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 IF are, in fact, human guinea pigs.

Today's IF test subjects must meet highly specific requirements, called "protocols." For example, eligible participants might include 1) breast-cancer patients, but only if surgery and radiotherapy have failed to halt the disease, 2) myeloma victims, and 3) patients with types of lymphoma that do not respond well to conventional treatment. The choice is also usually made from among patients already under treatment at a center where interferon is being tested.

Inevitably, some anguished cancer victims will suspect that interferon is being hoarded for use by favored patients. But, says one doctor, "the sad and brutal fact is that if my own mother didn't meet the protocol, she could not get interferon today."

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