Medicine: Who Gets IF? Almost Nobody

As word of interferon spreads, doctors are bracing for an onslaught of pleas from cancer victims and their families. Almost every request will be rejected. IF is still quite rare; in the U.S., only a few hundred patients have received it, most of them for short intervals. All testing so far has been designed to show whether interferon is active against different kinds of cancer, not whether it can effect lasting cures. But even if there were a glut of interferon, the drug would not be handed out indiscriminately; its long-range effects, good or bad, are still not known. Those getting...

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