Your comments regarding pharmaceutical houses and oncologists were unfortunate. There have been major advances in chemo pharmaceuticals over the last fifteen years. The inference that the cancers you listed have received short shrift so huge profits could be made by the pharmaceutical industry and oncologists reflects a complete lack of knowledge on the subject. Why would pharmaceutical houses develop phamaceuticals for any cancers, if profits were the sole motivator as you implied?
Oncologist treat real people with real family members. Many times their patients are relatives or people they have known for decades, friends and family members of friends. Your inference that these people would push off medications they knew wouldn't work, just so they could make a buck was simply untrue. And the charge flies in the face of medical professionals who are crushed when they have to explain to family members that there isn't much they can do, but try some things that have shown little success.
If it were your friend's mom, would you withhold a medication that might be somewhat helpful to her? If it would prolong her life for six months to a year, would you tell her daughter that you were sorry, but even though a certain med had been helpful in 15% of the cases where it was used, you weren't going to waste the money on her mom?
The real profits today are reaped on medications that are showing great success. They will be used in the vast majority of cases, and those profits will help to pay for research on new medications.
It is preposterous to claim that the only reason the pharmacueutical industry hasn't made more progress, is because we haven't cut off their funding, yet this is precisely the claim you sought to make.
That wasn't my intended inference. My inference was that no one should be making any profit on these ineffective treatments; they simply shouldn't be allowed. I usually agree with you, but we will simply have to disagree on this subject.
Chemo, without surgery, doesn't work on the cancers that I listed. I've spent hundreds of hours reading studies on both existing chemo options and clinical trials over the last year; particularly those focusing on cholangiocarcinoma, and pancreatic and liver adenocarcinomas. I know exactly what they say, and I stand by my statements.
If any other "business" had a 1% success rate (and a higher rate of actually hastening death), they would be shut down. Even if it's your stated 15% (that seems to be the standard spin fed to patients by oncologists...heard it more than once), what does that mean? If you look at the studies, it means that 15% might live an extra six months...whoopee...we should be proud of ourselves after several decades and billions of dollars wasted.
The sooner we cut off futile treatment the faster we as a society will demand an effective treatment. It's time to stop throwing good money after bad on a failed approach. I supposed I shouldn't blame oncologists; the FDA should simply cut them off at the knees by refusing to approve these drugs. Most people don't give this a thought until they are faced with the situation. I did; my Uncle died in his forties of cholangiocarcinoma in the early 80's. But even I wasn't prepared for the complete and total lack of advancement made in the last thirty years when my Dad was diagnosed last March (he died in July at 62). Most people also don't ever to bother to really "look" at the statistics. They think that their family member was one of the unlucky ones for whom chemo didn't work; they have no idea that it didn't work for anyone else, either.
We need to quit wasting money, and spend it instead on body scans for early detection when cancer can actually be treated; or (what a thought!) finding the actual cause and a decent treatment for cancer.