re: Has there been no SIGNIFICANT medical breakthroughs......

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My question for the consipracy theorists,

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remains for them to form a logical explanation for the Gleevec (imatinib) debacle. Drug cures CML (one type of leukemia) caused by a specific translocation of a gene from one chromosome to another. It also costs thousands of dollars. The company is making money. People are being cured of CML.


Here's the kicker: not all CML is caused by the "Philadelphia" chromosome as described above, but the majority is. When talking about the four types of leukemia, there are even more subsets of each type (the disease is named after the clinical picture, not the reason it happens in this case), requiring different treatments, because they're different things with different causes.


Also, to think that Gleevec, specifically, isn't a medical breakthrough is simply a disagreement on terms of what a major medical breakthrough is that, if you do not agree with, we simply don't have enough common ground for discussion on the matter.