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Curing cancer ‘not a realistic goal,’ cancer scientists say
Fox News ^ | April 17, 2018 18 hours ago | Alexandra Deabler

Posted on 04/19/2018 7:58:22 AM PDT by Patriot777

Curing cancer ‘not a realistic goal,’ doctors focus on managing instead of curing disease

Over the last five years, cancer research has seen the “greatest advances,” including a new approach to treating the complex disease as a “chronic disease,” instead of trying to cure it.

“We have seen the greatest advances in cancer medicine in the last five years with drugs targeting the immune system moving into the clinic and showing remarkable response rates with quite a few different malignancies,” Lisa Coussens, Ph.D., Chair of the Department of Cell, Developmental & Cancer Biology, said to Fox News at the American Association for Cancer Research annual conference.

However response rates do not indicate medical doctors and scientists are closer to a cure, if still the goal.

“With regards to a cure for that, it’s really not a realistic goal. I don’t know if cancer is a disease that can be cured. I think for most of us, the goal is management where we think about cancer like other chronic disease,” Dr. Coussens said. “50 years ago diabetes was a death sentence, now it is a chronic disease that is managed.”

“It’s been a big shift in the last 10 years with thinking about cancer in that way: instead of a cure, treat it like a chronic disease where you live with disease and live your life well with that disease. It’s a major shift, but a tremendous goal,” she added.

According to the American Cancer Society, identifying certain types of cancer as a “chronic disease” was introduced around 2016.

“Cancer isn’t always a one-time event. Cancer can be closely watched and treated, but sometimes it never completely goes away. It can be a chronic (ongoing) illness, much like diabetes or heart disease,” the website says.

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Delaware
KEYWORDS: cancer; cancerbusiness; cancercure; cancermanagement; chronic; conspiracytheory; curecancer; manageable; tinfoilhat; unrealistic
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To: pgkdan
My mother and grandmother both died of breast cancer. Grandmother never did treat hers and lived seven year. Mom had surgery and lived about the same amount of time but she was 95 when she died. I was not in favor of treatment when it was discovered because she was already in advanced years but I was overruled by other family members who wanted to treat her.

I was floored once when a friend told me her mom lived with breast cancer for 30 years and never treated it and then she died of complications of diabetes. I'm now 80 and do not do mammograms. I'm not stupid and I plan to die sometime of something. My husband treated rectal cancer with the whole regimen of treatment, which has been unbelievable. I was not necessarily opposed because the tumor was interfering with bodily functions but still, he's going to die of something---he's 84.

21 posted on 04/19/2018 8:25:30 AM PDT by Wm F Buckley Republican (?)
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To: Patriot777

Without going into detail— as am way past an NDA and out of the “biz”.... you are mostly correct. The really big diseases— the killers: diabetes, cancer, and no 1— coronary disease (dyslipidemia, vascular stroke etc)-— are “danced” around. Except by true investigators who have uncovered the mechanisms.

A prime example of this is type 2 diabetes (not type 1): the chemical class of thiazolidinediones (Rezulin brand, first in the class of copycats)... was effective in reducing insulin resistance that Type 2 causes. It COULD have been dosed once a week but wasn’t because of marketing decisions. The per day dosing created liver toxicity while not improving the biochemical picture that spread out dosing could have safely provided. People got liver failure— the Tort lawyers (and HMOs and insurer/payors) got involved and the drug was pulled. Now we have moved on to other more toxic compounds.

Genius friend at Einstein Medical School shared this entire experience.. with deep regret and anger at FDA and their pals at competitive firms. This is how it is. Not unlike the “revolving door” seen from ex-military to the military industries, and how, for example great aircraft never come to be (for albeit different reasons than marketing/drug dosing/pricing issues). Rant over.

Similar example is available with the story of Inspra (class IV heart failure patient got out of bed and walked to the mailbox- but their hearts were so damaged previous to treatment, they couldn’t stand the strain). The issue there was... “quality of life, feeling better even as one is clearly not cured” vs. “count the bodies— does this reduce death by heart failure”. Sign of our times still. that and govt. controlled medical legal system— aka obamaumaocare. Now with the genome project— the nazis are still at it.


22 posted on 04/19/2018 8:26:57 AM PDT by John S Mosby (SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS)
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To: Patriot777

Of course not. There is no money in the cure. I pray for God to expose the wickedness, greed and corruption of the cancer industry.

