Virtue vs. Profit: The War on Cancer
by Britt HysenThe latest breakthrough in cancer treatment could prove to be “the cure” that kills it all, including a $50 billion-a-year industry. Dr. Carl June and his team at The University of Pennsylvania Medical Center have discovered a fresh, yet promising procedure that has leukemia patients marveling and pharmaceutical companies weary.
On August 10, 2011, the New England Journal of Medicine announced that the Alliance of Cancer Gene Therapy funded a clinical trial performed on three patients with the most common type of blood disease, chronic lymphocytic leukemia. The innovation that genetically alters T-cells and infuses them back into the body after chemotherapy has astonishingly decimated over six pounds of cancer in 28 days. All three terminally ill subjects have been in remission for over 10 months with two of the three having no trace of malignant cells, and the other with 75 percent shrinkage in the tumor.
According to the National Cancer Institute, the U.S. alone averages 15,000 new cases of leukemia every year, killing 4,300. The only treatment available is to undergo chemotherapy and radiation to stall the disease, and life-threatening bone marrow transplants to aid in remission. Dr. June said in a telephone interview with Bloomberg, “This is like a bone marrow transplant where the patient is the donor…this might make treatment more widely available with less long-term toxicity.”
His new procedure takes a small sample of the patient’s own T-cells extracted from their blood, and genetically modifies them to recognize cancer cells. They are then mixed with genetically harvested T-cells that have a similar coding to the HIV virus in the sense that they multiply 1000 fold when infused back into the body. Four days after chemotherapy, when the white blood cells are at their lowest and weakest points, the new genetically altered T-cells are given in one dose for three days, and act as replacement “serial killing” cells. Dr. June said of the research, “the results exceeded our expectations quite a bit.” Oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Dr. David Steensma, who wasn’t involved in the study said, “[the army of T-cells] not only has attacked and cleared the field but it’s also set up a patrol to make sure the enemy doesn’t come back.”
So if a potential cure has been found, then why is there a lack of funding for further research and clinical trials? Both the pharmaceutical industry and the government’s National Institute of Health have denied financing this project and many others in the past. An ongoing battle since the 1970s has prevented a cure from obliterating not only a life altering disease, but also that of a lucrative cancer industry.
According to Dr. Joseph Mercola’s article, “We Don’t Have a Cure for Cancer Yet – or Do We?” which was posted August 6, 2011, just four days before Dr. June’s study was released, states that economic forecasts predict over 20 million new cancer cases will emerge by 2025, and the current $50 billion-a-year industry will increase by 15 percent per year over the next 14 years due to the cost of post-chemo treatments. Dr. Mercola states, “Pfizer alone projects it’s annual cancer drug returns will be $11 billion by 2018.”
The New York Times has said, “Together, large pharmaceutical companies and smaller biotechnology companies are pouring billions of dollars into developing cancer drugs.” While this development supplies millions of Americans with employment, 547,500 cancer patients are losing their lives each year. Dr. Mercola suggests “the FDA continues to serve its client, Big Pharma, by making sure toxic chemotherapy, along with surgery and radiation, are the only cancer treatment options legally available to you.” Discussing the differences in profits between drugs and supplements, Dr. Mercola adds, “Over 800 studies show Vitamin D could have cancer prevention and/or treatment possibilities,” but Vitamin D can’t be patented because it’s a simple supplement, and therefore, profits couldn’t compare to that of a branded prescription drug.
As the stock market recently plunged, so did the interest for investing in the biotech industry. According to Seeking Alpha’s article “Biotechs Offer Great News, So What’s Confusing Investors?” published August 16, 2011, the selloff of stock in the biotech firm, Dendreon, has led investors to reconsider enthusiasm for other such developing firms despite recent advancements. Dr. June’s study should be exciting to investors, but the biotech industry is “struggling in a market that advocates shorting each and every successful firm’s stock without discrimination. Those who keep building wealth on the demise of the biotech sector took advantage of Dendreon’s huge dive to create unrealistic scenarios.”
Although Dr. June’s study shows incredible results so far for three patients, “the long term toxicities and efficacy are not at all clear…it could be historic, but it will take several more years and many more cases before we know,” Dr. Bruce Chabner, clinical director at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, told ABC News. However, owning the patents on the method makes Dr. June’s technique a viable procedure for any company that gets involved. “I want to make sure it gets FDA-approved…it’s at an early stage…whether we’ll work with an existing company or a new start up, I don’t know yet,” he told Bloomberg. Dr. June is currently testing his patent on other cancer types, including pancreatic, ovarian, and mesothelioma.
