From: jmoulder@mcw.edu (John Moulder)
Newsgroups: sci.med.diseases.cancer
Subject: Re: Vitamins
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 21:30:09 -0600
Message-ID: <jmoulder-1012022130090001@net-152-15.ras.mcw.edu>

In article <2fecvu45ahdnfptsiv6oh8atbtdt4654ua@4ax.com>,
ZpaulinhoZ@mad.scientist.com wrote:

> Amifostine discovery is from the 60's... It was kept by the USA as a
> military secret for many years...

Not true (the kept military secret part).  Studies with amifostine (then
called WR-2721) were published in the open literature in the late 1960's.
The earlist reference I have on hand is (and not necessarily the first):
Yuhas, J. M. and Storer, J. B. Differential chemoprotection of normal and
malignant tissues. Journal of the National Cancer Institute. 1969;
42:331-335.

I had access to the compound more than 25 years ago:
Moulder, J. E.; Lo, P. S., and Fischer, J. J. Effect of the
radioprotectors MEA, DMSO and WR2721 on tumor control and skin tolerance
in the rat. Cancer Treatment Reports. 1977; 61:825-833.

It (WR-2721, amifostime, ethyol) has not proven very useful in cancer
therapy because:
1)  In some schedules it protects tumors as well as normal tissues.
2)  It has bad acute "side effects" including nausea, vomiting and hypotension

From: John Moulder <jmoulder@mcw.edu>
Newsgroups: sci.med.diseases.cancer
Subject: Re: Vitamins
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 15:19:37 -0600
Message-ID: <111220021519370974%jmoulder@mcw.edu>

In article <ac0fvu8ajukbpbgsgeu4meaufnei8qifqe@4ax.com>, _PT_
<ZpaulinhoZ@mad.scientist.com> wrote:

> jmoulder@mcw.edu (John Moulder) wrote:
>
> >In article <2fecvu45ahdnfptsiv6oh8atbtdt4654ua@4ax.com>,
> >ZpaulinhoZ@mad.scientist.com wrote:
> >
> >> Amifostine discovery is from the 60's... It was kept by the USA as a
> >> military secret for many years...
> >
> >Not true (the kept military secret part).  Studies with amifostine (then
> >called WR-2721) were published in the open literature in the late 1960's.
> >
> >I had access to the compound more than 25 years ago:
>
> I guess the chemical formula was included in the open literature in
> the 60's
>
> It became comercial available in the late 90's.
> The only conclusion is that you were part of the system...

It may not have been commercially available for clincial use till the
late 90's but it was widley available to lab researchers in the US (and
in the UK) by about 1970 and was in controlled clinical trial in the US
by the mid-80's.

If you look in medline you will find close to 400 papers on WR-2721
(aka amifostine and ethyol) in the 80's.