Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 7:10 pm
Hi Lew,
I am not sure I have read all of your Tovaxin experience posts, but from the ones that I have read, it sounds like you are doing well. I am collecting questions about MRTCs from other sites and putting together some answers. There are many questions that do not currently have an answer.
I just returned from Houston on Tuesday. I have just started my next series of injections in the extension study. It is a series of 5 injections at 8-week intervals, and then make more vaccine at week 52.
I have seen several sites that are wondering what has happened to me. My brothers have not posted anything on my site since last May, but they did say, "We probably will not be doing much updating of Tim’s progress. You can be sure that if there is any significant change, good or bad, we will post that."
The brother that does all of the web work had 3 vertebra fused in January and does not feel like sitting at the computer doing web updates for me. I would like to get a few things up to alleviate any concerns about how I am doing.
I am sure it is an agonizing decision as to whether or not to be in a clinical trial, especially one that has a placebo component. I did not have to make that decision. My father found Dr. Zhang and felt his T-cell vaccine had the best probability of success. I am sure if I said I didn't want to be in the study, he would have been okay with that.
I have read some comments that being in my study would have a positive placebo effect knowing that you were getting the vaccine. The problem with those comments is that at that time, Zhang's vaccine had only reduced the attacks by 40%. Cohen's work had not been published and they didn't have the 100 peptides that they now have for making the vaccine.
I do not check posting on a regular basis, but you know I am not hard to get a hold of. There are enough people posting about their Tovaxin experience, so that I can read instead of write, and my experience has become old news.
I am not sure I have read all of your Tovaxin experience posts, but from the ones that I have read, it sounds like you are doing well. I am collecting questions about MRTCs from other sites and putting together some answers. There are many questions that do not currently have an answer.
I just returned from Houston on Tuesday. I have just started my next series of injections in the extension study. It is a series of 5 injections at 8-week intervals, and then make more vaccine at week 52.
I have seen several sites that are wondering what has happened to me. My brothers have not posted anything on my site since last May, but they did say, "We probably will not be doing much updating of Tim’s progress. You can be sure that if there is any significant change, good or bad, we will post that."
The brother that does all of the web work had 3 vertebra fused in January and does not feel like sitting at the computer doing web updates for me. I would like to get a few things up to alleviate any concerns about how I am doing.
I am sure it is an agonizing decision as to whether or not to be in a clinical trial, especially one that has a placebo component. I did not have to make that decision. My father found Dr. Zhang and felt his T-cell vaccine had the best probability of success. I am sure if I said I didn't want to be in the study, he would have been okay with that.
I have read some comments that being in my study would have a positive placebo effect knowing that you were getting the vaccine. The problem with those comments is that at that time, Zhang's vaccine had only reduced the attacks by 40%. Cohen's work had not been published and they didn't have the 100 peptides that they now have for making the vaccine.
I do not check posting on a regular basis, but you know I am not hard to get a hold of. There are enough people posting about their Tovaxin experience, so that I can read instead of write, and my experience has become old news.