Why would a researcher keep a secret cure to cancer? You suggest it would be to benefit the rich and elite who by and large do get better healthcare than the average person. However, your hypothesis fails miserably with the death of Steve Jobs and many other billionaires from cancer.
Why do people continue to say this? The “maker” of any magic drug to defeat cancer would instantly be among the most valuable companies in the world. Instantly. The researcher who discovered such a drug would instantly be known to history and the world.
They would not keep it secret nor would they only use it for a handful of the elite. Such an idea is completely preposterous on so many levels I have not even scratched the surface. Such a research team would be recorded to history as an evil bunch much like the worst of the Nazi researchers in the holocaust.
Breakthroughs in cancer will come because of capitalism and the free market. Period. That is the engine that drives good things for humanity without fail. It will not be hidden and the overwhelming majority of top researchers in the field are very committed to their research and finding a cure for this horrific affliction upon humanity that benefits the world, their own families, and their own community. To suggest otherwise in some wild conspiracy is unwarranted.
You need to think this through....
‘You need to think this through....’
it’s probably true that a cure is not being purposely hidden, but it is completely true that costs, in terms of chemo and others, are artificially inflated by the mixed cocktails that are given, such as Taxol and some carboplaten...these combos are called therapy regimens, and are standard treatment in US...
I completely agree. The person or persons who discover a cure will be unstoppable. There aren’t enough evil people to keep it from being known, used, and celebrated.
But from thr Big Pharma perspective, I must ask if a cure for cancer would even sustain long term profitability (I know, crazy right?). It would have to be expensive to replace all the current cash cows with countless facilities and multiple treatments per patient. All those people, buildings and equipment wouldn’t be needed. It’s nice to think that the pharmaceutical Industry is creating drugs for altruistic reasons, but they are commercial capitalist entities that run on profit like all businesses, just as you said. Are they going to make the cure affordable enough for everyone to have access to it (not govt paying for certain groups), or will it be so valuable that very few could afford it and choose the more affordable standard “Classic Chemo” instead? It’s a very interesting topic, but what do I know. I’m just some guy on the internet.
By the way, IIRC, Steve Jobs chose “alternative medicine” rather than traditional Western medicine until it was too late. Pancreatic cancer like my uncle.