Confessions of a Cancer Industry Insider

Originally posted by Griffo
Well moron, I assure you with great confidence that there are people actively trying to find a cure for cancer. I do research in a laboratory (mostly on malaria), but there are people who work in adjacent labs, and indeed our lab, that are researching on drugs to combat cancer.
It really annoys me when people like you just spout off the claim that people like me, and other hard working researchers, just sit off all day and *actively* try and do something so immoral as to condemn other people to death

After 50 years of research and hundreds of billions of $$$ where is the cancer cure?

Why don't you go over to them in the adjacent labs and demand some answers?

In fact in every other field shows huge advances except in the field of cancer which is surgery,cancer inducing toxic chemo, and radiotherapy...and have a 3% average survival rate over 5 years.


These people are not looking for cancer cures they looking for money making patentable drugs which may show a temporary improvement or temporary apparent "improvement".

That is why they get funding.


Could you explain to us why 520000 Americans from cancer last year with all this cancer research?

520000 that is more than 1/2 million Americans alone.

reply to post by beckybecky

In fact in every other field shows huge advances except in the field of cancer which is surgery,cancer inducing toxic chemo, and radiotherapy...and have a 3% average survival rate over 5 years.

I guess "every other field" would include heart disease, the number one killer. Can you provide the source of that 5 year survival rate. According to this it seems quite low. www.edwardtufte.com...
And this www.firstthings.com...

Could you explain to us why 520000 Americans from cancer last year with all this cancer research?

Could you explain where you got your statistics from? The most recent statistics I can find are for 2009. Could you explain to us why 598,607 Americans died of heart disease in 2009 with all that heart research?
www.cdc.gov...

A total of 1,596,670 new cancer cases and 571,950 deaths from cancer are projected to occur in the U.S. in 2011. Between 1990 and 2007, the most recent year for which data is available, overall death rates decreased by about 22% in men and 14% in women. This translates to about 898,000 deaths from cancer that were avoided. The American Cancer Society credits improvements in cancer prevention, early detection, and treatment.

www.cancer.org...

I'll agree with some pretty crazy things on this website, but I have a hard time believing that every researcher is just in it for the money, and cares nothing about the people they are trying to help. I would agree that there is probably something with the heads of Big Pharma, though.

Just over 6 years ago, I underwent radiation and chemo for Hodgekin's Lymphoma. It just about killed me, but it was better than slowly suffocating (which was what I was doing, since the grapefruit sized tumor was pushing against my trachea). There still isn't a "cure," but 20 years ago there wouldn't have been much they could have done for me. I'm just one example. There are advances being made all the time in drugs and screenings that are saving a lot of people. We could sit here and argue all day about the number of people with cancer or why the treatments are so expensive, or even whether or not traditional methods work better than holistic. But that doesn't mean that there aren't advances being made or that the entire system is corrupt.

Originally posted by MRuss

NO ONE is seriously looking for a cure...at least not "serious academics"...the fringe nut cases are but of course those are the people who went into medicine as a means to help humanity and not become richer than god by next Thursday so that is a completely separate issue.

Kind of curious why people motivated to help, rather than money, are labeled 'nut cases'?

It is not in the best interest of those motivated by money to actually end the source of that which they desire.
That is the main problem with private health care in the first place. If you're in it to make money, it is not in your best interest to cure people, and lose your customer base.

If our for profit medical industry was really about helping people the feds would not be closing medical cannabis dispensaries on the slightest excuse. One was just closed because it was, as the crow flies, within 1000' of a playground that is opposite a strip club, and next to a public bathroom that people use to smoke crack all day long. You can not even see the dispensary from the playground, as it is around the corner half way up the block.
There are three liquor stores between them.

reply to post by riddle6

I guess you could say that you and I were "lucky" to have had one of the most treatable cancers. But you'd have to go back about 50 years for Hodgkin's to be considered "untreatable". I had my final round of chemo for Hodgkin's (IIIB) 24 years ago. At this point I'm perfectly happy to call it a cure.

If it happens to me I'll have to try the 'wheatgrass' route. Both grans, my mum, my grandad, my dad-in-law, and 6 friends have died with cancer in the most slow, painful, horrible way. They all had operations, radiation and "the latest, brand new" chemo. Wouldn't I be silly not to try alternatives when there might be equal, or maybe more chance of survival?

reply to post by wigit

Absolutely. As a last resort, go for it. Or in conjunction, go for it.
But not before trying conventional therapies. They work when used in time. Wasting time is death.

reply to post by Phage


The thing is, the cancer cases I've seen have all been aggressive types. I just feel if it ever happened to me I'd much rather do my best for my body, try to build up the immune system as much as I can and see if nature can heal me, rather than be cut and poked around with and get filled with chemicals and radiation and stuff. The misery of hospital visits and all that I just wouldn't want to deal with.

