I agree... instead of wasting money on research for a "cure" that's never going to happen... we should be raising money for cancer prevention ... ie teaching people how to eat right, avoid toxic chemicals and live a healthier lifestyle. Then we should force the gov't to go after manufacturers of chemicals and environmental toxins and get them OUT of our food, our homes, our personal care products, cleaning products, etc.

There is a very basic issue that is starting to come to the front of the discussion. Prior to the 1960's most cancer research was done by non-physicians, mostly PhDs in very esoteric areas that required huge amounts of training. And they were making a great deal of progress considering that funding was difficult to obtain when you were trying to study processes in a day of "miracle cures."

The prevailing theories were that cancer (not matter what type) were "organizational" dysfunctions rather than cellular errors. If you thought of cancer as a "traffic jam", then an organizational theory would be one that considered that traffic light timing, and one-way streets, and time of day, and number of cars all contributed to the disease process and needed to be understood.

But then came various iterations of the "War on Cancer" where huge amounts of money were thrown at the problem. When the funding became easy to obtain, physicians jumped in and started claiming the major amounts of the funding (which continues today) and pushing PhDs and other researchers aside.

This would have not been so bad except for two things: 1) physicians have NO training in the design, conduct, or evaluation of research and 2) physicians did not buy the "organizational" theories and instead shifted the majority of the research to cellular theories. In the traffic jam analogy, cellular theory is like blaming the traffic jam on individual cars and proposing only solutions that attack individual cars. And since Fords and Chevys and Volvos (the different types of cancer) all have different characteristics, they must be approached separately. But cellular had the redeeming quality of being simple enough for non-scientists physicians to work with.

As a result, medicine regressed back to "rescue" therapies that depend on the observation that cancer cells have a higher metabolic rate than "normal" cells. Therefore, if you poison a person, using radiation and various chemicals, and stop poisoning the person just before killing them, then in the cellular theory, the cancer should have died first.

And sometimes it worked. But if you compare cancer responsiveness to the nearest thing I could come up with, the treatment of diseases such as syphilis with heavy metals such as mercury and arsenic. These cures for syphilis worked better than the same sort of treatments with chemotherapy and radiation. It shows you how little progress has been made since the 1860's when "rescue therapy" first made its appearance on the medical scene.

It really is time to take cancer research away from physicians and their emphasis on old-fashioned and more easily-understood therapies that work only marginally better than placebos, and give research back to people who have spent their professional lives working to understand the underlying processes. Until we make this change we will continue to see little progress with cancer treatment because we are simply "dumbing down" the problem so that physicians can understand it instead of really seeing it as the complex organizational process that it is. Until then, we will continue to have only "breakthrough drugs" that never quite make it to market and "miracle treatments" that disappear quickly from view.

I am not bad-mouthing physicians who are clinicians. They are simply doing the best they can with the tools and knowledge they have. I am complaining about the hijacking of science by people with no training or skillset in science just for the money.

This is a rerun of this topic.. It was brought up in September. I guess nobody at Newsvine is having any original thoughts these days. All of the cancers are curable if caught early. No, there is no conspiracy to prevent the cure. It is simply very hard to cure any disease that is not recognized by a person's on immune system as foreign. Cancers occur in everybody and most are killed off by the immune system. New treatments entering the health care field are either curing or containing cancers better every year, but often at an exorbitant cost.

mipak needs to go back to school and learn how to read! It is clearly stated that the reason that there is no cure is that there are so many different kinds of cancer and the listed ones are the most common killers. Mipak ... open your eyes, engage your brain before opening your mouth. It would make you look a lot less silly.

The article doesn't address the "valley of death", and it should given the headline. Here's a link I quickly found that gets at the gap between research and actionable cures. There are other articles on the subject I'm sure.

http://advancedprostatecancer.net/?p=1640

I found the article I read months ago from Newsweek. It inspired the link in #4.2.

http://www.newsweek.com/2008/10/31/where-are-the-cures.html

I hope that more definitive tests will find many of these cancers early. Pancreatic Cancer is one that comes to mind. It seems that the Pancreas likes to hide itself deep within us while it grows Cancerous. When it is finally found, it is often too late. We need better imaging and blood tests to root these cancers out.

