Cure for cancer
 

Am I the only person who hears some variation of this from someone every week:

“You know the drug companies have a cure for cancer. They could end cancer tomorrow. But they won’t do it because there’s no money in it. That’s right. They could end cancer but it will kill their profits.”

I swear I near this once a week from some otherwise sober people. What does it say about us as a society that so many people believe in something that is so insane?

One hears lots of conspiracy theories about drug companies, it's a good advertising trope for so-called alternative medicine doctors and products -- they don't want you to know about this!!

I actually do think from experience some companies in some circumstances push the line ethically when it comes to clinical trial results and safety claims. But the notion that big pharma is capable of suppressing cures is silly.

PS if you want to read a sobering piece on big pharma, read "Pharmageddon" by Dr. David Healy. Very interesting.

I don't think the conspiracy is full blown or anything but it is true that insurance companies will deny effective treatment if it's too expensive and force a patient to endure lesser treatment for longer periods of time for no real reason at all. In a sense that is keeping a cure from some people.

A young man with whom my son went to school was recently released from the hospital psych unit because the family's coverage ran out. Two days later, he stabbed a man in the grocery store, fortunately not fatally.

Insurance companies will always steer you towards the cheapest alternative. That I agree with 100%.

My mother is currently under treatment and while her team of specialists laid out a sophisticated course of treatments at specialized institutions, her insurance company, who has taken money from her during her entire healthy life when she didn't need the insurance, rejected the proposed treatment. Instead they're forcing her to undergo twice as many therapies over twice the time. And it's not because it's more effective, it's because it's cheaper.

That incident should be a crime. Sorry to hear that and hope your mom gets better.

+1

Thank you for the well wishes. They are appreciated.

My girlfriend's health insurance company tried dropping all coverage on her the very next day after she was diagnosed with stage 3 pancreatic cancer.

packs,

I hope your mother gets the treatment she needs and starts to feel better soon.

Jantz

Thank you. I hope the same for your girlfriend. I've had some people in my life go through that diagnosis as well. I know how daunting it can be.

I mean, the internet has increased the number of people who think the earth is flat exponentially so.............

If you haven't see it yet, be sure to check out "The Rainmaker"

"There's nothing more thrilling than nailing an insurance company"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SapUva6f_b0

I have given this subject a lot of thought over the years. I ask myself:

Who was the last U. S. President to die from cancer?

Who was the last member of the Royal family in England to die from cancer?

Who was the last Astronaut to die from cancer?

Who was the last cancer researcher to die from cancer?

Kemo was first introduced in 1956. It is still used today as the primary treatment of cancer.

That is 62 years without change.

Think about other fields of technology and their advancement over the last 62 years.

The space program, social media, computers, air travel, automobiles, the internet, cost of living, technology..

Yet, we don't have the technology for a cure for cancer.

We supposedly put a man on the moon and back in 1969... but we can't cure cancer.

We can create a life in a test tube.. but we can't cure cancer.

We can clone animals and people.. but we can't cure cancer.

Just sayin'...

"We supposedly put a man on the moon and back in 1969."

I think you ruined your argument right there.

I've heard this many times before too and I completely disagree with it. If drug companies - or any company - did have a cure for cancer, then the rich and powerful would never die from this disease. Look at Steve Jobs, for example. This was a very powerful man with a lot of powerful connections around the world, and yet he died from this disease at a young age. Another example is Fred DeLuca, the founder of Subway, and multi billionaire, who fought this disease for a few years before losing to it at the age of 67.

Speaking of cure...
 

This looks incredibly promising. Prospective cure/vaccine for cancerous tumors has seen a 97% percent success rate among mice and has been cleared for human trials:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkNl12BaeSI

No I didn't. I don't believe the Government when they say there is no cure for cancer and I don't believe they put a man on the moon. It is either you believe them or you don't. I am consistent in my comments. Otherwise I would be contradicting myself.

About four years ago my cousin's wonderful 3 year old daughter was playfully running around the house like a typical 3 year old does when suddenly she collapsed and couldn't stand up again. They rushed her to the hospital and the doctors discovered a tumor in her brain. She spent the next 3 years undergoing numerous radiation treatments and surgery, spending a huge amount of that time in the hospital.

She had a few months after that of normal life. Then late last year they found that the tumors had returned and spread. These would not respond to radiation treatment and could not be surgically removed. She is not expected to see her next (8th) birthday. My cousin, his ex-wife (her mother) and my aunt (and myself, albeit from afar) can do nothing but watch her condition deteriorate. Its the most excruciatingly painful thing a person can experience - waiting for your kid to die in front of you. She has now spent most of her life, and pretty much all of it that she can remember, dying of cancer.

