Word: gutterman
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Strander's results sounded exciting to Dr. Jordan Gutterman, of the M.D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute in Houston. He flew to Sweden to observe Strander's work, and soon became a convert. Says he: "There was no question. He was having good results." Back home, Gutterman obtained money from a private foundation to buy enough Finnish IF to try it on 38 patients with advanced breast cancer, multiple myeloma or lymphoma. Again the results were encouraging. Seven of 17 breast cancer patients had positive results, as did six of ten with myeloma and six of eleven with lymphoma...
Midway during this study, with some favorable response already obvious, Gutterman applied to the A.C.S. for money to expand the research. To support his appeal, he noted among other evidence the response of his first breast cancer patient: "She had a mass under her left arm, and couldn't raise her arm. Within 48 hours of her first injection, she could lift it." Another breast cancer victim is in remission after 15 months of interferon therapy. Gutterman also reports a wide range of sensitivity among patients, some showing improvement within 48 to 72 hours and a 50% reduction...
...Gutterman's application to the A.C.S. reached the desk of Frank Rauscher, who before becoming the society's research chief in 1976 had been director of the National Cancer Institute for five years. At the institute he had been urged repeatedly to "do something about interferon." But Rauscher, himself a virologist, had moved cautiously. He did send an NCI team to Sweden to look at Strander's IF tests with bone cancer, and the institute co-sponsored a 1975 interferon conference in Manhattan. But during his tenure, Rauscher increased the NCI commitment to interferon by a scant $1 million yearly...
...July 1978, as Rauscher surveyed the evidence assembled on his desk, his outlook had changed. New data from Strander, with better controls, were impressive. There were reports by other researchers of positive IF effects on tumors. Cantell had upped his production of interferon, and the evidence accompanying Gutterman's request for $1.5 million to buy IF was persuasive. Rauscher was convinced. He left his office, went upstairs to the A.C.S. executive offices and declared: "It's time to bite the bullet on interferon." The big drive for IF had begun...
Whatever questions remain about both the role and effectiveness of interferon as a cancer drug, most could be answered if larger amounts of IF were available. Admits Gutterman: "We don't really know what we're doing yet. It happens with every new drug. In its early days penicillin was good at treating minor infections but not the big ones, like endocarditis [a bacterial infection of the heart valves]. It took years to figure out that it would work there too?but only at very high doses. But everyone said at first it would be crazy to try that level...