Cure for Cancer...

[ShiningStar]

I am happy with the pharmacutical companies have done considering all the loop holes and everything else that goes on for those companies and how us the ignorant choose to mock them while they try hard to help us.

 

[CowboyMcCoy]

I know a lot of people who put these sort of things together and they are good intentioned - especially those who have survived, so I don't think it's an overall conspiracy. But I really don't think it's realistic.

I do think it's much too lucrative a venture to simply give up for some. Cancer has been characterized as something that is malicious instead of the mindless effects of our environment on our bodies. You're not going to cure death and you're definitely not going to change the causes if you're not at all changing the environment.

I'm not an environmentalist and that's not where I am going with this, but I do believe the very industrial nature of our society is causing a lot of our problems. Pollutants in the air and the water are not doing us any good. I also believe that it's an unspoken realization among the medical/science community that has to remain unspoken for various reasons.

I have to laugh at the vilification of smokers, with their silly little leaves wrapped in paper while the wheels of our life-style supporting industry are coughing out the most noxious garbage I have to inhale on a daily basis during my commute. While giant cigarette shaped stacks cough out God knows what of a very rank smelling cloud.

The cure for cancer isn't some magic drug some scientist must discover, it's going to be a long overarching lifestyle change for our society over all. Until our litigation fearing society starts admitting this crap, nothing of real consequence is going to change.

Exactly.

 

[CowboyMcCoy]

They have actually made huge inroads into curing cancer lately. The FDA just approved what is considered a type of cancer vaccine.

LINK

That's no joke. Cancer death rates are declining because of medical advancements. Sure, the hand of death gets grabs people willy-nilly, but overall we're seeing fewer and fewer people die from it.

 

[TwoCentPlain]

Cells are constantly reproducing in the body. I forgot the exact number (maybe 2-3 years) but each and every cell in the human body gets replaced within a two year window. Take a look at your body now, and two years later, each and every cell will be a new cell. Now the cells don't all change at the same time. Cancer is when cells mutiny inside the body and decide to go off on some tangent.

Will there ever be a cure? I doubt it. Especially if people continue to smoke, drink, eat garbage, and get obese.

How many cancers can be prevented just by people not smoking, drinking, and getting obese? Yet people continue to do these things.

And then there is the coming diabetes epidemic. A person I know who is studying medicine right now says it will be a humungous problem within a generation if there is no cure found soon.

 

[VietCowboy]

Cells are constantly reproducing in the body. I forgot the exact number (maybe 2-3 years) but each and every cell in the human body gets replaced within a two year window. Take a look at your body now, and two years later, each and every cell will be a new cell. Now the cells don't all change at the same time. Cancer is when cells mutiny inside the body and decide to go off on some tangent.

Will there ever be a cure? I doubt it. Especially if people continue to smoke, drink, eat garbage, and get obese.

How many cancers can be prevented just by people not smoking, drinking, and getting obese? Yet people continue to do these things.

And then there is the coming diabetes epidemic. A person I know who is studying medicine right now says it will be a humungous problem within a generation if there is no cure found soon.

Yep, obesity will the the overarching underlying cause of most of our issues in the next 10-30 years. For most, just losing weight and eating healthier will reduce Diabetes and cardivascular diseases etc. People are willing to donate millions and millions of dollars to help pediatric cancer, etc. But donating money to improve nutrition in our children? not as much.

Except for pancreatic cancer and some others, we are getting a lot better at preventing cancer from getting severe enough by promoting screening at certain time periods of life, which in turn allow for better survival rates the earlier they are found. It saddened me that the recommendation was made for mammograms starting at 40 years of age to 50 years of age, because you do catch a lot in the 40's (especially those at high risk), and pushing it back a decade doesn't make much sense to me.

To be honest though, from my readings, I've learned that those with the highest rates of diagnosis and death from cancer (especially in a very short time) are African-Americans (women in particular) b/c of the lack of resources and then only coming in when things have probably already metastasized. This is according to American Cancer Society.

 

[UnoDallas]

I have to laugh at the vilification of smokers, with their silly little leaves wrapped in paper while the wheels of our life-style supporting industry are coughing out the most noxious garbage I have to inhale on a daily basis during my commute. While giant cigarette shaped stacks cough out God knows what of a very rank smelling cloud.

you mean a person can smoke in publis place

I really hate that law - altho I don't mind it because I can go several hours with out have to light up

when I go to the Casino I never light up at a table

its in your genes - whether or not you get cancer

my grand mother smoked camel non filters for 50 + years - did not die of cancer - she died of old age at 95

I been smokin for 40 years - the doc told me my lunges are fine

 

[locked&loaded]

http://worldofweirdthings.com/2010/03/27/a-new-smarter-weapon-against-cancer-cells/

 

[Eskimo]

All of you medical skeptics amuse me with your conspiracy theories about the health care field.