Am 2 yrs. post mastectomy, chemo, radiation. From personal experience, and also from talking with other women I have come in personal contact with over the past two years, "risk factors" you reference did not enter into the vast majority of cases. Most had healthy lifestyles...I associate with many athletic "survivors" who had absolutely no family history, excercised, proper weight, diet, no vitamin deficiencies. I wish that the "blame game" was not played on women with breast cancer. Most cases arise with no discernable cause.

Re: There will never be a cure

Another conspiracy theorist. Come on...you, Rob Roy need to wake up. What proof do you have to support your strange belief? You don't know what you're talking about! Do some research and your brain will thank you.

Do you realize that up to 90% of children with the common form of pediatric leukemia will be cured. You need to look up Gleevic, tamoxifen and aromatase inhibitors..all are modern and have excellent cure rates. Women with HER2-positive breast cancer,respond to herceptin and live full lives.

Cancer will kill 569,490 people in the United States this year, projects the American Cancer Society. But there is a glimmer of hope in this bleak picture and that is with ongoing trials, funding and research. Please enlighten us all with what happens when you get a biopsy...I'm sure your mind will come up with another merit less theory.

What does happen when you get a biopsy

Rob Roy-you are mistaken, there is no conspiracy to poor a cure down the drain. The complexity of finding a way to get cancer cells to turn back on its self destruct mechanisms or stop it from replicating with out affecting normal cells is tremendous

You and everybody on this thread can help actually speed up research on all types of cancer, AIDS/HIV, MS and soon to be other projects. The world community grid helped the Chiba institute in Japan to complete over 100 years of research in just 2 years. They went from very little data to having compounds ready for evaluation in just 2 years---this is staggering what we can do as a collective(we can beat 3 of the best super computers put together, we could do more with your help), Not only that but by doing volunteer computing we free up the much needed funds for the actual lab work,staff and equipment that would other wise have to be spent on very expensive super computer run time. If we can do the sequencing faster, the lab research will go much faster, the lives lost will go down-The life you save may be your own.

Here are the links, please join us and pass it on. Tell others. YOU can make a difference.

also check out Youtube video for world community gridhttp://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/

You can go to the research tab and find the Chiba website that will verify the 2 year time table.http://www.m.chiba-u.ac.jp/class/bioinfor/wcg/e/hfcc_e/news.html

Just so you know I am also a member http://allprojectstats.com/showuser.php?id=177029

JM...you're a fool if you think that there will ever be a cure. Cancer is the #1 PROFIT MAKING disease.

Maybe you should stop and think about why BILLIONS are spent and NO progress is made.

I suggest you take a look at this site :

http://www.theidiotcycle.com

The so-called conspiracy theorists are far more credible than people like yourselves who choose to believe in propaganda and not take the time to open their minds, investigate and look at the research and information that comes from UNBIASED sources rather than Big Pharma/Big Chem and all the FOR PROFIT entities who have been proven OVER and OVER again skew and hide data and statistics in their favor. Wake the hell up. I'm sure you're one of those dopes who thinks GMO's are safe too.

So, I take it then that when you or your loved ones get symptoms that may indicate cancer, or any other illness for that matter, you will avoid the killer doctors and hospitals?

Please do. I am an ICU RN at a major university hospital, who along with my fellow nurses and doctors work ourselves to exhaustion trying to save lives, and trying to ease the passing when people die despite our very best efforts. And I assure that when we loose patients it is very traumatic for us, too.

But you feel free to stay home and die by yourself.

Typo- should have been pour not poor

SMC- you should not call people that want a better world fools, foolish or naive maybe.

All the work done by the world community grid is not for profit and is made available to other researchers.

Now I do agree that the environmental factors and pollution is killing us as a race, it is also responsible for the massive spike in autistic children and birth defects as the web site you listed suggest.

SMC: Re:

JM...you're a fool if you think that there will ever be a cure. Cancer is the #1 PROFIT MAKING disease.