As one door could close on an industry that has been prolonging the continuation of toxic treatments, another could spur a medical advancement that blends profits with virtuous operations.
To learn more about Dr. Carl June and the Alliance of Cancer Gene Therapy visit http://www.acgtfoundation.org
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88 Comments
Doesn't this sound like an under regulation issue?
Private enterprise cares about profit ONLY so if they are overlooking real research opportunities in te name of profit, who else could step in other than the government?
Maybe more government grants for researching cures, maybe more government oversight for selecting the research to fund?
I just find this funny because liberals make this exact same argument (that the big Pharma companies are big and bad and evil and are suppressing chances to find a cure). So believe it or not, you guys can agree on something!
Gene Therapy is the BEST cure they have come up with! It can't be THAT expensive if they use your own blood, and re-inject it back into your body! They cannot stop this research!!!
Im thinking that while there is money to be made, Who needs virtues? The same could be said about the oil industry, While there is money to be made—There wont be any viable solutions.
This is a realy tough one, because the profit motive, in general, does drive innovation. But, what has always been in the back of my mind is the "maintenance vs. cure" argument for diseases. There's a lot more money to be made in management than the cure – but as to whether that drives these companies to withhold potential 'cures', I have no idea.
As a side note, Mercola has some pretty wild medical claims on his website from what I have seen (wild as compared to the "norm"). He may be right, and he may be a snake oil salesman, I dunno. I do happen to agree with him that chemical sunscreens are probably (in some manner) responsible for the increase in skin cancer rates. There is plenty of clinical evidence that skin cancer rates skyrocketed following the big sunscreen campaigns many years ago. Of course, it could be due to a number of factors, in which the sunscreen is only responsible due to the behavior changes it causes. Dunno, but worth a look.
"Maybe more government grants for researching cures, maybe more government oversight for selecting the research to fund? "
Should read:
Maybe more TAXPAYER grants for researching cures, maybe more TAXPAYER oversight for selecting the research to fund?
ObamaCare will kill this research…or keep the cure from those who are not radicals….Mao did not give back power: he killed dissent. Expect no less from a SEIU controlled Health Care system now. Freedom has passed into Politically Corrected History….1984 is upon us…until it is removed and replaced.
Not surprised. This is hardly the only cancer cure that is kept under the rug. http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2011/05/government_f... http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2011/08/worth_repeat... http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2011/03/worth_repeat... http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2011/03/other_compou... http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2011/02/worth_repeat... http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2011/02/evidence_can... http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2011/01/worth_repeat...
And there is so much more. Cannabis is also far from the only thing to be found effective in the eradication of cancer http://nutritiondietnews.com/853757/
Profit and virtue will only align when you have free market capitalism. When society degrades into fascism and socialism profit becomes something only the well connected are allowed to achieve and often it is through diabolical ends.
Not to mention all the fundraising conglomerates. There are a lot of people at the top of some of these making a fotrtune. Not to mention all of the Cancer Centers, and all of the support facilities if cancer in all or most forms were cured. The FDA will never allow this. That is why I invest in Israeli Medical Company stocks. and know they are actually trying to find cures and not padding pockets. Israeli technology is far more advanced and put true patients first.
Whats wrong with that?
Would you rather our money go towards starting wars, building missiles and creating chaos?
If anything more taxpayer money towards wonderous, virtuous things like cancer research should be welcomed, not ridiculed.
I would rather it not be taken in the first place. There are plenty of charitable NPO's that contribute to these kinds of studies. Those are funded, by choice, from individuals interested in the cause, not forcibly confiscated by the government.
Dr. Mercola who is cited in the article has also written about cannabis and cancer as well http://www.lewrockwell.com/mercola/mercola120.htm...
How will more regulation help?
If you want the govt to get involved with this research that will be redistributing the tax payers money, why not just send the money directly to these firms and cut out the middle man of the govt. This would also allow more of the money to reach the intended places.
Yes, the Israeli's are doing some amazing things with medicine, the corporate elite be damned. Have I mentioned lately how much I love those people?
The government IS involved and is denying financing. Next time try reading the whole article before spouting your "government is the cure for everything" BS.
