Ferraro using thalidomide against blood cancer

(CNN) -- Thalidomide, the drug pulled from the global market during the 1960s because it caused severe birth defects, is shaking its notoriety with Geraldine Ferraro's declaration that it has put her blood cancer into remission.

Ferraro, the Democratic Party's 1984 vice presidential nominee, went public with her battle with multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, Tuesday morning.

She will testify before Congress on Thursday with her physician in an effort to secure additional funding for the incurable disease, which claims 50 percent of sufferers within five years of diagnosis. Doctors diagnosed Ferraro, 65, with the multiple myeloma two and a half years ago.

During a news conference Tuesday, Ferraro's physician, Ken Anderson, avoided directly answering questions about her prognosis.

VIDEO CNN's Eileen O'Connor on Ferraro's upcoming testimony before Congress on funding cancer research (June 19) Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)

"The studies are old and we do not know what effect on the impact that thalidomide has had," in prolonging life, Anderson said. However, he said thalidomide "has the ability not only to kill the tumor cell directly, but also to act in the neighborhood or in the bone marrow to make it impossible for the myeloma cell to grow and survive there."

According to the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, each year doctors in the United States diagnose about 14,000 cases of the disease, which develops in bone marrow. Multiple myeloma kills about 11,000 each year.

"For people like Geraldine and myself, we are buying time," said Kathy Giusti, president of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation and a myeloma patient. "I think that is why she has gone public. We need Congress' help. She knows that will make a difference in getting this funding."

Ferraro, 65, announced that she will move from her four-story home in Queens, New York, to a single-level apartment in anticipation of the disease's progression. She is in remission, but the illness causes fatigue, Anderson said, and she is planning for the future.

Multiple myeloma suppresses the immune system, leads to anemia, nerve failure, infections and bone fractures. Standard treatments include radiation therapy, chemotherapy and bone marrow transplantation.

Ferraro's doctors said she has avoided the need for those measures because she responded well to thalidomide. She also takes bisphosphonates to strengthen her bones.

Physicians are not certain why thalidomide is effective but they surmise that the drug could reduce the blood supply to some cancers and boost the immune system. Its side effects include somnolence, numbing and tingling in the hands, and constipation. Ferraro has not experienced any of those problems, Anderson said.

Anderson described thalidomide as a drug with an evil past and a bright future. Multiple myeloma patients who have failed to respond to conventional medical treatments have responded to thalidomide, which exploded into notoriety during the 1950s and 1960s.

Thousands of pregnant women in 46 countries who used thalidomide to curb morning sickness gave birth to children with severe birth defects and truncated or missing limbs. Officials in countries where thalidomide was approved removed the drug from the market in 1962.

Thalidomide was used only on an investigational basis in the United States, and the company seeking to market the drug in America withdrew the application in 1962.

Ferraro, although beyond childbearing age, had to sign the required documents stating she would not become pregnant before she could receive thalidomide, Anderson said.

Anderson will join Giusti and Ferraro before Congress in hopes that new variations of drugs to treat myeloma will become available sooner.

Drugs currently take eight to 10 years to move from the research bench to patients' bedsides, Guisti said. She said that process can be shortened within the Food and Drug Administration without compromising patient safety.