Fools read only what they want to read to support their paranoid and delusional beliefs. If you had the capacity to understand the complexities of the various 100 or so cancerous diseases and the immense scientific war that is underway, you might deserve an opinion. But you don't.

I'm with the 'conspiracty theorists' on this one. I don't beleive for 1 second that our government wants us getting better or finding ways to cure diseases such as cancer. If they had a cure, they sure wouldn't give it to us because it is a profit making disease. They put garbage in our food, give us drugs that kill us, file false reports on the effects of the drugs so they can keep selling them, the medicines are expensive we can't afford them, etc. I'd rather live in reality and know better than to believe everything I'm told by entities that have long lied to us about far too much.

Twilite: That is your choice. You are part of a small minority of thinkers who have lost trust. Not everything is bad, nor is every prescribed drug. With proper skepticism and a balanced diet, you should have a happy life. I hope you don't tell your doctor that you don't believe a word he says.

I partly support the conspiracy theorists, but not for the same reasons. Sure cures can be developed, but politics is tricky. One minute a new cure is out, the next some religious nutcase with political friends gets it pulled for some wacko reason. (That was hinting as certain nanotechnology) Next patient error may cause a cure to be rejected due to damages sustained. Sure a cure will be developed, but it is less than certain that it will stay in the market long.

AGREED! 100 %... Thank you

I have had Cancer twice, '91 Stage III Soft Tissue Sarcoma, '05 Stage III Malignant Melanoma cured them both with Holistic Medicine and Meditation, and just to make sure a total of 7 Major surgeries, 2 years of chemo and a Medicine stick from a Souix Warrior fellow Vietnam Combat Veteran. As far as Johnnie Little Bear Griffits is concerned the Sioux found ways to cure cancer a hundred years ago, he says it worked for me.

JM California-- I feel the way I do because I constantly read up on these types of issues. I also know what myself and my family and friends have personally endured. I usually don't take pills if I don't have to, and no, I don't believe a doctor when he can't give me an answer to simple questions I ask. I do live right, eat right and exercise which is probably why I don't need to take all the junk they want to shove down our throats. By the way, I think far more people have lost trust than you think.

Because we have to protect the breast.

Heart disease is the #1 killer of women.

I'll never understand the "sour grapes" attitude towards breast cancer publicity and research. It seems to me that ANY cancer research and funding is a positive step, since there can be similarities in the mutant cells.

Feel free to do your 5K and benefit anything you want, the attention is invaluable to all types of cancer, don't you think?

Because most lung cancers could have been prevented by not smoking. Breast cancer is not so clear cut.

The reason breast cancer research gets more attention is simply because concerned groups of people put together organizations like Komen and worked very hard to gain attention for their cause. Breast cancer diagnosis have been spiraling up alarmingly. Perfectly normal to want to know why and what can be done to change it.

So the problem is not that breast cancer research gets too much attention, it's that there are not enough motivated advocates out there to organize and make a similar amount of noise for research on other cancers. Komen isn't shouting down other cancer groups, they are just the only ones doing much shouting at all.

I worked as a nurse in a long term care facility and I have knowledge of plenty of people who developed lung cancer and had never been around 2nd hand smoke and never smoked themselves or were not around toxins that could produce cancers of the lung. Some bodies are just destined to get cancer and BIG PHARMACY, and researchers are not going to give us the cure, only trials and the vaccine may be coming soon or the treatment to cure is coming soon. Look at all the red tape that was gone through when HIV came out. It could have been halted, but because of the red tape with the Americans and the French (who by the way discovered it) fighting over who got there first, there were major delays in dealing with the actual illness and the infected people and soon to be infected people are the ones who suffered. With all these so called "cures", they would probably be happening but money is the big issue, reasearch dollars give jobs, delays actual cures. This world I live in, AMERICA, is quickly becoming the most indecent country I know of. Other countries, and GOVERNMENT are just as bad if not worse. I want to start fighting for the rights of people. So many things could be avoided or thwarted. Don't get me started...

Danna, I am shocked to hear such an opinion from a person involved in healthcare.

What you are saying is that there is a conspiracy that is withholding a cure for AIDS and Cancer. Have you met any of these conspiracists? Have you followed the path of research to establish such a theory? Given that there are over 100 forms of cancers, are there cures for these, but they are being suppressed?