I'm a bit of a hypocrite though because I don't do my best for my bod right now. I smoke and eat what I like, etc. Maybe I should change that right now.

Something I really found disturbing was when I read in an article that cancer thrives on morphine. The amount I fed my mum caused her so many BAD hallucinations it scared the heck out of me.

Originally posted by ANOK
It is not in the best interest of those motivated by money to actually end the source of that which they desire.
That is the main problem with private health care in the first place. If you're in it to make money, it is not in your best interest to cure people, and lose your customer base.

That might be true, if there was only one health provider in the whole world. But there are a bunch out there, which means competition, and that means each one is trying to provide a better service and steal his competitors' customers. Each is trying to bring a more efficacious treatment to market before the other guy does.

If our for profit medical industry was really about helping people the feds would not be closing medical cannabis dispensaries on the slightest excuse.

Non sequitur. Congress put marijuana on Schedule I, not the for profit medical industry. The Department of Justice enforces the Controlled Substances Act, not the for profit medical industry.

reply to post by wigit

The point is, it's your choice. It's a major choice which must be made as early in the process as possible. It is also terrifying choice.

But do you want to base the decision on fear about your hair falling out (it grows back) and getting sick (a really bad hangover, over and over again...worse) and anecdotal evidence of cures from alternative treatments? Or do you want to base it on hard statistics?

Each cancer is different. Everyone has to make their own decision.

reply to post by FurvusRexCaeli


In reality though it isn't working that way.

The cost of health care is controlled by insurance companies, not hospitals competing with each other.

America spends something like two and a half times what the UK does, for example, yet America has a lower mortality rate.





www.kff.org...

Rank Member State Population Males Females

1 Japan 74.5 71.9 77.2
2 Australia 73.2 70.8 75.5
3 France 73.1 69.3 76.9
4 Sweden 73.0 71.2 74.9
5 Spain 72.8 69.8 75.7
6 Italy 72.7 70.0 75.4
7 Greece 72.5 70.5 74.6
8 Switzerland 72.5 69.5 75.5
9 Monaco 72.4 68.5 76.3
10 Andorra 72.3 69.3 75.2
11 San Marino 72.3 69.5 75.0
12 Canada 72.0 70.0 74.0
13 Netherlands 72.0 69.6 74.4
14 United Kingdom 71.7 69.7 73.7
15 Norway 71.7 68.8 74.6
16 Belgium 71.6 68.7 74.6
17 Austria 71.6 68.8 74.4
18 Luxembourg 71.1 68.0 74.2
19 Iceland 70.8 69.2 72.3
20 Finland 70.5 67.2 73.7
21 Malta 70.5 68.4 72.5
22 Germany 70.4 67.4 73.5
23 Israel 70.4 69.2 71.6
24 United States 70.0 67.5 72.6

www.photius.com...

reply to post by Phage


Before openly recommending the conventional, allopathic methods of treatment, it's polite to include a run-down on the potential dangers of a treatment. I'm inclined to include the whole article here (it's short), but will keep it down to ATS regulations.

The Dangers of Chemotherapy

Side Effects ...
Permanent Effects ...
Secondary Cancer

In addition to helping treat some forms of cancer, chemotherapy is also carcinogenic, meaning it has the ability to cause cancer itself. As chemotherapy destroys cells, including healthy cells, it disrupts their ability to divide. Cancer cells are cells that have lost their ability to regulate their growth. Secondary cancer may surface months--or even years--after treatment, according to Caring4Cancer. The most common types of cancers to result from chemotherapy treatments are lymphomas and leukemias, according to the American Cancer Society.

www.livestrong.com...

It's the perfect fit to what is described as the "disease racket" - pitting the fear of the disease against the fear of the cure. Your saying "Hurry, not much time left ..." is a part of that strategy; people know they have "this horrible disease" and are desperate to cure it. The industry provides the corral, and in go the heads of cattle.

Back in the sixties, fifteen or so years after the first nuclear tests with Trinity they formulated a plan to start anti-smoking lobbies as a front-cover, a scapegoat for what they knew then would be upcoming cancer problems sweeping society. Since then there have been half a dozen notable nuclear disasters, over two thousand tests, and numerous leaks and breaches in holding resevoirs - in some cases, wide-open pools of radioactive waste open to the environment.

The problem of "cancer" has only been amplified by pollution issues from industry, transportation - it needs no introduction. A health rep warned me to wear a mask when cutting brick for a masonry company as he spotted me in the yard without one one day. He asked me "If you took a side of beef in a butcher's shop, and threw dust on it, what would happen"?

"It would stick to it", I replied.

