Further Follicept civil conversation

[champpy]

The only thing I think Follicept can take any blame for is the overhyping of a product that was only being demonstrated on a rat. My theory as two why the rat model is worthless is this.
These rats were breed for the sole purposed of being hairless. These rats do not have MPB. The action by which we lose our hair, MPB, must be totally different than a species who was modified to be hairless. There are so many different pathways and deficiencies that go into MPB that the hairless rat cannot ever represent.

Why we are looking for cures for MPB in rats is beyond me. Its two totally different situations we have going on here.
Rats should only be used to test the safety of a drug. That's it. If it is tested and if found to be safe, then move on to real human test subjects and we will see the results or lack thereof with them.

Until the rat has 100% male pattern baldness (which I believe some primates do), then we should not test the product performance on rats anymore. All it does is get our hopes up until the human trial begins and we quickly realize that it never works on humans because humans and mice don't have the same condition

[Keki]

To be honest there are some study with human cultivated hair follicle, so it's not that all we have is some rats pics

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3283847/

(i think this is the study where they took the 12 days mark)

I don't trust koreans anyway, do you remember the pumpkin seeds crap? There are even some video on youtube about that study, with patients that say bullshits over and over

[Swooping]

To be honest there are some study with human cultivated hair follicle, so it's not that all we have is some rats pics

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3283847/

(i think this is the study where they took the 12 days mark)

I don't trust koreans anyway, do you remember the pumpkin seeds crap? There are even some video on youtube about that study, with patients that say bullshits over and over

That organ culture model proves nothing in relation to androgenetic alopecia. You really never get it do you?

Anyways, bravo for seeing that rodents are not a good model for androgenetic alopecia, also bravo for seeing that bias can be present in studies!

[SOTF]

Is there any area of medical research that has as many jokers and scam artists as the field of hair regeneration? I am amazed each time I browse these forums. It is truly a sad state of affairs.

[serenemoon]

Where are the photos StayThick? Are you kidding us? No photo on week 0! It seems you just took your Follicept for free and post a photo of your sink as a "proof" of a shedding. Big joke.

Please post your first photos as you promised. You were an opponent of Follicept first. Then Devon opened his door. Dr. Hsu does the same thing. You've publicly change your mind. And you are posting nothing. Hey man, you were speaking about a lot of photos... we have nothing. And we will wait what? We need the week 0 to date a possible progression by ourselves. You will not come on week 7 to say: "this photo was on week 0", no one will trust you.

PS: And i add one thing. I think you took a product before Follicept. You don't say it. It's a shame. You live a shedding cause of this product (maybe Minox, or Fin). I personnally think you are a lier.

It is not fair to accuse him of lying about using minox/fin recently. If that is his reaction, then that is his truth. He stated before that he has not used a product in a long time, so let us respect him and respect his journey with Follicept, instead of accusing him of lies. It is as bad as accusing Follicept of lying/scamming. People will react to Follicept differently, so we have to be mature enough to accept that, instead of insulting/accusing them.

[diffuseloser]

Agreed. We should be grateful to have StayThick in the loop. Hope Follicept continue to investigate this is IGF1 fails. If it fails, it's another lesson learned and we should take the positive from it.

[StayThick]

Agreed. We should be grateful to have StayThick in the loop. Hope Follicept continue to investigate this is IGF1 fails. If it fails, it's another lesson learned and we should take the positive from it.

Thanks Diffuse. I am actually working on posting my pictures now. I'll be creating a new thread shortly. Just returned from my long holiday weekend so finally have the time.

I also don't pay attention to FrenchNewbie. To me, he is clearly unstable just based on his Follicept forum tirades he goes on with everyone on there. He can accuse me of really anything as I do not care since I personally met Devon and Dr. Hsu, had long dialogues with each and they know I am not taking any treatments. His comments I pay zero attention to. Zero.

Will be posting shortly. Thanks guys.

[diffuseloser]

You're welcome. Hope the shed didn't affect the enjoyment of your weekend!

Well that is the correct way to deal with it. Don't pay attention to it. The majority of us are thankful for what you are doing. There are some wild accusations being thrown around so just try not to listen to them and focus on what matters.

Looking forward to seeing the pictures. Thanks again StayThick.

[TheUltimatePoet]

I think the informal trial they are running now seems fine. They are hoping to get some cosmetically significant results that will be clearly visible even with different angles and different light. If all we get from this is vellus hair, it's not going to do anyone any good.

[Arashi]

If it fails, it's another lesson learned and we should take the positive from it.

Sorry but you guys just never learn. You'll all just jump on the next hype which surely will appear this year, maybe even 2 more of them if we're 'lucky'. You'll all hype it again like it's finally the cure we've all been waiting for. And while it now appears that Follicept will just fail without having taken people's money or damaged their health, the next one might. Hairloss forum history repeating itself over and over again for the next 10-20 (?) years until we have a real cure.

[sdsurfin]

Sorry but you guys just never learn. You'll all just jump on the next hype which surely will appear this year, maybe even 2 more of them if we're 'lucky'. You'll all hype it again like it's finally the cure we've all been waiting for. And while it now appears that Follicept will just fail without having taken people's money or damaged their health, the next one might. Hairloss forum history repeating itself over and over again for the next 10-20 (?) years until we have a real cure.

Really trying to lay on the spin huh? There's nothing wrong with getting excited about a treatment or throwing support behind individuals who are clearly there to carry out legit science and help people. Fact is YOU were wrong with your OCD rants about follicept being a scam. YOU and your kind ran decent scientists off of this forum, as you probably will in the future, and except for people like myself who can discuss and confer with more knowledgeable people in a civilized manner, you will probably continue keeping the majority of young hair loss sufferers in the dark with your unbridled mental illness.