"Both the pharmaceutical industry and the government’s National Institute of Health have denied financing this project and many others in the past."
No, if you look at how the FDA operates this is an over regulation issue. These kinds of discoveries get quashed by the regulatory bureaucracy because it would decimate the the big pharmaceutical companies.
Of course they can stop it. That is what the patenting of human genes is all about.
No I would rather our money go toward putting groceries in our fridges, paying our mortgages and put away for retirement.
Actually its gov that always picks losers. The reason this method was not tried in the past is because it costs close to a half billion plus about 15 years before a drug can make it thru the FDA.
Also since the gov supports cancer development it always forces a one way, monopolized view of cancer like the current view all cancers are caused by viruses.
Yes profit should be the motive yet the gov rigs the game and so the gov grants become the profit motive and when only one view is allowed by gov then only one avenue is pursued.
Israel is putting the health of their citizens ahead of the transnational corporatist agenda: http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2011/07/israels_medi...
This isn't actually a cure. The protein the t cells target are also found in the person's immune system so these super antibodies will essentially destroy the person's immune system until they are dissipated, that's if they do not mutate. Also the use of the virus to insert dna segments is inexact and may not result in the antibody desired. Lets hope it works but its not a magic bullet. Cancer is as varied as the number of cells in the human body.
Yes the 1000s of trials that have to be done, the 10s of millions spent just to get a drug to market. Heck eastern europe has been using oxygen injection into tumors for decades and its STILL not approved by the FDA. And the FDA is a grand example of crony capitalism. The large pharma companies use the gov to put these regulations into place so they can keep competition down. How many drugs are now sitting in a queue awaiting "approval" that could be helping people but instead go nowhere.
"Profit and virtue will only align when you have free market capitalism."
That is not a correct statement. Our historical experience with free market capitalism shows the opposite. Virtue only matters in capitalism when profit can be the result. Even then, profit is the motive, not virtue, so at any time if the equation shifts and profit and virture no longer align, virtue will be dispensed to chase profit.
Fascism and socialism are no good either, but don't kid yourself that free market capiatlism has anything to do with virtue. Why do you think cancer cures are kept under the rug? There is more money to be made in disease maintenance and less money to be made in cures.
Excellent comment otherwise though. We're missing the boat on the potentials of cannabis, and hemp.
Not sure where they got that this treatment would be "the cure that kills the industry". First, I am a cancer researcher having been in drug development. This treatment might have applications to other leukemia's. But as far as the big cancer's, such as colon, breast etc., you can rest assured, unfortunately, that this approach is highly unlikely to cure these conditions. Leukemia's are different than solid tumors in key ways that allow certain treatment approaches to work quite well, but are much less effective for solid tumors. Now I am not saying that an approach such as this might not help with the solid tumors, sometimes they do, but they have not been a magic bullet. As far as this discovery having pharma companies "weary". Well this is a statement from someone who knows nothing about cancer drug development. Over the 20 or so years I have been in the field, you see in the media people touting how their drug or treatment is the next cure, and we scientists just shake our heads and say we will need to see some data to back that up, and low and behold, the big cure extends lives 2 months, if ultimately it worked at all. Pharma is not weary of this, because we know how truly difficult it is to make ANY drug (for solid tumors) that works at all. Having been part of this for years, I can tell you it is truly very, very difficult, and the reality is advances in baby steps. Yes baby steps. The big blockbuster cancer drugs you read about in the news often extend lives 3 months. That is a huge success. Sorry about the post, but over the years the stuff that is put out in the media is so far from scientific reality, I just got to say something.
"Both the pharmaceutical industry and the government’s National Institute of Health have denied financing this project and many others in the past"
perhaps you missed that part.
Is there a place where we can donate to this research?
I dont have a lot,
but I lost two childhood friends to leukemia and would gladly donate to this cause.
Im sure their are others here as well who would give.
What I take away from our historical experience with free market capitalism is that it doesn't last long. The politically connected elite can not function on a level playing field and need the state to quickly intervene on their behalf.
And in fact this treatment supposedly uses a protein on the leukemia cancer cell to target the cell which is a similar protein in antibodies so the super antibodies will destroy the person's immune system in the process. Its not exact by a long shot.
Like the breakthrough research in adult stem cells being squelched by the lobbyists of those making a fortune farming Planned Parenthood's crop? I agree.
Good post, Darby. I had to smile when you described the "touting as the next cure". I also was a medical researcher and we had a saying:
"In God we trust. All others MUST submit data!"
