Why cant they find a cure for cancer?.

[Deleted]

Ok I understand there is no supercure yet, but why is chemotherapy used on all cancer patients?. It doesnt do shit but make people sick.

Yea of course it doesn't do shit. I wonder how I'm still here alive today then huh? Yes it can have adverse effects but ultimately there's a possibility survive after it.

I had Radiotherapy also and I've been clear for almost 6 years and my Chemo wasn't even that bad (I guess I was lucky). I was sick on my first dose on the way home in the car, after that I was just a little tired and weak most of the time. Granted I almost died as my body was shutting down as I picked up an illness due to my immune system being down due to treatment but ICU for 3 days sorted that out. That was my only bump in the road really and now I'm cured fingers crossed.

Chemo isn't the problem itself but the after effects of cancer for me are the worst, I won't delve into details but sometimes I don't think it was worth it.

[Hooked]

I did read something that says aids cured cancer, I wonder if that will be what they use to finally cure it.

[Ghostpanther]

Not sure there is a cure or ever will be. As some have pointed out, there are so many varibles involved with cancer. But this I do know...if they found a cure for all cancers....just think of the billions of money the medical field and drug companies would lose. I mean..it could cause a national crises with all the layoffs and doctors quiting because not many needed them anymore. Mass layoffs would happen with the drug companies for sure. Not to mention all the investments people have put into the medical devices and the drug companies. A huge chain reaction would happen. Something to think about.

[Iyarashii]

I did read something that says aids cured cancer, I wonder if that will be what they use to finally cure it.

That would make cancer worse, HIV is a immune system virus, has nothing to do with cell growth and them being malformed.

[Caerule]

Cancer is a very difficult problem.

1. They are your own cells. It's hard to find a treatment that targets only cancer cells, but no other cells.

2. They are caused by mutations, which could be caused by anything. Radiation, viruses, hereditary, division errors and a whole lot of just basic random entropy.

3. A cancer cell has several mechanisms broken, often not the cause of a single mutation. There's a ton of possible mutations with similar effects, and they're often cumulative too. It's very hard to fight a cancer without knowing what is wrong in that particular mutant. Not that it's easy, even if you know.

4. Cancer cells undergo short-sighted evolution. Freed from restrictions of how many times they can divide, they can afford to make all sorts of flawed copies. If a hundred die, no problem. If one strikes a winning error that leads to better short-term survival, it'll make even more copies in a given time than its predecessors. This way existing cancers can accumulate further mutations, and benign cancer can turn progress to something life-threatening.


A successful cancer escapes the targeting of the body's natural defences, is hard to prevent, is unpredictable, can evolve, spread, persist, and has a whole host of processes that could be the cause of it. This makes it very hard to fight.

[teddytous]

Like I said, cancer cells are essentially our own cells that have something wrong with them on a genetic level. This change isn't usually enough to differentiate them enough so that chemo can specifically target them and leave the healthy cells alone. Being somewhat in the field, I know that cancer research groups are heavily funded and the work is being done. This isn't an easy problem.

Think that's probably the first thing people have trouble with is first conceptualizing the fuck that is cancer. In simplest terms:

Cancer is unregulated cell death. Normally cells live, divide, and die - no biggie. Cancer is when that fancy death egg timer goes pair shaped and fucks up one way or another, and then the cell just says "fuck it you know what - not dieing, just gonne divide some more - my asshole homies gonna do the same." Those unregulated growths become tumors. Unlike disease, your body don't do much to fix it cause its like - those my peeps - that's part of me - I aint gonna hurt my peeps.

[Tucci]

I'm not a conspiracy theorist but I'd say cancer is a great form of population control and overpopulation can become a pretty serious thing eventually.

[Puremallace]

Too much money in it. To be honest with you cancer meds alone are a billion dollar business. My own hospital makes serious bank off of it too. They are in it to help with current treatments, but the shit is expensive.

As a great man said "We have not really cured jackshit since Polio".