We still don't know if it works or not. I certainly have my doubts, as I always have, and I still maintain that it's a solid theory and that there definitely has to be something of potential when it comes to using/promoting the proper growth factors, and especially IGF-1. It's a shame it hasn't shown more results yet, but my guess is that it will have some results but not the ones we hope for. If they are not too discouraged by the insanity of the balding online community, hopefully follicept and scientists like them will continue to chip at the problem, so that sooner or later one of the "hyped" treatments is actually worthwhile. I was more hopeful about follicept before the trial started, but hey, that's the way these things work, you have to try.

In other news I heard from replicel and they said that part of the reason they have been delayed is that they were able to improve their product in some ways, and are now submitting it to the german regulatory bodies for trial commencement.

[Hemo]

They'd have more success trying to deliver approved drugs (or other growth factors that don't need approval, like AAPE) in low doses using their vehicle (eg dutasteride, as Dr. Hsu asked about it). Funding that would obviously be an issue.

They sort of shot themselves in the foot with this "friends and family" trial considering 3 of the 7 participants are beyond help.

[Arashi]

. Fact is YOU were wrong with your OCD rants about follicept being a scam

Interestingly Arashi used that word exactly 0 times in this thread (search it). The only one who's wrong is going to be you, with all your hyping and neglecting the research that has been presented to you. Follicept came here with the slogan "Safe, effective, affordable" ! How is that not a scam ? Maybe not in the literal sense, that they robbed people's money but they sure did deceive people !! Got people's hope up, which are now cruely being destroyed by the lack of results.

If Follicept would have taken a step back and just would have said "Look we dont know if this works or not, but we're going to run some small inhouse trial to find out", or even better, just run the trial before even coming here, then I'm sure nobody would have even used the scam word at all.

[bigentries]

Really trying to lay on the spin huh? There's nothing wrong with getting excited about a treatment or throwing support behind individuals who are clearly there to carry out legit science and help people. Fact is YOU were wrong with your OCD rants about follicept being a scam. YOU and your kind ran decent scientists off of this forum, as you probably will in the future, and except for people like myself who can discuss and confer with more knowledgeable people in a civilized manner, you will probably continue keeping the majority of young hair loss sufferers in the dark with your unbridled mental illness.

We still don't know if it works or not. I certainly have my doubts, as I always have, and I still maintain that it's a solid theory and that there definitely has to be something of potential when it comes to using/promoting the proper growth factors, and especially IGF-1. It's a shame it hasn't shown more results yet, but my guess is that it will have some results but not the ones we hope for. If they are not too discouraged by the insanity of the balding online community, hopefully follicept and scientists like them will continue to chip at the problem, so that sooner or later one of the "hyped" treatments is actually worthwhile. I was more hopeful about follicept before the trial started, but hey, that's the way these things work, you have to try.

In other news I heard from replicel and they said that part of the reason they have been delayed is that they were able to improve their product in some ways, and are now submitting it to the german regulatory bodies for trial commencement.

Says the guy with an NDA with the company

People like you are poisonous to hair loss communities.

A potential cure doesn't need "hype", doesn't need supporters. We don't owe them anything, we are eager to spend a good amount of money in a cure. They owe us results, and if they give us "results" we have every right to question the legitimacy, we are putting money on the line. If they are not OK with that, then they can keep their mouth shut and come back when they have undisputed evidence of cosmetic improvements

"Good vibes", "optimism" don't change anything, besided making you an easy target. Things work or they don't, that's how science works.

[Swooping]

Really trying to lay on the spin huh? There's nothing wrong with getting excited about a treatment or throwing support behind individuals who are clearly there to carry out legit science and help people. Fact is YOU were wrong with your OCD rants about follicept being a scam. YOU and your kind ran decent scientists off of this forum, as you probably will in the future, and except for people like myself who can discuss and confer with more knowledgeable people in a civilized manner, you will probably continue keeping the majority of young hair loss sufferers in the dark with your unbridled mental illness.

We still don't know if it works or not. I certainly have my doubts, as I always have, and I still maintain that it's a solid theory and that there definitely has to be something of potential when it comes to using/promoting the proper growth factors, and especially IGF-1. It's a shame it hasn't shown more results yet, but my guess is that it will have some results but not the ones we hope for. If they are not too discouraged by the insanity of the balding online community, hopefully follicept and scientists like them will continue to chip at the problem, so that sooner or later one of the "hyped" treatments is actually worthwhile. I was more hopeful about follicept before the trial started, but hey, that's the way these things work, you have to try.

In other news I heard from replicel and they said that part of the reason they have been delayed is that they were able to improve their product in some ways, and are now submitting it to the german regulatory bodies for trial commencement.

Don't be so silly sdsurfin. There has never been "legit" science in this one. There stands only a very weak hypothesis based on irrational thinking. There isn't even a "theory" about IGF-1 in relation to the pathology of androgenetic alopecia, far from it. Hence, there isn't even a convincing one to hair follicle biology itself particularly in humans. So what are you talking about again?

Arashi is a good guy, he is a well grounded skeptic and we need people like that. He is valuable to a community like this. You on the other hand can only hype treatments based on your "gut feeling". When you don't like something you just hop onto another dude. Are you going to tell me now how replicel will be the holy cure to us all? What evidence to you have for that kiddo? Or will you slam the Ad Verecundiam to us again like you always do?

We have seen what this brought us totally nothing. Just like this will be the case with Follicept. Ultimately this will only lead to crushed dreams and emotional harm. Because there are people who are expecting Follicept to work. Heck some people go even that far that apparently Devon and Dr. Hsu must have "secretly" tried this already because of these claims.

Btw if you call someone mental please hold a mirror to yourself. If anyone is mental you would probably be the only one.