Replies

More on Genetech & Amgen: http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/10/news/companies/biotechs/index.htm

If a cure for cancer were found it would cost the medical establishment millions. Are they really looking?

I don't believe they want to cure cancer.

Too many jobs would go by the wayside and drugs. They'll make more money doing the routine treatments for as long as they can - milk the system and keep people employed. There is no REAL incentive to change that. Color me jaded but I just don't see a cure happening any time soon.

It's telling and very prescient that a central point of the article is how much money the individual drugs make their respective companies. It is also telling that the writer of the article is using the drug makers' term for their medicines....."therapies". A lot of the "discoveries" are in the news literally years after they are well known in the medical establishment. My wife who died of HER2-NEU+, estrogen receptive breast cancer, was taking meds that the media trumpeted earlier THIS year as a great step.....but she died in 2004 and fought for 3 years previous (Herceptin if you are curious, and yes it had short-term success). My layman's experience with modern cancer treatment has convinced me that current medicine and medical practice will not "cure" most of the things that are under investigation today. Science is looking under a lot of rocks, but I believe that simple factors that most Americans ignore can be the cause and the answer. Diet, environmental toxins (all kinds---even mold) and getting sleep are things that I ignore too. I also think that we are actually TOO sanitary a point; by eating sterilized, homogonized, food we don't get the benefit of innoculating and strenghtening our systems the old fashioned way. Can't all be bad when we are living longer than ever on average, but....... Keri's chemo was $4000 a week for the better part of 3 years, plus PET scans, MRI's, Xrays, and other standard meds. I'm still not a conspiracy nut on this.......but when the numbers are big, the stakes are higher and money is the root of all evil. The major drug companies have discovered the post modern business model equivalent to the the funeral home. People are dying to be served, and the market will only keep growing.

Keri, a couple of months before her death. http://www.kerispeakman.org/