There's a place to donate at the address at the end of the article. It's not a link so you have to type it in.
Thanks,
I wish Britt would have put: "to learn more or donate please visit http://www.acgtfoundation.org/"
The Federal Government has no constitutional authority to redistribute taxpayer revenue in the form of grants to anything. This is just additional evidence that the government alphabet agencies have overreached their charters and are deciding just which "favored" causes they will support with ouy money. All grant based funding should be eliminated.
"Mo grits dummy?". When referring to the Federal Government (central planners), MORE is definately not BETTER!
How does this sound? You stroke the check and I will see that it is spent well.
I think this is a totally biased response, and a great example of exactly why we are still in the dark ages with cancer treatment. Your making assumptions of failure before this treatment has even gotten a chance! Why is it so far fetched to think that there may very well be a silver bullet? Or that possibly this magic bullet will come from a natural source, or approach such as this one. From a researchers standpoint I can understand your response, but maybe you guys need to change your school of thought. To think that 3 additional months is a huge victory is pathetic! Especially after all these years of research. And these are extraordinarily barbaric treatments that we are talking about. I have lost 3 family members to cancer, and let me tell you, they only looked sick after they started treatment! In fact, it was only routine checkups and screenings that picked it up to begin with. A couple years of poison from the cancer doctors here in the states, and they are in they're graves! Since when did the almighty dollar become more important than human lives?
At what point can the American people step in, and help to make sure something like this is does not end up getting dismissed by Big Pharma, and the Cancer Society? This is not the only treatment that has come along showing such promise. It would be nice if the American people had a REAL TIME say in where our tax dollars go as far as research is concerned. With so many natural avenues to explore, why in the world is so much time and money being wasted trying to create the next big drug? Our health care system, when it comes to cancer treatment, is a joke! Generations to come will look back on these days with nothing but shame and contempt in they're hearts for the things that are being allowed to happen in the name of money.
We DO agree on this. However, as stated by the researcher in the article, government regulators and agencies are controlled by politicians under the influence of special interests (who, in this case are the pharma companies). What is opvious, to me, is that government is NOT the solution, and that where conservatives break from liberals. Like the researchers, we feel that government is part of the problem. What we see as a solution is for government to reduce it's size, scope and the cost associated with running the bureaucracy. This would lower taxes, allowing people to donate to the causes they deem worthy. You see, just like you and me, we believe that people are smart enough to figure out what is good for us, and our decisions aren't driven by profit or campaign donations. Therefore, we would be free to direct our donations to this promising research. In addition, free of the cost and inefficiencies of the government, a much higher percentage of each dollar would be available for the need for which it was intended.
This mindset translates to many other areas of need in our society: poverty, hunger, unemployment, the arts, healthcare, etc. This is how people took care of others for centuries before big-government elites decided that people and communities were too dumb to take care of themselves and huge federal programs were created. Some of these programs have been around for decades, yet the problems not only still exist and have shown little or no improvement. For example, since the Department of Education began operating in 1980, neither literacy or high school graduation rates have appreciably improved. They're certainly not reflective of the hundreds of billions that have been spent by the DOE. Government has proven over and over again that it is neither an efficent or effective solution to our societal challenges, yet liberals continue to look to it for salvation. You know what Albert Einstein said about the definition of insanity…
"Also since the gov supports cancer development it always forces a one way, monopolized view of cancer"
True. Government-run healthcare would only serve to exacerbate this, which is one of the many reasons that so many people oppose it.
Have you seen this? http://washingtonindependent.com/110168/documents... it's a prime example of the sleeze and corruption our government engages in when it comes to cancer.
This has NOTHING to do with profit or private enterprise.
Any organization that is founded and run to find a cure for some disease has an automatic DISINCENTIVE to not find the cure.
Check out the Susan G Coleman breast cancer non-profit organization which supposedly is trying to find a cure for breast cancer. They send funds to Planned Parenthood despite scientific research that shows abortion to be a CAUSE of breast cancer. In effect, they're paying money to make sure women have breast cancer.
Why is this?
When you're paying executives of non-profits or for-profit organizations large sums of money, they're not going to want to find a cure so they could lose their jobs. Simple as this.
These people want to keep their jobs and they'll make sure that people die to make sure of that.