Give me a break! You insult the thousands of dedicated researchers who often get paid very little and work very hard.

Men get breast cancer also. Women though, don't get prostate cancer.

As far as I know, there's not a cancer that kills 100 percent of people all the time. There are people who have lived for many years who were told they were going to die quickly, just like there a people who caught their cancer early and it seemed that treatment was very successful and they died anyway. Look at it this way, someone given a "death sentence" as an outlook for their cancer can outlive any given person at any time. You cut be struck down by a Mac truck the next time you're on the road, and there will be cancer patients outliving you.

I believe that a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer is the one most likely to lead to death within 6 months since virtually all cases are well advanced before discovery, due to lack of early symptoms. Long-term survivors of any but early diagnosis made by a sheer fluke discovery is rare.

There have been some instances where cancer has completely disappeared and there is no scientific explanation for it.

Okay, then explain the health nut who jogs 20 miles a day, eats right and dies from a cancer or brain aneurysm? Ban alcohol! It causes deaths and unnecessary ones--- drunk drivers!!! If people want to smoke, what should be your concern?

Mr. Blue, excellent point. Our politicians help foment fear and lead us along a path where we fight the wrong war. Hundreds of thousand of Americans suffer from the loss of a loved one due to the "cancer enemy". Terrorism is real but the threat of dying from such an attack is quite insignificant.

Maybe if we put doctors in the White House instead of oilmen things will change.

Sure!!! Rubbing alcohol would be $3.00 a gallon!

Without the research done since the 70's many more people would have died! The drugs that have been developed have saved lives and extended other people's lives significantly. In addition, thanks to research: the quality of life for those living with and/or being treated for cancer has been greatly improved. Chemotherapy can be given as an outpatient, people do not suffer from intolerable side effects of chemo and they can work and live with their families as they fight their disease.

If you count the latest two conflicts, it has been much more than a trillion.

I agree with your logic, but don't get overzealous in that thought. Without a strong standing military, I guarantee that there would be more deaths. One real war prevented saves millions of lives.

Also...no where near 200 million people have died of cancer. Perhaps you are using world statistics. If you are using world statistics, you have to remember that you cannot compare them to US statistics. You can compare how many people in the world die of war and how many die of cancer...but, you would be surprised to find that war would actually be the higher number.

But, I still agree with your point. We need to shift some of these funds!

Sarah, re:

Sure!!! Rubbing alcohol would be $3.00 a gallon!

Are you saying that the oilmen would drop the retail price of rubbing alcohol by over 60%? At first I laughed and then I did the math.

The last time I purchased a 16 ounce bottle, I paid .99 cents. Purchase 8 of these bottles and you get 1 gallon and pay around $8.00.

Down there with Malignant Melanoma, Stave IV has a 3-5 % recovery rate for 5 years.

Thanks for sharing your story!!!

Sounds to me like you won a new chance at life, all around! As a cancer survivor, I too take less for granted, finding wonderful new things each day to appreciate. It doesn't take a god nor a spouse to enjoy life! The very best to you!

kflann - An Honor to meet you, to someone who has stood at the gates of Hell and faced death eye to eye and Won, I tell you that unless another has done the same they do not know what it is like. I was there also Stage III Malignant Melanoma and Stage III Soft Tissue Sarcoma. Major surgeries, gutted lymph nodes and chemo for 13 months. Glad You're STILL here, it is good to know that there are others out there who have faced down the beast and won. Every day is a gift and I hope you live them to the fullest. Peace.

They call them Republicans!

lol

Sarah...I see you have it.

Hey. Twice now, people have mentioned republicans in this thread...

It said more women have skin cancer. Although more women are effected by skin cancer, more women die from breast cancer.

@Steve, TX: it's CA125, not 123. I'm sorry for your loss. Ovarian cancer is a horrible disease.

But the cancer rate would drop dramatically if nobody smoked and then we could go after the causes of those who still get lung cancer without smoking. The search would be that much easier.

