The controversial Myeloma Institute for Research Therapy (MIRT), part of the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences (UAMS) complex in Little Rock, has heated-up again. (They sure love acronyms in the medical field, don’t they? I have always preferred to use UAMS)
Several of our regular readers alerted me to a fascinating, long and winding thread that was developing on one of the Myeloma Beacon Forum sites.
You can find it by going to MyelomaBeacon.com, clicking on the “Forums” button at the top of the page and typing-in “Report on Myeloma Trials at UAMS.”
Apparently, the whole thing started when one of our most informed contributors, Mark, posted a study critical of UAMS:
An analysis of University of Arkansas Total Therapy Publications
I joined the party late. I believe my comment was 27th in line–although it sounds like the number started-out higher. Why were some comments removed? Attorneys representing UAMS and lead physician, Dr. “Bart” Barlogie, threatened legal action if some of the defamatory content wasn’t expunged.
You can’t make this stuff up!
What a perfect lead-in to the announcement that I will be hosting the next Myeloma Cure Panel discussion the evening of October 29th at 7 PM EST.
Several of my fellow myeloma bloggers, including Gary Petersen, UAMS and Total Therapy (TT) patient, Nick Van Dyk, and fellow Californian Jack Aiello will be joining me for a no-holds-barred, open and honest discussion about by far the biggest conflict/disagreement between myeloma specialists: Cure vs Control. Can multiple myeloma be cured?
I purposely chose not to invite a myeloma doc to join us on the 29th. I didn’t want political correctness to get in the way of our heartfelt patient’s perspective.
I will keep everyone updated about how this new age teleconference/online format works. Up to 50 callers can participate and ask questions of the panel. Or you will be able to email your questions in ahead of time.
Live listeners will be limited to the 50 mentioned above. But the real value is in the online recorded broadcast. Starting the next morning, you will be able to click-on a link so that you can listen to the discussion at your leisure.
CLICK HERE to view the promo poster for the event.
As a former Mayo Clinic Patient, I learned early-on to avoid discussing Total Therapy with UAMS patients and caregivers. For those of you that aren’t familiar with the politics, Mayo Clinic tends to be conservative when treating myeloma, while UAMS specialists tend to be far more aggressive. Anyway, things always seemed to get out-of-hand, resulting in pages and pages of stats and vitriol being exchanged that never seemed to really solve anything.
So I was surprised to learn that I would be moderating a panel set to discuss it all live! I wonder if there are going to be censors on hand in case the language gets a bit salty as things heat-up. It should be fun!
Feel good and keep smiling! Pat
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