The "Crotoxina" Hoax

[Señor Malo]

The original source whos in Spanish, translated via Google (thank you Erasmus for the suggestion )Pls note that I could not correct the whole translatin and msitakes might appear in the text.
Article taken from the
Argentine association of fight against pseudosciences website

Source: Magazine Exactly Year 2 - Nº 3 - Agosto 1995

What is the Crotoxina?

THE CROTOXINA IS AN ENZYME THAT CATALYZES HYDROLYSIS OF THE PHOSPHOLIPIDS THAT ARE THE MAIN STRUCTURAL COMPONENTS OF CELLULAR MEMBRANES. IN PHYSIOLOGICAL CONDITIONS IT EXISTS LIKE A HETERODIMER CONSTITUTED BY TWO PROTEIN SUBUNITS: ONE, DENOMINATED CROTOXINA B, IS THE CARRIER OF THE FOSFOLIPASA ACTIVITY. OTHER CALL CROTOXINA A PREVENTS THE EXPRESSION OF THIS ACTIVITY WHEN COMBINED WITH THE PREVIOUS ONE. THE SUBUNITS SEPARATE IN THE ZONE IN WHICH THE MOTOR NERVE IS UNITED TO THE SKELETAL MUSCLE. WHEN DOING THIS THEY ENABLE THE MANIFESTATION OF THE FOSFOLIPASA ACTIVITY AND THE MEMBRANES OF UNION NEUROMUSCULAR ARE DAMAGED THEREFORE. THIS PREVENTS THAT THE NERVOUS IMPULSE ACTIVATES THE MUSCULAR CONTRACTION WITH THE CONSEQUENT APPEARANCE OF PARALYSIS. WHEN THIS AFFECTS RESPIRATORY MUSCLES LEADS TO THE DEATH BY ASPHYXIA. IT COULD BE POSTULATED THAT CROTOXINA COULD HAVE AN ANTITUMOR LIKE ACTION IF IT COULD BE DISSOCIATED IN THE SURFACE OF THE TUMORLIKE CELL IF APPLIED IN CONCENTRATIONS LOWER TO THE NECESSARY ONES TO DAMAGE OTHER CELLS, AFFECTING THAT WAY SELECTIVELY THE CANCEROUS CELLS WITHOUT HARMING THE NORMAL ONES. NEVERTHELESS, EVIDENCE IN FAVOR OF THIS HYPOTHESIS DOES NOT EXIST.
The affair of the crotoxina constitutes a good illustration of the effects that the magical thought can have on societies like ours, in that science and its institutions are not important nor respected part of the public thing. The case, in its present evolution, indicates the risks that run the institutions of science when they are lead by people without entailment with the scientific task, who act with the complicity of investigators who do not fear to violate the principles of the academic life due to so typical impunity of the public activity of our days.
The history of the crotoxina recognizes three stages. First one extends from 1986 July to that year ends and is documented in the information that as much the CONICET as the Ministry of Health and Social Action went making know the public opinion (a good compilation of these can Today be found in the article “Crotoxina” of Rafael Braun published in “Science”, Nº 4, p 70-73, 1989). Second 1989 with the announcement of Raul Matera, then secretary of the SECyT began by the end of, of which it would reopen the investigations on the subject. Third he is the present one, and it agrees with the declarations of Domingo Liotta and repatriation and restoration to the Race of Scientific Investigator of Juan Carlos Vidal. On these two last stages very little it has been made public, so that everything what it surrounds them is almost conjetural.
An Argentine myth
The idea that the crotoxina “was invented” or “created” by the Argentine investigator Juan Carlos Vidal firmly constitutes a myth rooted in the Argentine society (… a holder of front page of “the Chronic” newspaper proclaimed a few months ago: “They have threatened of death the creator of the Crotoxina”…) The reality is different: the crotoxina was discovered and crystallized in 1938 by K. Slotta and H. Fraenkel-Conrat. It is one of the main components of the poison of the South American serpent bell. Their properties were studied by many investigators and as much they as the methods for their obtaining and purification is of public dominion. The crotoxina figure in catalogues of the companies chemical agent suppliers for the research laboratories. Impediment or prohibition does not exist some for its use in the investigation. Its application in human medicine is not authorized. For it one would require the demonstration of his effectiveness and the corresponding authorization of the sanitary authorities. These requirements had not been fulfilled when the subject took public state in 1986 and either seem to have fulfilled now.
In 1986 Juan Carlos Vidal it did not work in tie subjects to the cancer but that was a well-known and respected investigator in the field of lipids of cellular membranes and fosfolipasas. In no of its information reference to the use of the crotoxina like drug against the cancer existed. When the subject took public state in July from 1986, Vidal was residing in the University of Chicago working in a titled project “Structure Function Studies of Presynptic Neurotoxins” whose intention was to understand the toxic effect of the crotoxina with the objective to provide a rational base for the design of antidotes that avoided or cured their effects. For these investigations financing to the army of the United States had been asked for. The absence of information on antitumorlike properties of the crotoxina in the information of Vidal is one of the most peculiar aspects in the history of this substance. So that a scientist who enjoyed respect and recognition did not request financing to prove a hypothesis that extended to the cancer their studies on lipids and fosfolipasas?