There will never be one cure for cancer because it is not one disease. Even in a given organ system (say the lungs) there are many types of cancers. Even if you isolate it down to one type of lung cancer, there will be variances in the nature of the cancer between two people who seem to have the same pathology. Even if two people have the same exact set of gene mutations leading to the exact same type of cancer, their bodies may react differently to the treatment that is given based on a multitude of factors.

What you are funding is not so much a "cure for cancer", but funding for cancer research so that we may get better treatments for cancer.

Our understanding of the human body is really still in its infancy in many respects. Most of the tools needed to really get at treating cancers in an intelligent way (other than the cut it out or poison it with toxic chemicals or radiation) have been around only for a decade or so. I know it is hard to have patience when it seems like so much money has been given and so many lives have been taken but there is no grand conspiracy to deny the public a cure.

 

[dback]

All of you medical skeptics amuse me with your conspiracy theories about the health care field.

There will never be one cure for cancer because it is not one disease. Even in a given organ system (say the lungs) there are many types of cancers. Even if you isolate it down to one type of lung cancer, there will be variances in the nature of the cancer between two people who seem to have the same pathology. Even if two people have the same exact set of gene mutations leading to the exact same type of cancer, their bodies may react differently to the treatment that is given based on a multitude of factors.

What you are funding is not so much a "cure for cancer", but funding for cancer research so that we may get better treatments for cancer.

Our understanding of the human body is really still in its infancy in many respects. Most of the tools needed to really get at treating cancers in an intelligent way (other than the cut it out or poison it with toxic chemicals or radiation) have been around only for a decade or so. I know it is hard to have patience when it seems like so much money has been given and so many lives have been taken but there is no grand conspiracy to deny the public a cure.

Eskimo, I was actually waiting for you to chime in. I remember you saying that you were a doctor. My wife is in her first year of residency so she still has many of her classes fresh on her mind and she recently finished an oncology rotation. She was telling me one time exactly what you are saying, there are so many factors that go into a cancer treatment for each individual patient. There is not just one blanket cure for cancer A inside of organ B and so on. Immunology was her favorite course btw.

It is funny because the entire side of her family is full of medical conspiracy theorists (aids is man made, vaccines = autism, etc.), but she never succumbed to that dark side.

As to my personal opinion on the topic of donating to groups doing cancer research. I personally check to see if the group is legit and I see how my money is being applied to the research. Any legitimate group will have a web site or some sort of printed information about where their money goes. I do not mind if they keep a small portion because I understand that their are operating costs involved. If too little of the money goes to some sort of lab, I may try to donate directly to the research lab and bypass the middle man (the group).

 

[CF74]

our entire medical system is based on treating the sick, rather than curing the sick.

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

"Physician heal thyself."

Personally I'm convinced that illnesses come from what we eat and don't eat. Many Dr's. have stated that most diseases are vitamin deficiencies. You can't fix worn out parts but you can slow down the process, some. It just depends on how early it's detected...

 

[VietCowboy]

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

"Physician heal thyself."

Personally I'm convinced that illnesses come from what we eat and don't eat. Many Dr's. have stated that most diseases are vitamin deficiencies. You can't fix worn out parts but you can slow down the process, some. It just depends on how early it's detected...

Prevention is great, but I had read an article last Fall that made a decent argument about how prevention may end up costing a lot more than intervention because often is the case with some diseases, the base rate is soooo low, that if we were to have EVERYONE be screened, etc., then that cost would be more than it would to treat the small number of people who actually end up getting the disease.

I think the more we learn about what the risk factors are (especially biological/genetic, or specific environmental ones), we can get better, more efficient with targeted prevention or intervention with those with subthreshold symptoms.

 

[ZeroClub]

It is a matter of time, not possibility.

 

[CF74]

Prevention is great, but I had read an article last Fall that made a decent argument about how prevention may end up costing a lot more than intervention because often is the case with some diseases, the base rate is soooo low, that if we were to have EVERYONE be screened, etc., then that cost would be more than it would to treat the small number of people who actually end up getting the disease.

I think the more we learn about what the risk factors are (especially biological/genetic, or specific environmental ones), we can get better, more efficient with targeted prevention or intervention with those with subthreshold symptoms.

Who are you implying picks up the tab? It's up to the individuals to have their check ups...

 

[Longboysfan]

They have to get their DNA research going to find the markers.
Then find a way to turn the bad DNA marker off.

 

[Hoofbite]

Can't believe most of you are unaware that there already is a cure for cancer.

It's long been known that Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer but the problem is nobody can get that SOB to cry.