[Crissi]

Too much money in it. To be honest with you cancer meds alone are a billion dollar business. My own hospital makes serious bank off of it too. They are in it to help with current treatments, but the shit is expensive.

As a great man said "We have not really cured jackshit since Polio".

and even then, we are still getting polio outbreaks in rural 3rd world countries because religious extremists deem vaccines as bad things.

[Funky Kong]

Having been reading these forums for awhile, I think it's safe to say that no rational discussion can be had about cancer before the uneducated illuminati come in and assume a conspiracy where the vast majority of scientists out there know there's a super secret cure and are staying super secret about it.

[Puremallace]

Having been reading these forums for awhile, I think it's safe to say that no rational discussion can be had about cancer before the uneducated illuminati come in and assume a conspiracy where the vast majority of scientists out there know there's a super secret cure and are staying super secret about it.

You really want to sit here and tell me the cancer industry is not a trillion dollar complex? Humans are greedy. I know it is not on the hospital level because I work for one, but I know on the research level it is there.

[Grummgug]

Most types of cancer appear in people who are older. Young people have a much smaller incidence of cancer. The best way to cure cancer is to cure aging.

[Felya]

I'm not a conspiracy theorist but I'd say cancer is a great form of population control and overpopulation can become a pretty serious thing eventually.

Disease is a natural form of population control. It's not a conspiracy, it's what disease is supposed to do. Unless you are implying that government or some other group is making it so, which would mean a complete lack of understanding of a relationship between disease and medicine.

[Grummgug]

I'm not a conspiracy theorist but I'd say cancer is a great form of population control and overpopulation can become a pretty serious thing eventually.

We're not even CLOSE to overpopulation. Alaska is a MASSIVE state and almost no-one lives there. Canada is an even more massive piece of land and most of it is effectively uninhabited. Russia is an even bigger piece of land than Canada and also has ginormous areas that are effectively uninhabited.

The global population, if put into an urban center, would fit in the state of Texas.

[Bad Ashe]

there are literally thousands of known cures for cancer.

the only problem is most are also just as dangerous to humans.
its a matter of delivery that is the tricky part.

[Iyarashii]

Disease is a natural form of population control. It's not a conspiracy, it's what disease is supposed to do. Unless you are implying that government or some other group is making it so, which would mean a complete lack of understanding of a relationship between disease and medicine.

Disease is meant to kill, to say it's natural population control would mean that it's intent would be to keep the population in line and would stop when it is. It doesn't it would keep going till nothing is left.

Most types of cancer appear in people who are older. Young people have a much smaller incidence of cancer. The best way to cure cancer is to cure aging.

Interesting enough there is a scientist with a team out there that has ruled aging as a disease, one that can be treated.

[Felya]

Too much money in it. To be honest with you cancer meds alone are a billion dollar business. My own hospital makes serious bank off of it too. They are in it to help with current treatments, but the shit is expensive.

As a great man said "We have not really cured jackshit since Polio".

Are you suggesting that places like the Mayo clinic, John Hopkins hospital, University of Washington, st. Jude children's hospital and their ilk, are profiting on donations and are ignoring research for profit?

[Rucati]

Geez, seeing people actually say that there's a cure that people are hiding from the public is scary. How uneducated are people that believe that type of thing? Disturbing

Anyway, like others said it's caused by a lot of things and the types are different, so there will never just be a cureall.

[antelope591]

Its true that there's no way to have one magic cure for every cancer....but at the same time I doubt even 10% of the money put into research cancer is actually going towards finding a cure. The current general treatments for cancer are extremely expensive so I don't see how you have to be a conspiracy theorist to think that pharma companies have basically no incentive to find cheaper/more effective treatments that would severely cut down into their profits.

[Crissi]

Disease is meant to kill, to say it's natural population control would mean that it's intent would be to keep the population in line and would stop when it is. It doesn't it would keep going till nothing is left.



Interesting enough there is a scientist with a team out there that has ruled aging as a disease, one that can be treated.

Well I thought that every single disease had a 10% immunity / resist to it in humans so that no one single disease could knock us out, unless it was some bioengineered superbug.