Treatment in humans
Nevertheless, as of 1986, already it was being provided crotoxina to cancer patients who looked for it in the Institute of Neurobiología, one of the places of work of Vidal. In 1986 July, when Vidal was in Chicago making the investigations you decipher above, Juan H. Tramezzani, director of the Institute of Neurobiología, decides to suspend the crotoxina provision to the patients. This produced two effects. On the one hand the clinical doctors to direct position of the test (Carlos Coni Molina, Guillermo Hernandez Plata and Luis Costa), concurred to the CONICET to denounce the attitude of Tramezzani. They did it in the conviction of which the test counted on the auspice of the CONICET. For this reason they gave to the organism all the information that arranged, which was extremely useful in the later investigations on the subject. Simultaneously, they made the denunciation in means public of massive diffusion. These quickly turned it the news that occupied per months the first flat one of means. In that then, message that the public received it was that a substance had been discovered in Argentina that cured the cancer. This affirmation was based basically on personal testimonies of people who showed that after being dealt with crotoxina his ailment she had been attenuated or disappeared. He is fundamental to indicate this aspect because in later stages of history the force of the facts made modify the arguments gradually and the crotoxina went away transforming, or in a substance that improved the quality of life of the terminal patients, or as it is said now in a useful coadyudante of the conventional treatments. In this way the CONICET and in individual that in that time we comprised of its advisory commission in medical sciences, we had to face to us suddenly the fact that bottoms and personnel of the Institution they were being used to carry out nonauthorized a clinical test clandestinely.
The formidable public diffusion of the case determined that the Ministry of Health and Social Action received forts pressures so that it authorized, not only the continuation of the application of the crotoxina to those who already they were receiving it, but also its provision to all that that required it. This attitude most of had the support of the press and many political and union sectors. The decision that took the Ministry was to authorize the use of the compound to the patients who had initiated applications previously and under exclusive responsibility of they themselves. This decision was based on exclusively humanitarian reasons. Although the ministerial resolution was not questioned, lacked legal sustenance since the crotoxina had not happened through the necessary stages so that its clinical test was authorized. The Ministry conditioned the continuation of the treatments to the periodic control of the patients by a Commission of Oncólogos designated by him. This attitude had the series of consequences, perhaps saddest of them was that some patients found out that they had cancer when the confidential list of the authorized one by the Ministry was published by a vespertine one. The practical execution of the measurement provided material to the press that concurred eager to the periodic examinations that the commission of oncólogos made the patients whose treatment had been authorized.
These notes quickly took characteristics from soap opera in episodes, that the sectors more sensationalists of the press dramatized as an unequal combat between the propulsive of a new treatment and establishment cold and insensible defender of the privileges who gave his access him to the possibility of applying the conventional treatments. The authorization of the test also gave place upon presentment of hundreds of resources of shelter by cancerous patients soliciing to be including in the list of the authorized one to participate in the test. Many of these resources were solved favorably in first instance but no prospered in the later instances, one at least arrived at the Supreme Court where it was rejected.
Participation of the CONICET
The authorized clinical test by the Ministry of Health and Social Action was not responsibility of the CONICET. This it was limited to participate in him incorporating to two members of the Race of the Investigator in the Commission of Oncólogos and assuring the provision crotoxina of controlled quality. The immediate action of the CONICET in that period was concentrated in analyzing the contributed scientific evidences by those who had taken part in the clandestine clinical study like endorsement of the supposed antitumorlike effect of the crotoxina. The conclusions at which it was arrived as a result of these investigations are of public dominion and widely are documented. To describe them in detail exceeds the space available here (we sent to the interested reader to the article of “Science Today” mentioned again above).