This happens to millions of people around the world every year. You really think the tens of thousands of people involved in cancer research, many of whom have experienced something similar to this, would just cover up a cure and let this happen to people without a single one of them saying anything about it? That idea is beyond stupid.

Everyone has an opinion on this, I just shared mine. I have seen my share of plenty of people close to me wither in agony and succumb over this dreaded disease too. It makes me appreciate each day even more.

The foil goes shiny side out.......

Who was the last U. S. President to die from cancer?

US Grant died from throat cancer. It is believed by many that Thomas Jefferson suffered from prostate cancer as well. And I remember Beau Biden, Joe Biden's son, died of brain cancer, which John McCain is also suffering from.

1) when I was growing up, it was always batteries that stay charged forever, but that would put battery makers out of business.

2) regarding cancer, I am not a medical professional, but as I understand it, a cel mutates and becomes cancerous. It then starts to attack and modify the cells around it, looking for oxygen. (cancer cells cannot get their own oxygen out of the bloodstream ). So if you can strengthen the surrounding cells, they can essentially wall off and starve the cancerous area. This is being shown to be much more effective than chemo,
which is human drano that kills ALL cells. There is a medical device common in Europe that has been proven to increase blood flow by nearly 30% which has led to some positive effects in this war, if you catch it early enough.

Not quite
 

As for Ken's above point # 2, I think some clarification is in order because its' incorrect. Cancer is easily misunderstood.

Cancer can extract oxygen and nutrients from blood, preferentially most of the time. It often outgrows its' budding blood supply and become necrotic because it tends to grow quicker than other cells. Also the reason for weight loss while afflicted, the cancer is preferentially taking nutrients such as glutamine.

The mainstay of most chemotherapy (caveat: The newer monoclonal antibodies etc I am only slightly familiar with) is to target fast-replicating cells, i.e. cancer, which is why other cell lines than turn over quickly (hair, nails, GI lining) feel the brunt as well.

I think the problem most people have with grasping cancer is a fundamental misunderstanding of the disease process. Cancer is your own cells, which through a process too long to discuss here, lose their ability to undergo programmed death when damaged, and essentially proliferate without end, spreading to different parts of the body either locally, through blood, or through lymphatics. When tumor suppressor genes on chromosomes fall off or are damaged/mutated, you can't just pop it back on, though people are researching novel genetic treatments all the time, and I hope they eventually will be successful.

We do, actually, have a cure for cancer if caught early enough. Frank can tell you what it is;)

Just trying to clarify a little,

Tony

I can tell you what it is :). For me, twice, it was surgery. Though when I go for blood tests they tell me no evidence of disease, which does not really mean cured. But I will settle for NED.

The man, who developed one of the first (possibly the first) chemotherapeutic agents (aka Kemo???) in the 1950s, died of cancer in the 1980s. He was a patient in our office.

And his discovery is still used today, most recently by a gentleman I play golf with.

To those people i say there are many companies working on a cure and the one that does will make a truck load of money.

I don't really see why the drug companies would have financial incentive to keep you sick anyway. If you've got insurance, it's the insurer that's going to shoulder the brunt of the cost. If you don't have insurance, the drug company isn't ever getting paid. The insurance companies have just as big a lobby force as the drug companies. I would think it would be in the interest of the insurer to either deny your drugs or keep you healthy so they can get paid for nothing.

A close friend of mine is a medical researcher at Oxford. I won't be showing her this thread, as she already mocks Americans (including me) enough as it is . . . She also has less than zero interest in baseball and baseball cards.

There are many things to say on the topic, but I'll leave it at that cancer isn't one thing and a company or person who had the cure for 'cancer' WOULD make a TON of money. There are 15,112,098 people with cancer in the US alone. At whatever-charge X 15,112,098, a company with the cure would make a ton of money. An incredibly modest $10,000 x 15,112,098 = $141,120,980,000, which is more than amazon, Verizon and GE's total worth. And that's only for US cancer patients. Now tell me which company is going to pass that up? And, of course, that $10,000 is so incredibly modest that it's absurd, and any company with the cure for cancer would be the richest company in the world.

Exactly. There is no single company involved, there are hundreds of companies desperate to find a cure for financial or other reasons. There are many thousands of researchers at non-profits and universities looking for a cure. Each would love to be the first to discover a break through. I worked in the genetics industry and was involved in cancer related testing. The incentives are huge for even a minor step forward and there are a ton of independent parties pursuing it.

Also as others have stated, cancer is not a single disease, it is a large category that includes dozens and dozens of diseases.