Posted on 08/17/2006 11:25:56 PM PDT by neverdem
Yikes!
since the early 90s, the american medical types gave up on curing those things they could 'manage'... indefinitely. This has come to be very concerning for the future of american medicine.
bttt
We have a winner!!!
Follow the Money!!!
There does seem to be more money in therapy than cures.
Where are my Pufflist buddies?
Sorry, lost me right there.
If cancer has been known for millenia, I must presume they all smoked back when?? NOT!
Getting to the core of the runaway cell division and stopping it will cure cancer. All cancer.
Pissing and moaning nonstop to the tune of billions of wasted dollars a year (about tobacco) will not cure anything. What it will do (and has done) is waste untold sums of research (fill in the currency of your choice) which could have been used to find a cure.
Then everyone can die of something else.
The article said smoking is linked to 30% of cancers, not 100%
When I was a kid, my family knew no one that had cancer. Now, my family knows hundreds of folks with cancer, or have died from the desease. I have discussed this with other people, and they say the same. We agree that cancer has become rampant the last 40 years. What has caused the increase?
IMHO, increased longevity.
If there is no CA, there would not be a need for the AMA, a self sustaining institution.
It's "palliative" care for those poor cancer patients unlucky enough to have an inoperable cancer.
They use that term as though they are referring to the first definition in the dictionary (helping to ease the ravages of disease). In reality, it is the second (from Merriam-Webster).
2 : to cover by excuses and apologies.
Now I'm not arguing tobacco is good for you.
I am saying the fixation on smoking is detracting from basic research funding which could benefit everyone.
This has reached the point where the focus is not on curing cancer, but attacking tobacco. What a fricking waste of money.
Smoking isn't going away, despite the ludicrous efforts to make second class citizens out of smokers, ones which have established precedents for control over the lives of individuals and businesses which otherwise would not have been tolerated--and which will haunt us all later.
Just as alcohol did not go away during prohibition.
Regardless of how you feel about tobacco, recognize that immense sums are being pumped down the anti-tobacco rathole which would be better invested in finding a cure.
As for linking things, water consumption can be linked to 100% OF ALL CANCERS. If you don't consume water, you die. Everyone who consumes water has a risk of contracting cancer.
See how easy that was??
Do you honestly think the researchers who are only concerned about tobacco ever ask about occupational or other daily exposures to other carcinogens?
Nope. They found what they were looking for and quit looking.
But because smoking cannot account for all lung cancer, they have tried to establish more and more tenuous ties between lung cancer and exposure to tobacco smoke. Second hand smoke, even third hand smoke.... all researched with the money which could be used better doing microbiology and biochemistry to better understand the mechanisms of cancer.
Now I know there are other carcinogens out there, I read the labels that tell me lots of things are 'known to cause cancer in the State of California' and must presume that distinction does not cease at the state line. But how many of those are ever even asked about--especially in the case of a smoker?
Sure, I have smoked igarettes for a few decades. My bad. I have been exposed to crude oil two days out of three, when the price was up, for nearly three decades, various and sundry other chemicals and particulates, welding smoke, rock dust, in short, a wide variety of toxins and irritants. If, however, I contract lung cancer, none of the other poisons I have been around will get the blame. Only tobacco.
Sorry, but that is junk science, plain and simple. So don't waste funding on the pikers raving about tobacco, instead, spend it on the folks finding a cure.
If we find a cure, it won't matter why you have cancer.
Wall to wall carpeting, TV, telephones, synthetic fabrics, 'engineered' building materials, pesticides, air fresheners, atmospheric nuclear testing (now banned, but there during the formative years for the last 1/2 of the baby boom and beyond), processed foods, the list goes on.
Tailor made (as opposed to roll your own) cigarettes have been around since the early 1900s, so that probably isn't it.
Info that should have been in this article:
All cancers start from one individual cell (contrary to the article; just bad wording on their part): Cells multiplying out of control are indicative of either a benign (non-metastasizing) or malignant tumor. It can be low-grade, like basal cell skin cancer, or high grade, like small-cell carcinoma of the lung. Another interesting if morbid fact: the cell must divide 40 times or more to make over one trillion copies of itself equating to (depending on cell size) perhaps ten percent of one's total body mass. That is the approximate fatal threshold - 10% of cells that are energy-sucking deadweight.
The article's most significant point is what you caught: "cancer" is not one disease, but many - differentiated primarily by cytological origin and histological type. For pragmatic reasons it is also separated by treatment methodology. Lung cancer alone consists of four major types, each with subtypes.
Going forward with a view toward cure (rather than milking for money), it is my very modest opinion that the future lies in better targeting - such as the allusion to the new treatment agent for leukemia.
I think you're right about sheeple following the anti-smoking lobby to the detriment of other overlooked etiologies. You've mentioned some very good examples: wall-to-wall carpeting, processed foods, etc.
People can smoke, but they shouldn't (it's their choice, but it isn't the most intelligent one).
Granted, people can become addicted to nicotine, but they should try to remove that nicotine addiction.
People are living longer; there are more people; people are being bombarded by radio waves from transmission stations and satellites (though this does not necessarily cause cancer); people consume lots of chemicals (from both food and household cleaners, etc.); and cancer could have been misdiagnosed in the past, for starters.
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