Great point, and a fantastic article! This is exactly the kind of thing we should all expect to see when any kind of a natural treatment is talked about in a serious way. I have a friend that mixes Chemo bags at our local hospital, and it is so poisonous she has to get into such extreme dress, you would think she was about to enter Chernobyl. Yet hear you have a natural, extremely medicinal plant, and look at the way it is scrutinized, and downplayed. Why do we not have more control of our country?
In the past the world has conquered many of mankind's worst maladies such as polio, and have done it in relatively short periods of time. It seems hard to imagine that trillions of dollars along with trillions of man hours have gone into cancer research and we have little more to show for it than a new twist or two on barbaric 60 year old treatments. Obviously something is amiss.
Come on, sisty… they had three test cases. THREE! How much more proof do you expect?
I have been the head of both the Cancer Committee and Tumor Board at my hospital for 5 years now. There is not a single case where cost versus benfit isn't discussed when reviewing treatment modalities. There is no easy solution. These drugs are regulated to the stratosphere meaning the price to re-coup costs and the time it takes to reach the market are both incredibly large. Furthermore, as we keep discovering the specific genetic abnormailities for each tumor, people will get customized treatment for their specific tumor which increases the odds for cure and the cost at the same time. There is no easy solution. The drugs are expensive. We could just give people the option of standard old CHOP therapy with the option to pay out of pocket for the better modern day drugs, but no one would accept that and no one could afford it. Some of the angio-inhibitor drugs cost in excess of $30,000 per month.
I've contended for a long time that "cancer treatment" in America is mostly a business, with a minor medical component. Let's face it, doctors can't cure any disease! None. Zero. (and "infectious diseases" don't count; they are infections, not diseases) I think breast cancer is the biggest medical scam going. I believe that women naturally fight off breast cancer, and that before all the modern screenings, were successfully fighting it off, without knowing it, all the time. But now, the technology allows dectection of minute cancers that would likely be gone on their own, but now the treatment likely causes cancer that can't be "cured" except through the "treatment". I pretty much loathe the modern medical profession; medical doctors are just trade school graduates, and far too many have unearned, oversized, egos.
I don't claim to be a cancer expert, or a medical expert. I've just been forced by circumstances to become an expert of my own body. I had severe excema, frequent racing heart, very low immunity, severe allergies and other problems. After years of going to doctors I realized that the drugs they were offering were not helping me get better. All they did was mitigate symptoms. So, I took it upon myself to find out what was wrong with my body and solve it. It took about two years of study and experimentation, but I healed my own body! No more drugs, no more symptoms. I'm healthier than I've ever been in my life. And I've learned through online communities that I am not the only one to do this.
Now, when I see commercials on TV for prescription medication and hear the hilarious disclaimers (may cause death, etc) I just laugh. I'm not saying that traditional allopathic medicine doesn't do a lot of good for a lot of people in a variety of situations (including cancer), but it behooves us all to be skeptical of anyone claiming to be an authority about anything.
I am as pro capitalism as anyone, but I've learned by personal experience that the medical community has problems caused (imo) by a combination of crony capitalism and a paradigm that doesn't look at the body as able to heal itself. It's a little bit like the wild west out there when you venture away from allopathic medicine, but if you use your brain and ask God for help, the answers are there.
(btw, Naturopaths can be very useful as well. But as in everything, don't just let them tell you what to do. Research their advice, compare with others and get several opinions). I firmly believe good health is available to the vast majority of us if we are willing to do what it takes and be proactive.
As a cancer patient in remission from a form of cancer that ALWAYS returns, I have little hope in "chemotherapy" "cures." Since the FDA is enshrined as Exhibit A in the Hall of Fame of Crony Capitalism, pharma companies needn't do anything to protect themselves from competitors – they have the FDA. Why do you think it takes 10 years and billions of dollars to bring a new drug (when's the last time you heard of a true cure??) to market? Big Pharma and the FDA want it that way.
Some facts:
Chemotherapy drugs are the graveyard where other drug developments go to die. You think thalidomide is outlawed? Nope! It's a drug used in "chemotherapy."
"Chemo," the affectionate name uttered in nervous tones, grew out of mustard gas developed by Germany as part of chemical warfare in WWI. Google Farben IG, mustard gas, cancer, chemotherapy in any combination you like – but be prepared to be horrified. Chemotherapy is technology straight out of the 1940s.