Some lung cancer may be mestastasized from the original cancer source. If you have, let's say, colon cancer and it spreads to the lungs, you don't have lung cancer. You have metastasized colon cancer. Don't forget that second-hand smoke has been declared to be more dangerous than smoking, not to mention the pollution we live in.

All cancer is horrible; it's never any fun; but, your faith and mental attitude have a HUGE part in a successful battle. I was deemed "cancer free" in January 2010, almost exactly two years after a stage IV melanoma diagnosis with 50/50 for 5 years. PLEASE NOTE: I was 19 the only time I "layed out", and that was 32 years ago. I also had a rare form called amelanotic melanoma. It appeared as a light pink, small swath of skin. My MD said it was a fungal infection, which I learned is a frequent diagnosis of this type of cancer. I have learned so much during this journey and, even though it was very difficult [3 shots a week for 44 weeks/daily injections the first 4 weeks], I wouldn't trade it for anything.

..to say nothing of their unhealthy political and religious philosophies!

That's not true. Just think about all the toxins in the environment, in your cleaning products, your lawn/garden products, cosmetics, personal care products, our furniture, building materials, bedding, carpeting, plastics and I can go on and on and on. You are exposed to anywhere from 10-30 toxic chemicals in every product you use. Think about how many toxins are in your body after you've Brushed your teeth, put on your deodorant, put on your make up ( if you're a woman ), shaved, put on colognne, perfume or aftershave, washed your hair, washed your hands/face, heated up your food in the microwave, used plastic wrap, drank something w/Aspartame, ate something w/High Fructose Corn Syrup, Propylene Glcyol, BHA/BHT, artifical colors, flavors, grilled a burger , fertilized your lawn, washed your clothes/dishes, cleaned your house and so on and so forth. And then there's whatever is out there in the enviroment. It's bad enough that ONE ingredient can be narrowed down as a carcinogen or endocrine disruptor or immunotoxin or reproductive toxin but how does anyone know the effect of 2, 3, 4, 20, 100, 500 of these toxins co-mingling together in your body EVERY DAY for years and years.

Got the picture now ?

My sister and I, who have never smoked a day in our lives, both spent our entire childhoods living with a chain smoker. If we get lung cancer, did we deserve it?

To

Joe M.-294004....

Get a life you loser. You have no clue.

DUH... can you say

CURE = NO CUSTOMERS = NO PROFIT

The answer is as simple as that.

Cancer is THE biggest profit making disease there is. Keeping people SICK... not well... keeps Big Pharma, Big Chem, Big Insurance and Big Medicine in business.

Why don't you take three days, one computer and maybe a library card, do some actual research on the subject, and find out for yourself why it's not easy to cure cancer, or AIDS, or diabetes, or any of hundreds of diseases of the vastly complex human body instead of making yourself sound like an idiot on a public forum.

kdinla..and are you going to supply me with the one billion dollars?? I think not.

Of course, your breath smells like a sack-full of rotten monkey anuses, and your remaining teeth look like a short row of stained, broken toenails...

...but hey! You're still the Master of your Trailer Park! Life is good, eh?

Phyllis.... PRICELESS !!! LMFAO !

All else aside, how much in plain old american dollars has it cost you to smoke for 47 years? And I have to assume you have no intention of quitting since you are so very smart at having" beat the odds", so how about a quick estimate of how much money it will cost you to continue smoking for the next decade?

Still laughing?

Looks like you actually beat it when you turn 85. You have 20 more years of cancer prone years. I hope all does go well. Some people do avoid it...but your a little young to brag!

C'mon...you guy aren't thinking about all the upsides of all those decades of smoking. Such as, well, the attractiveness features I already brought up (above).

And, woe is me, I forgot an obvious one... the attractive, pleasant, deep phlegm cough that long-term smokers always share with us. Where they always end-up with something in their mouth or throat at the end of their hacking, that they mull around with their tongue and then swallow back down (or, better yet, spit out right in front of you). How can you people forget all the charismatic bonuses like this?

To

Phyllis-2480124... You are a bitter person that might die from your brain being filled with cancer of stupidity. Keep your loser comments to yourself. The world doesn't need people like you in it. At least some others have a light heart and dear, yours is heavy and black!