I too believe there are already several known cancer cures. Maybe nit for all types, but many types. Case in point. Ex Pesdient Jimmy Carter at 90 years old had metastic cancer in his liver and brain and somehow he beat it when 30 year olds die from the same thing? Only the special elites get the cure. Wont be surprised to see McCain “beat” his cancer too.


23 posted on 04/19/2018 8:28:32 AM PDT by Angels27
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To: Patriot777

Research is incredibly expensive by its nature, and those of us who are in research would, no doubt, earn far more money if we would have gone into any number of other professions. But we choose to do research because we genuinely care about finding cures for diseases. I do not know anyone who has become wealthy from research.

The belief that there are suppressed cures for cancer is promoted by those who generally have no medical training, but see an opportunity to profit from people who are facing truly devastating illnesses by selling them snake oil and worthless books promising miracle cures. Those profiteers are scum, the lowest of low life.

The reality is that there are over a hundred diseases lumped under the name “cancer” and that each one has to be researched separately, because one size does not fit all. The more we understand about each disease, the closer we get to an effective treatment. And that takes a lot of time and money. Uncovering new knowledge takes time. Training people with the specialized skill sets they need to do research is time-consuming and costly. And the machines and materials for research are expensive. Many of the enzymes or reagents make gold and platinum look dirt cheap by comparison. This is because of the effort and material needed to produce them.

One enzyme I used often in graduate school cost over $1,000 per gram, or about $454,000 per pound. And that was one of the cheap ones.

Your kind of conspiracy theorizing does not help anyone at all.


24 posted on 04/19/2018 8:28:35 AM PDT by exDemMom (Current visual of the hole the US continues to dig itself into: http://www.usdebtclock.org/)
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To: RJS1950

Very true. And I don’t think everyone in the field of treating people with cancer are out to keep the status quo.

For instance, I have had cancer. I guess you could call me cured. The type of cancer that I had was “cured” by a simple surgery. Cut it out. No metastasis to deal with, no chemo, no radiation, no anything.

Within 12 hours of diagnosis, I was scheduled for the surgery. About 2 weeks later, I had the surgery and was cancer free.

There are other types of cancer where they DNA will continue to misreplicate forever. That type of cancer may not be cured. It will always crop back up and will always have to be re-treated. That is a natural degredation of the human body.

And as you mentioned, there are times that it is an external influence, such as a virus, disrupting the healthy processes in the body. Eradicating that virus, or preparing the body to recognize that virus so that cancer is less likely to be a byproduct of the infection will reduce those types of cancers.


25 posted on 04/19/2018 8:28:57 AM PDT by ican'tbelieveit
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To: Patriot777

In the case of diabetes— curing it would put vast numbers of “treatment” money makers out of a job: toenail clippers, debriding techs for peripheral vascular damaged feet, kidney dialysis for type 2 diabetic microvascular-damaged kidneys to filter blood. In short billions of dollars of ancillary treatment.... ameliorative care would be at a minimum, reduced and possibly eliminated.

Rant 2 over. imho.


26 posted on 04/19/2018 8:29:50 AM PDT by John S Mosby (SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS)
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To: Patriot777

Cancer is a by product of old age, the longer you live the more likely you are to get it, and live long enough eventually you’ll get it. And there is no cure for old age.


27 posted on 04/19/2018 8:31:16 AM PDT by Truthsearcher
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To: Patriot777

I thought Joe Biden was heading up a task force to marshall all government resources to find a cure... say it ain’t so, Joe!


28 posted on 04/19/2018 8:37:51 AM PDT by ReleaseTheHounds ("The problem with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." M. Thatcher)
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To: Patriot777

Keeping people alive long enough to get more $$$$$$$ out of them is the goal. A cure would mean no money.


29 posted on 04/19/2018 8:38:33 AM PDT by bgill (CDC site, "We don't know how people are infected with Ebola.")
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To: Patriot777
And then there are THESE "cancers" that plague our society.

I've lost my father, brother-in-law and friends to cancer, and now my brother(see tag)is fighting his own battle, along with my nephew.

What I find interesting is a couple of decades ago when HIV/AIDS was all over the news, talk shows, etc. It was talked about like it WAS a plague that was sweeping the world and we needed to do anything and everything to stop it(including perhaps redirecting cancer research federal funding...while cancer rates were soaring, particularly among children).