Cancer medicines both prescribed and dispensed by the same oncologist (which is a conflict of interest on its own, but leaving that aside…) are still used and trumpeted as if they were new news. Survival rates? They are reported as if you had actually been cured, but calculated as being alive five years after diagnosis (even if the tumors/cancer cells are gradually building up again).
Cancer has been known for years as a metabolic disease, but it is treated as if it were an invader like germs or a parasite.
I'm glad to see Dr. Mercola getting some publicity. Read and research for yourselves but be prepared for a long, dirty battle. – the Cancer Industry is not about to give up $50 billion of your dollars. Whatever happened to the guy who invented the machine to heat blood to kill cancer cells? Cancer cannot survive temperatures above 105 degrees. Remember, he was from Kansas? His invention is gone into the ether, never to resurface.
The AMA can stop it by refusing to issue an ICD9 billing code.
It's not a cure but it shows that cancer is a disease that the immune system can fight, IF IT'S STRONG ENOUGH. The immune system starts in the gut – 80% of it. You cannot have a healthy immune system on the Standard American Diet.
My, I had no idea other scientist types read this blog!
Because first off we have heard this silver bullet claim time and time again. The last silver bullet was certain foods that cause the weak capillaries of cancer cells to collapse.
Second YES the almighty dollar comes first because the infantile attitude of "skies the limit" when it comes to money means money is spent poorly and so any so called cure will be harder to obtain with inefficient funding.
Also ALL OF US deal with cancer, either with a loved one or ourselves so you're not the only victim.
Want to make sure it does not get dismissed. Here's what we do:
1. Get rid of the massive spider's web of regulations that prevent small companies and research foundations from trying drugs.
2. get rid of the FDA.
3. Let 1000s of little companies try for a cure.
4. If gov is involved it will impose one monolithic view of how cancer should be treated ie the current flavor of the day which is cancer is caused by viruses. Get gov out of the picture with funding and restrictive regulations so one view isn't favored over another.
5. Quit thinking anyone not a stooge for the government is evil and wishes to kill all the puppies.
I don’t entertain many conspiracy theories but I have always believed the pharmaceutical industry has no interest in curing cancer; they’d rather sell truckloads of drugs to prolong a life extending their income stream. Although billions are spent on research and development if a cure were discovered I think it may be shelved. I’d like to think that no group of people could be so inhumane and malicious towards the millions with cancer but history has shown us that humans can be the most wretched of creatures.
I heard about this treatment last week and was very hopeful. Like many I have a loved one battling a brutal cancer. I’d like to see a Republican president cut tens of billions in govt waste from idiotic leftwing programs [EPA] that serve no benefit and are a burden on the taxpayer. Spend that money on a war on cancer. Create a Manhattan Project like determination towards curing this monstrosity.
Thanks for your response, I always appreciate another point of view. I think your right, the silver bullet claim does get thrown around all the time, and it does seem like there is something new every time we turn around. The problem we have, is that there is just too much focus in the wrong areas when it comes to a cure for cancer. There is way to much focus on money when it comes to the direction of the research that is being done.
I know all to well that we all deal with cancer, and my point was not to sound like a victim, as I am not. In fact, the point I was trying to make, is that my family members were not necessarily victims of cancer, but victims of the totally barbaric, ineffective treatments that are used today. The gray area in cancer is just too vague. If someone is cured after a diagnosis, "it was certainly the treatment", but when someone dies, "it was certainly they're cancer". That is one of the scariest things about this whole mess we are in, a diagnosis can often times do much more harm than good. What oncologist in they're right mind would ever confess that chemo killed they're patient? Or that possibly too much Coumadin was prescribed to a cancer patient, and then they were written off as passing from they're cancer? I'm not even sure that the word barbaric is descriptive enough to encapsulate how bad things really are…..
Well put! These days they even push for donations in our grocery stores. Every time I go grocery shopping the clerk solicits me without fail, "Sir, would you like to round up 75 cents today to find a cure for breast cancer?". Every time I here this, I'm thinking @$#% no! There is not a chance I would donate to anything like this just to keep these so called non-profits is business. They can go peddle they're BS somewhere else!
Well said….
There's a very simple solution. It's called Universal Healthcare and taking the profit out of medicine.
So you want the government to give grants for this research? Think real hard now and watch what you as you might be thrown out of the tea bagger club because of your answer.
Not interested in opinions from dimwitted far-left assclowns.