As or it has been mentioned, in the prescribed information presented/displayed by Vidal and his collaborators as members of the race of the investigator or as beneficiaries of subsidies of the CONICET did not exist any reference to findings or studies on the antitumorlike effects of the crotoxina.
At the moment for taking state I publish the subject, its actors gave to the CONICET and the Ministry a titled monograph “Complex Crotoxina TO and B in the treatment of the Cancer” new recruit in the Registry of the intellectual Property by Coni Molina, Hernandez Silver, Coast and own Vidal, who in sworn declaration ratified to be the author of the part referred to the basic investigation of the monograph. This was the only information written available on the subject.
Forged information
From the written material presented/displayed, like from the testimonies offered by the direct participants as much to the CONICET as during the judgments of shelter already mentioned, it arose that experimental evidences did not exist much that they justified effects antitumorlike of crotoxina, that had not been made any of the studies that are demanded for the accomplishment of a clinical test and, which is more serious, than of which it had appeared as evidence of preclinical studies were forged information and that the patients were being deceived in which talked about the nature of the test.
These affirmations can be synthesized in the following facts:
· The nine presented/displayed fotomicrográficas images in the monograph with the intention to demonstrate effects of low doses of crotoxina on tumorlike cells were forged. These images are extracted of the book of Anthony T. Your (professor of Biochemistry and Anatomía of the Colorado State University) titleholder Venoms Chemistry and Molecular Biology chapter 19 pages 301-320, John Wiley & Sons, the USA, 1 977. The effects that the Dr Your sample in the figures does not correspond to actions of the crotoxina on tumorlike cells but with the object of poisons of other serpents on normal cells.
· The patients believed to receive a pure solution of the crotoxina complex To and B. In fact received two bottles, first it contained a whole poison solution of cobra (Naja naja siamensis) and the second a solution of crotoxina contaminated with other components of the poison of the bell.
· The patients were deceived when signing a consent form by which they accepted to receive crotoxina To and B (and not it mixture of substances mentioned in the previous paragraph) with the aggravating one of which this form was false since it had a letterhead of the Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry of the UBA, that had not had participation some in the tests.
The demonstration of these irregularities ran in parallel with the verification on the part of the Commission of Oncólogos of the Ministry of Health and Social Action of the inefficiency of the crotoxina in the clinical test. This last one gave rise to that this Ministry gave finished the test and prohibited the use of the crotoxina like medicine. After these episodes the subject was slowly disappearing of means. Vidal, after brief estadía in Argentina, returned to the United States. The CONICET initiated penal judgment to Vidal and the Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, by order of its Department of Biological Chemistry, I solicit to rectorado of the UBA the initiation of academic judgment. No of these actions gave rise to sanctions. The academic court of the UBA in divided opinion gave back to the file to the Council Superior the penal judgment sobreseyó to Vidal in first instance and he was not appealed by the CONICET Both facts passed already during the management of Raul Matera to the front of the SECyT.
Aside from these actions and in Vista to the created public expectation, the CONICET comisionó to groups of experimental oncólogos of the Campomar Institute of the Institute of Biology and Experimental Medicine and of the Roffo Institute a series of investigations destined to study as much if the product provided to the patients destroyed or stopped the growth of originating cells of human cancers or tumors of mice, in culture as in experimentation animals. The conclusions were published in the number of November of 1988 of the magazine “Medicine” organ of the Society Argentina de Clinical Investigación. The obtained results were uniformly negative. Also it was indicated that alterations in the weight, the level of feeding or the behavior of the treated animals were not detected, fact that seemed to also exclude indirect effects on the general state from the carrying animals from the tumors.
Reflections
As direct witness of the actions passed in 1986/87 would wish in this point of the story to formulate the following personal reflections.
· The authorities of the CONICET and the SECyT of that then acted respecting with estrictez the principles of the scientific conduct and they never yielded to pressures of another type.
