locked away and hidden. None of them speak loudly to make these advances available. My suicide would go unnoticed. And Grammy spare me the insults please.

[lynnifer]

You can't deny a man making a living: Davies .. Huang .. Xiao Even I made a living from other people's misfortune as a 911 dispatcher.

Silver is way out and still in lab studies but we knew this. I really do believe he is working as fast as he can within the constraints that he has.

The e-stim there is just no excuse for ... studies until 2020 and then there will be more studies. Then again, if they came out with something now and lots of us had it implanted with insurance paying .. and then they come out with something better six months or so down the road, we'd all be pissed off. Plus they want the biggest bang for their buck. Doing that with already existing technology must be difficult.

Why can't someone come up with a spider chair so I can traverse any terrain I want and do stairs? Climb a mountain if I wanted?

[GRAMMY]

My suicide would go unnoticed. And Grammy spare me the insults please.

Yes, you've posted that before. I think you are right, Dr. Davies would not know you were gone.

[GRAMMY]

Even I made a living from other people's misfortune as a 911 dispatcher.

Why can't someone come up with a spider chair so I can traverse any terrain I want and do stairs? Climb a mountain if I wanted?

The work you engaged in every day was critical in saving many lives behind the scenes. I can't even fathom the pressure you were under every time the phone rang. A spider chair...I bet some smart kid will get something like that all figured out. I've seen the robotic competitions and they're unbelievable.

[nrf]

You can't deny a man making a living: Davies .. Huang .. Xiao Even I made a living from other people's misfortune as a 911 dispatcher.

Silver is way out and still in lab studies but we knew this. I really do believe he is working as fast as he can within the constraints that he has.

The e-stim there is just no excuse for ... studies until 2020 and then there will be more studies. Then again, if they came out with something now and lots of us had it implanted with insurance paying .. and then they come out with something better six months or so down the road, we'd all be pissed off. Plus they want the biggest bang for their buck. Doing that with already existing technology must be difficult.

Why can't someone come up with a spider chair so I can traverse any terrain I want and do stairs? Climb a mountain if I wanted?

Perhaps some body could develop a broom that flies!

[Charles Hansen]

Unfortunately, this is on us. We run from researcher to researcher like teenage girls run from one boy-band to another boy-band. Whether it be Dr. Davies, Dr. Kessler, Frank Reynolds, Dr. Silver, or even Dr. Young, we show how really desperate we are. The reality is by the time anyone's research appears to be ready to come out of a lab, somebody else has a better idea and the earlier hope and research gets dropped. There will never be incremental steps to a cure, who wants to invest money for a trial when there is already a "better idea" in a different lab someplace.

In my experience there are two problems here. Withe regards to "We run from researcher to researcher like teenage girls run from one boy-band to another boy-band", I have seen this and been totally mystified. When I look at the researchers, I look at their results. When viewed in this light, there are clearly some researchers who are far ahead of other researchers. I honestly don't understand the criteria the members here are applying. To me, anything besides results is like going to the next "boy band" because they have a new hair style or a new style of clothing. In contrast, the results are the results, and those stay the same and are inarguable.

A lot of people went to a different researcher because they were doing "human trials". Why? There were no preliminary results I saw that gave any indication that the human trials would be effective. To my mind, that is as silly as chasing the next new "boy band" because they have new hair cuts. I don't chase "boy bands" for the same reason. I judge music on its musical merits, and not how cute the "boy band" hair cuts are, how impressive the light show at the concert is, or even (in the case of Pink Floyd) how big the inflatable animals are. None of that changes how good the music is, and none of these other trappings change the results produced by the researchers.

The second problem has two facets, both related to money:

1) Big pharma runs our current medical industry. The LAST thing big pharma wants is to cure people. There is no profit in that. In the US, all publicly-held corporations must maximize profits for their shareholders BY LAW. This results in the disgraceful spectacles such as Big Tobacco executives lying before the US Senate under sworn testimony that cigarettes are perfectly safe. The reality is that the tobacco companies had internal data going back for decades linking smoking to lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and stroke. Their response? Selective breeding of their tobacco to increase the nicotine content to make the cigarettes more addictive, and thereby more profitable.

This is capitalism at its "finest", and exactly how big pharma operates. Curing a person is the LAST thing they want. If they actually cured a patient of ANYTHING, they would lose all revenue. Their ideal drug is something patentable that is necessary to live. A good example is blood-pressure medication. You have to take it every day for the rest of your life. By keeping you alive, they assure that you will be a steady source of income and profit. So they want the drug to "work" - not by actually CURING you, but instead by simply treating the symptoms. That will keep you alive and buying the drug. But if they actually cured you, you would only be a one-time customer....

2) The National Institute of Health is the only other large source of funding. Ideally this would be used for the benefit of all citizens. There are at least two major problems:

a) The Republican party is trying to dismantle all governmental institutions, as they insist that all government is bad and that private enterprise (through "competition") is more efficient. See point #1 above.

b) The government appoints "experts" that decide who should be funded and who should not be funded. Just as with all institutions, this process becomes corrupted by money and politics. The result is that there are professional "researchers" whose main talents are to write compelling grants and have good political connections with those on the committee of "experts" who decide which projects get funded. They spend at least 50% of their actual working time writing grants to justify the existence of the departments they supervise. They may or may not actually participate in actual research that produces meaningful results.

In the meantime those of us with SCIs run like screaming teenage girls from "boy band" to "boy band" based on no actual knowledge or understanding of the science involved. That is understandable, as most of us are not actually scientists. Still one would hope that those of us who actually take time to read the papers would look at the results of the research. It baffles me completely to see that some researchers actually have produced results and most have not, yet many in the SCI community take pride in ignoring the results and flocking to the latest "boy band" for no reasons visible to me.