Speaking for myself I always thought of cancer and other afflictions as a diseases of opportunity, ignorance and/or neglect. Almost every ad seen anywhere deals with the 'curing' of this or that but nary a word on the prevention of such. Why is that? I eat right, work out, sleep as much as my job allows and while that's no guarantee I'll live to a ripe old age(who'd want to)I take the responsibility for my health and not some faceless doctor or bureaucrat doling out an ever-dwindling supply of dosages or dollars in a health care system that's doomed to fail, ultimately leaving everyone playing their own doctor; exactly as it should be. Medicare, Medicaid and their ilk are crack-pipe dreams of the egalitarian elite and came with an expiration date, and that date soons comes.
"All they did was mitigate symptoms."
In my mother's case, they've caused many of her symptoms. There's so much guesswork in medicine and I've seen so many stumped doctors, it would be depressing if, like you, I didn't know we have other options.
I don't think the government is the cure for cancer. A non-centralized approach would probably work better: more perspectives –> more options.
Susan G. Komen does indeed donate to Planned Barrenhood.
I think you have an unintended double-negative in your 2nd sentence. I agree with your point though.
All single-issue non-profits have more incentive to become 'awareness' organizations than to find a remedy for their issue. My wife has Multiple Sclerosis, but I've stopped donating to the MS Society because little to none of their funds go to research.
I would like to see multi-issue, solution-incubating charities. This is the only model I can envision where the incentives align. For example, imagine a "Curing Diseases Foundation," whose sole metrics would be a) dollars & percentage of funds used for research, and more importantly, b) cures found (and published). A condition of receiving funds from them would have to be that every step of the research would be publicly available, whether it was accepted for publication &/or production by academics, the AMA, the FDA or anybody.
I think this model could work for other social blights as well; it at least helps to lessen the disincentive to solve problems by giving the nonprofit a larger reason to exist, and by making the finding of solutions a momentum-building factor, instead of one that would make them superfluous.
Website with link to free stream of a great documentary. It will amaze you just how far the pharm industry and government will go to stop new cancer treatments.
http://www.burzynskimovie.com/
Oh yes, there are a number of us lurking around. Strange, since we're supposed to be……..what's the new libtard buzzword?………..oh, yeah…………..
"anti-science". : P
Yes, from simple minds come simple solutions.
However, more advanced minds will not spend millions developing new drugs and tests with no profit motive. had a simpleton like yourself paid attention, you would note that ALL major drug and diagnotic break throughs come from the US.
Furthermore, the more advanced minds will NOT voluntarily go hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, work 80+ hour weeks during the prime years of their life to come out and make peanuts.
Keep trying Forrest.
The author of this piece is long on insinuation and short on evidence. In other words, she seems overly full of a well-known substance.
Does anyone believe that pharmaceutical company's stockholders and managers would stand by and let their own family members die of a curable disease? What nonsense!
Libtards are the ones who look for conspiracies under every rock. Please, conservatives, re-read the article. There's nothing in it.
Count me in as another science type, and a fresh out of college (well 6 months out of college) student of chemistry.
But for your post, having talked to researchers before, and watching one of my professors try and tackle the issue of sickle cell disease, what you said hit the nail on the head from what I've heard. If I could, I'd up vote you 10 extra points.
Genes are funny business and not all that well known, which is what causes cancer. With cancer, it's your own body and genes going haywire, and growing WAY out of control. Until mankind can find a way to fix our own genes, which are extremely complex, it's going to take a while. The technology isn't quite there yet. As a result, we have to do with what current technology can provide.
Viruses and bacteria are much simpler by comparison, due to our body already having the tools to make weapons against viral and bacterial infections, and modern medicine allows us to be able to weaken these viruses and bacteria and trick our own body into creating weapons to kill these infections (immunity shots). Hell, most cures were found by accident, like the discovery of penicillin. Also, polio has been around the world much longer. Thing is, polio, smallpox, etc were only able to be wiped out, because technology was able to catch up to where we humans can create cures.
The big reason the research stays in particular areas is again the gov handing out grants. For example, right now the popular idea is that cancers are caused by viruses. That's where we got some genital warts vaccine. Since the gov is convinced (again by special interest) that cancer is caused by a virus ONLY groups doing virus research get grant money.
Didn't mean to be harsh about the victim comment.