"That's right. And when your lungs collect dust from that brick, they contain silica, which can collect on the soft tissues and eventually grow over. Years from now, that silica will aggravate the inner tissues of the lung, and can cause silicosis of the lungs, although you won't see the results until ten or twenty years from now". Forgive my side-ramble here Phage. I wore a mask from that day onwards!

So the vectors to cause cancer are there from all sides, possibly even from emotional issues, simply from stressing about all the myriad of problems we are facing.

I have only one question. What possible sense does it make to add radiation to our cells, or our tissues, when radiation is potentially the cause of our initial problems with this disease? The doses are different, the application is different, but the same methodology applies : they can't pinpoint this to a safe degree, and admit that they can't. It's too risky from the onset!

How can we advocate something that carries such a high risk factor? There has to be a better solution. Someday we're going to call today's physicians "barbarians" and corporate murderers. Maybe today?

From the Douglas report :

Curing cancer without dangerous drugs
douglassreport.com...

Are there any alternatives to chemotherapy?
douglassreport.com...

reply to post by Northwarden

Before openly recommending the conventional, allopathic methods of treatment, it's polite to include a run-down on the potential dangers of a treatment. I'm inclined to include the whole article here (it's short), but will keep it down to ATS regulations.

Before anyone makes their choice they should do all the research they can...into all available options. I did.

reply to post by Phage


Maybe it's where I come from, or it's genetic, but I saw nobody lose their hair with chemo, they died before that happened. Not one of them lost hair.

So my mind is 99% made up already, not by rumours I've heard or by what I've read really, just what I've been around. I can't help being a stubborn mare either.

Certainly if the day came and I had to sit with the specialist and hear him say, "we have this new drug (chemo), brand new, in trials it's had very good results, we can get that for you" - I might end up saying YES PLEASE, but that was told to my gran in the 70s, grandad in the 80s my mum in 1998, in-laws, school-mates. It's spiel, or spin. It's what they want you to hear. They want to keep you in a nice frame of mind...and hopeful.

If in my case it's a genetic thing. Then I think I have a duty to my kids, especially my daughter, to see if an alternative way is the one that works.

reply to post by Phage

Before anyone makes their choice they should do all the research they can...into all available options. I did.

Though you went through your illness many years ago when there simply wasn't so much information available..

It's a frightening scenario now with the internet feeding so much info from both sides of the debate..

It's actually information overload at a time of great stress for the sick that must try and make a rational decision..
No fun at all.

reply to post by wigit

Again. Depending on the stage at which the diagnosis occurs, treatments can be very effective or offer only the chance of a bit more time. In the latter case I can understand the reasoning behind seeking "easier" treatments. In the former, I cannot.

If in my case it's a genetic thing. Then I think I have a duty to my kids, especially my daughter, to see if an alternative way is the one that works.

With the above in mind, I hope that if the need arises it is. Because you pretty much get only one shot and you must start early enough.

Originally posted by ANOK
reply to post by FurvusRexCaeli

 

In reality though it isn't working that way.

The cost of health care is controlled by insurance companies, not hospitals competing with each other.

Let's keep the goal posts where they were. We're not addressing the cost of health care, we're addressing this question: Is it in the interests of the private medical establishment to cure sick people? The answer is yes, because sick people want to be cured. They want to be cured so badly, some of them will spend thousands of dollars on snake oil nostrums (like Essiac!). The for-profit medical industry wants to sell as many cures as possible or, if those are not available, the next best treatments. But unlike the snake oil salesmen (like Altramed!), the medical industry is regulated by the government, and they have to show that their treatments actually work.

P.S.
Last time I checked, national health systems still use treatments developed by the for-profit industry. Whether you get it from the UK National Health Service or an American HMO, oseltamivir (e.g.) is still the product of Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD).

reply to post by Phage


Sometimes I think it's not the treatment that decides whether you'll live or die, it's getting the diagnosis in the first place. In the UK that's hit or miss.

Originally posted by wigit
reply to post by Phage

 

Sometimes I think it's not the treatment that decides whether you'll live or die, it's getting the diagnosis in the first place. In the UK that's hit or miss.

True but here in Australia if you have a family history of an illness such as cancer, then you're asked to be checked out more often and it's all free..

reply to post by MRuss


There are only afew cancer research facilities out there, that I can count on less than one hand, who are doing serious research in to cancer. As to how much they are able to tap in to the multi billion dollar funding is very little although there is some breakthroughs coming out of mainly Australia and Israel with some types of cancer.

It is true, this is a multi billion dollar industry and I wish I knew how where all this money in funding as gone to but obviously not in to cancer research. So where HAS it all gone to? Very little of it has been accounted for. Thats what I want to know!