re: Let's talk a little about cancer

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My thoughts are that we have a cure for cancer. Those with power have access, those who don’t, don’t.

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Anyone who says we have a cure for cancer is exposing their complete ignorance to the biology of cancer. Cancer is not a single disease, and every individualtumor is unique to that person, germline of origin, initiating mutation(s), immune cell infiltrate, etc. So, if you understand that, you will see how there will never ever be a "cure for cancer." There will continue to be better methods for preventing, diagnosing, and treating cancer, and these developments will extend survival times, reduce incidence, and decrease prevalence of most cancer histotypes.

Sincerely,
Guedeaux, PhD. Cancer research scientist at a leading cancer research hospital.

PS by saying that "they" are hiding the cure for cancer, you are calling me and all of my colleagues liars and money-hungry assholes. If you knew how little the majority of people in research make, you would not believe this idiotic claim.

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If you knew how little the majority of people in research make

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PhD's do all the leg work so that MD's can take all the credit.

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Since most cases are developed later in life, would the increase life expediency answer for some of these increased cases?

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This is it. Took a couple of Cancer and Toxicology classes a long time ago.

Cancer is a disease of old age. Your body replicates it's DNA so many times during the course of your life. The chance of a mutation occurring is 1 in 1 billion.

Which if you think about it is quite amazing. Our body replicates DNA trillions upon trillions of times, yet the chance of a genetic mutation that that causes cancer is that low.

The more life expectancy increases, the greater the odds cancer numbers go up.

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death taxes, estate taxes

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ehhh, not so much.

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Guedeaux

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First of all, I appreciate the work that you do and laud your tireless efforts to research. People like you make the difference. Forgive me if you were insulted, because I didn't mean "they" as in the scientist, I meant "they" as in the ominous they. They could be drug companies, FDA, etc.

I do understand (only to the degree of a Bachelor) how cells work and do understand morphology, gene specificity and resistance. I know cancer is specific to the individual, but figured there would be something a little more advanced beyond surgery/chemo/radiation marketable and usable at this point. It was also a point I made about how much money cancer makes (while understanding all of the other disease prevention and cure methods we have).

I appreciate your input

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but figured there would be something a little more advanced beyond surgery/chemo/radiation marketable and usable at this point

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There are a lot more options out there than the big 3. Tyrosine kinase inhibitors, along with all of the big 3, have kept my grandfather alive for many years. Especially with the aged, attempting to cure the disease is rarely the best course of action, and merely managing the growth and spread can improve the survival time and quality of life of patients.

There will be a lot of advances made in the near future, but safely confirming the actions of these treatments is very time-consuming and tedious. So, it really takes nearly 15 years for a drug to be created before being approved in humans. For the treatment I discovered, we are about to start human trials, and we first discovered this treatment in 2005. However, the research leading up to this discovery took almost 10 years. I think that the layman's perspective on how long research takes is completely skewed by tv shows and movies.

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Forgive me if you were insulted, because I didn't mean "they" as in the scientist, I meant "they" as in the ominous they. They could be drug companies, FDA, etc.

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I was not insulted as this is a message board, however, if my career goes well I will possibly be working at the FDA, a drug company, or started my own drug company. So, I guess will still be "they."

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It seems to me that despite the modernization of medicine, cleaning of water, air pollution reduction, stringent requirements for industrial waste/byproducts, cancer rates are increasing. I know sometimes we are predisposed to cancer and our eating habits, exercise habits and God knows what else which contribute to causes (besides the obvious tobacco/alcohol-related cancers).

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Cancer is more common as you age. The more of your population that is older, the more common it will be in total.

Thinking about cancer as a single type of disease is also misleading. There are a lot of different etiologies of cancer and there are a lot of different approaches that work well with one type of cancer but not very well at all with others.

It makes more sense to think of cancers as groups of disease and to think about health as more of a holistic issue where a variety of complementary approaches are more likely to increase people's life spans and quality of life.

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windmill

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Idiot

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Idiot

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