More importantly, thos orgs actually have a goal the are working towards. People in the business (yes, a business) of govt grants are tring to get more grant money. And the people who recieve them are hardly the most qualified scientific mins out there. They're just pigs at the trough of political favoritism, which is govt grants are at the end of the day.
I took this more on a bash on the FDA and big Pharma being in each other's back pocket, not a conspiracy.
Then again, 'improper collusion' doesn't need to be a conspiracy, just a side effect of being joined at the hip.
I don't know about this one, there are lot of quack 'cancer cures' out there. I do know we(humans) have a 'cure' for almost all bacterial infections, even MRSA, but the technique will NEVER be approved by the FDA. Phage therapy.
This is not because of conspiracy or collusion, it's more because of culture. It's because the technique is 'messy' and cannot be standardized. That is, you can't make 1 million pills of the stuff all having the exact same composition. Not that that would do any good, because that's not really the way phage treatment works.
For phage to be approved by the FDA each batch would have to be extensively tested, and since each batch is 'custom made' for each infection, down to the specific(sometimes unique) subspecies, it'll just never happen.
Sooo..Something similar may apply to certain types of gene therapy treatments. Since each 'use' is basically making a new 'drug' out of someone's blood. That 'drug blood' is obviously different from the blood you'd get using the same technique on someone else. And since you can't determine with 100% certainty that the technique will work the same way on everyone's blood, the new 'medicine' is not standardized so will not be approved.
Half of the sponsorship of R&D on this planet, AMERICA NOT WITHSTANDING, is through private industry according to Shamoo & Resnik `02. In a great many cases your government enjoys the control sponsoring university labs affords in that they have refused many times in the past wholly sponsored labs by private industry. They too are interested in patents and all that represents including $$$.
You were saying?
Empty headed rhetoric. Any idea of what it takes to get something past the FDA? That these people were TERMINAL was the only thing keeping these researchers out of jail. Try cracking a book.
I've worked in the past with a company trying to get approval from the FDA back in 1992 when it already enjoyed such here in Canada and in Europe. They wanted another 3 years of trials IN an American accredited lab which was, no slight meant, to a lower standard than even that of Health Protection Canada. There are enormous controls already in place within America's system and ALL ARE USED LIBERALLY by your government agencies. Why this remains unknown to many actual Americans is beyond me.
Sure more government intervention is needed through the FDA… so that things never progress? I'll argue that one American party wants to see grandma make it to 100 and beyond while another wouldn't mind a more resource friendly number as there are others to think about.
Come on now, the best term yet coined to slight anyone remotely familiar with scientific method was "denier".
Read deeper. Try your shadow patent office and Medline. Look for the part where "at a blood concentration of X" shows up and note that as 100% lethal to ??? you guessed it, humans. I read the Journals of Medicine each week and have had Medline dbase access since 1989 and do actively maintain a vantage point for research which spills over into my own rare affliction. One thing though I can't abide is false hope tainted by a personal agenda.
I want to spark up so it cures the common cold… <snifle>
I'm on board with that. Whether its corruption or fraud or the "politically connected elite" using government to tilt the advantage to themselves, free market capitalism doesn't stay free for very long.
Also worthy noting finding a treatment which also isn't the ultimate in immuno-suppression is nothing quite as simple as most appear to think. The body's resources are finite and this I believe is the single greatest lack of comprehension for the global public. Pneumonia shows up in study after study and were hospital records adjusted for actual cause of death, it might well be the most common word in their dbase. Funny the old proverb of robbing Peter to pay Paul is so relevant in modern medicine.
Seen it already through Monsanto patenting naturally occurring gene sequences in various cereal crops so its already a matter of stare decisis. It naturally occurs but I isolate/patent it, the methodology of isolation/extraction and all points in between, thus I own nature. Chaaaching!$!
I am aware that they CAN stop it, I was just saying that for the sake of all humanity they cannot…probably should have said 'should not' stop it!
A fellow chemist! Awesome! I won't tell ya how long ago I graduated!
I love that one. We want valid proof, so therefore We are the ones that are the Deniers!
When the first tenet of science is itself "question all", I'll wear that Denier name tag happily.
OH you just reminded me of another one the non-scientists, like The Gorebunkle always says. "The science is settled". Cute, what science would that be? When did data manipulation and fraud become a science? : P
Your Cancer is my profit oppotunity.
I will patent my cure to profit from it.
If the cure works well I do not feel too guilty about increasing cancer in the US to get more revenue.
Think about it.
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