A protein which is sold online as a cure for everything from autism to cancer and the focus of multiple retracted papers has earned more black marks: The UK government’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency has issued a warning about its use after discovering problems in the factory, and a journal has removed the last author from a paper touting its benefits in HIV.
The protein, vitamin D-binding protein-derived macrophage activating factor (GcMAF), is supposedly a natural activator of macrophages. The website GcMAF.eu continues to hawk the results of treatment, while the Anticancer Fund has been pushing journals to correct the record on GcMAF.
The MHRA issued its warning after investigating a Cambridgeshire factory that was producing the protein and discovered that blood plasma being used to make it was marked “Not to be administered to humans or used in any drug products.” Regulators also called into question the product’s sterility, citing possible contamination.
We’ve covered the group that has published most of the research into this “miracle cure,” led by Nobutu Yamamoto, several times before. They’ve had at least three retractions of GcMAF papers for issues with documentation for Institutional Review Boards.
In the latest, Clinical Immunology removed the last author of a 2009 abstract of a study that tested GcMAF against HIV. Here’s the correction note for “T.101. Treatment of HIV-infected patients with Gc protein-derived macrophage activating factor (GcMAF) and its coned derivative (GcMAFc) eradicates HIV-infection”, issued in December 2014:
The authors regret that the printed version of the above article contained an error in the list of authors. The correct and final version will appear as follows:
Nobuto Yamamoto1, Masumi Ueda1, Kazuya Hashinaka1, Theodore Sery1, Charles Benson2
1 Socrates Institute for Therapeutic Immunology, Philadelphia, PA
2 University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
To:
Nobuto Yamamoto1, Masumi Ueda1, Kazuya Hashinaka1, Theodore Sery1.
1 Socrates Institute for Therapeutic Immunology, Philadelphia, PA
The paper has yet to be cited, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
Charles Benson is a professor emeritus of microbiology at University of Pennsylvania’s vet school. We’ve been unable to contact him, but we have reached out to Yamamoto and the journal, and will update if we hear back.
“A protein which is sold online as a cure for everything from autism to cancer…”
That pretty much says it all.
Including any health issues your pet may have:
http://www.petgcmaf.com/
its coned derivative (GcMAFc)
I think the journal means “cloned”, and I look forward to a corrigendum to the corrigendum.
In the latest, Clinical Immunology removed the last author of a 2009 abstract of a study that tested GcMAF against HIV.
It appears that the authorial team presented two posters to the 9th Annual Meeting of the Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies (not to mention one poster to the 8th Meeting, and two to the 7th meeting), and part of the package deal for attending the conferences is having your abstracts compiled in a special Supplement of the journal.
These involve so few factual claims that they are relatively safe from retraction.