Now your rarely hear about HIV/AIDS...so was it just a "fad" disease, or did someone(quietly)find a cure?

And don't show me "Gov." statistics that might say otherwise about cancer rates...seeing is believing, dealing with it makes it real...and Gov. lies and is corrupt...not unlike the original "plague" in this post.

30 posted on 04/19/2018 8:39:14 AM PDT by RckyRaCoCo (Please Pray For My Brother Ken)
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To: pgkdan

My wifes breast cancer was treated with surgery (lumpectomy), radiation and 12 mos of chemo. She is cancer free with a very high likelihood of remaining so. And yeah, it was damn expensive and our insurance sucks.


31 posted on 04/19/2018 8:41:46 AM PDT by MileHi (Liberalism is an ideology of parasites, hypocrites, grievance mongers, victims, and control freaks.)
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To: Angels27

>Of course not. There is no money in the cure. I pray for God to expose the wickedness, greed and corruption of the cancer industry.

Exactly. Here is one admitting it — given a cure in hand, they wouldn’t deploy it because it doesn’t “sustain” their elite lifestyle. Or, to put it another way, they prefer you suffer so they can party.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patients-a-sustainable-business-model.html


32 posted on 04/19/2018 8:42:01 AM PDT by No.6
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To: pgkdan

Sorry to hear that.


33 posted on 04/19/2018 8:43:49 AM PDT by MileHi (Liberalism is an ideology of parasites, hypocrites, grievance mongers, victims, and control freaks.)
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To: Patriot777

No major disease has been cured since polio. That little “mistake” cost the medical community trillions. They won’t be stupid enough to do that again.


34 posted on 04/19/2018 8:43:58 AM PDT by albie
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To: albie

All kinds of cancer will be easy to cure within ten years.

When that happens all those charity sincure jobs and big government payouts, big pharma checks, etc. gone.

So here is the secret—nanotechnology—an incredibly smart tiny tiny machine that can identify cancer of every type, knows the proper treatment for each type, can inject with whatever is needed, and can solve the problem.

One shot—one fee—you can be sure there are thousands and thousands of lobbyists who will try to ban it....


35 posted on 04/19/2018 8:48:14 AM PDT by cgbg (Hidden behind the social justice warrior mask is corruption and sexual deviance.)
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To: Patriot777

Every lock has a key, every disease has a cure, and Big Pharma just wants to make money selling their toxic products to people in pain.


36 posted on 04/19/2018 8:50:49 AM PDT by Architect of Avalon
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To: Patriot777

Cancer is a broad term.

There are different forms of cancer that have been curable for years. But not every form.

But if I think back to when I was a kid cancer was not spoken about above hushed tones. I remember my mom talking to my grandmother about someone with the C-A. It was a death sentence.

Not so much any more.


37 posted on 04/19/2018 8:51:58 AM PDT by Vermont Lt
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To: Patriot777

Cancer is an industry. They will never cure it when they make hundreds of thousands of dollars of profit per patient. And in the end, most will die of the disease. Our family, as most families, has experienced this.


38 posted on 04/19/2018 8:53:10 AM PDT by txrefugee
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To: Patriot777
The really ludicrous part of this whole argument is that science "is" on the verge of being able to really cure cancer with genetically tailored drugs that attack ONLY the cells of the specific cancer in that specific person.

In general, the treatment involves harvesting cells from the tumor, doing a PCR analysis of healthy cells and cancer cells from the individual to isolate those sites on the cellular DNA that occur ONLY in cancer cells.

Tailor a molecule that will bond ONLY to the cancer DNA sites on one end of the molecule. Bond a cancer killer molecule or complex to the other end. Whip up a batch, and inject it.

The tailored molecule permeates throughout the body, but accumulates ONLY on cancer sites (so this also works for metastatic cancer). The actual mechanism that kills the cancer cells may be chemical, radioactive, or "externally triggered" with microwave energy (the best route needs more research).

39 posted on 04/19/2018 8:53:33 AM PDT by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel and NRA Life Member)
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To: albie
"No major disease has been cured since polio."

You don't consider stomach ulcers a major disease?

40 posted on 04/19/2018 8:54:14 AM PDT by Buffalo Head (Illegitimi non carborundum)
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