· Practically no of the institutions that would have to guard by the good practice of medical sciences in the country felt forced to think on the subject. It is as well as they remained shut up the National Medicine Academy most of and tie scientific and professional societies with the medical practice.
· At level of massive means of communication, the magical thought, in general, prevailed on the presentation of reasoned evidences. The clearest example of it constitutes the lack of echo that had the diffusion of the news that the experimental evidences on the antitumorlike action of the crotoxina in cells in culture were forged.
The crotoxina subject had a transitory Renaissance in the middle of 1989 in the beginnings of the management of Raul Matera to the front of the SECyT. The Dr Matera returned to order to other groups repeating the studies in cells in culture and experimentation animal tumors. The results were also negative and the subject giveave.
The second Renaissance of the subject has passed in these months with the announcement of the Dr Liotta of the repatriation of the Dr Vidal and the reiniciación of the investigations on effects of the crotoxina in Argentina. The sustenance given by the Dr Liotta for this action is the publication of two works of which Vidal is coauthor and that appeared in 1993. These works indicate poisonous effects of the crotoxina in some experimental tumorlike systems. In its bibliographical references mention some to previous publications does not become, which test that when the one discovery announced in 1986 cures against the cancer did not exist experimental evidence that sustained so large affirmation.
Declaration of the Forum of Argentine Scientific Societies
The restoration of Vidal to the Race of the Scientific Investigator and the decision to reinitiate the studies on the crotoxina take place in a while in which practically the CONICET does not have resources to finance the existing groups of investigation nor to incorporate new investigators. This motivated a declaration of the Forum of Argentine Scientific Societies that became the 25 public of June of the present year and whose initial paragraphs are transcribed next:
“The decision of the Secretary of Science and Technology Dr Domingo Liotta to reopen the question of the crotoxina constitutes a fact of extreme institutional gravity. It was taken ignoring the serious irregularities that the own CONICET in 1986 proved that they had surrounded to the subject and marginalizing the opinion of the advisory organisms of the CONICET, whose public contempt on the part of the Dr Liotta gave rise to the denunciation of the members of the Advisory Commission of Medical Sciences in an attitude that the Forum values and supports.
“The crisis generated around this subject is one more a consequence than a management characterized by the abuse and ignorance of the most elementary norms of the academic life. The systematic upsettings of the principles that must govern the conduction of the scientific activity have lead to the collapse of the credibility and to the financial bankruptcy of the CONICET This places in serious risk the scientific research in our country and, consequently, its participation in the knowledge creation.”
“the CONICET has to 1995 188 million of weights, this is, eighteen million less than in 1994. Not more than 7% of this amount it will be possible to be applied to the expenses of investigation, the rest is destined to expenses of personnel and maintenance. This implies the paralyzation of the programs of repatriation of scientists, of incorporation of new investigators and financing of investigation projects. Therefore, a series of foolish decisions has turned to the CONICET an institution incapable to provide to their personnel the resources so that it can, to play the role for which was created.”

The author is Professor Titular de Biological Fisicoquímica. Science also evolves like Executive Secretary of the Forum of Argentine Scientific Societies and like publisher of the magazine “Science Today”.

[Erasmus]

Hey, the suggestion was a joke read the following translation from Omnidrive (virtual disk):

Login - Las felicitaciones a traer CAS en línea! El tratante predefinido de la autenticación autentica donde nombres de usuario igualan las contraseñas: siga adelante, trátelo.


Para cuestiones de seguridad, por favor Log Out y Sale su navegador de internet cuando usted es hecho los servicios que conseguin acceso a que requiere la autenticación!

Amazing! username and password the same!!!

Well, about crotoxina I found an article from "El Escéptico Digital":

El Escéptico Digital - CÁNCER Y CROTOXINA

[Señor Malo]

Very interesting the article ftrom el escéptico Digital, Erasmus It mentions a detail omitted by the article I posted; that the crotoxine from which was supposed to be estracted the medecine, come from the south americazn rattlesnake variety