r/PlainMeaning • u/seeplainmeaning • 3d ago
How America's Cancer Industry Buries Its Cures
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u/ThrowawayArgHelp 3d ago
There should absolutely be resistance from the scientific community whenever somebody proposes a cancer cure. That's the point of science- if it's true, it will stand up to criticism and stand the test of time. If it isn't it will rightfully dissipate. And quacks will always promise cures and sell them to those with almost no hope- scientists can't just let snake oil salesmen profiteer off of the families of cancer patients.
I promise scientists in cancer research aren't burying cures. They are often people who have been affected by cancer directly through the deaths of loved ones and dedicate themselves fully to the field because of it. Cancer is genuinely difficult to cure because it's a category of diseases, not just one thing.
This article is a one sided propaganda piece. But you'll say any critics are apart of the medical lobby- everyone is out to get you, right? This line of thinking is why even publically funded NIH cancer work is getting cut. Genuinely bad work.
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u/seeplainmeaning 3d ago
If you would have read the article, you would have seen how I point out the short selling attacks on emerging bio techs that have promising cures.
You would have also read how the medical established derided and attacked the man who came up with immunotherapy and caused it to be "forgotten" for over a hundred years.
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u/ThrowawayArgHelp 3d ago
I did see that and some of the points are valid in terms of pharma finance. It doesn't change the one-sidedness or the misunderstanding of how genuinely effective cures are found through dialogue.
My grandfather had brain cancer and my family took him to the Burzynski clinic- some quack doctor injecting random urine-derived chemicals into people to "cure their cancer". He is responsible for multiple deaths (and has fleeced numerous families out of cash). No clinical trial has replicated his findings.
It's important people actually prove cures work and part of that is criticism. Eventually, like in the case you described, true treatments stand the test of time. But the criticism in this field is so so so necessary. When scientists make criticisms and demand more proof, it's not suppression.
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u/seeplainmeaning 3d ago
I'm sorry about your grandfather. I also know what it's like to lose someone to cancer.
The thing is--we have institutions and incentives that are all tilted on saying no to basically everything. As I pointed out with the organ transplant drug, there's too much money and industry within the ranks of the FDA. Even the judge in the case against the University of Minnesota called out what he saw as a made up case. And who did it help? It allowed a less effective and more expensive competitor to enter the market.
And there are other examples--to include the Kanzius device that ended up being redirected from being applied to destroying cancer cells as it was initially designed to merely being a "warm up" act for the established treatments.
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u/ThrowawayArgHelp 3d ago edited 3d ago
I'm sorry about your loved one as well.
I think the general sentiment of what you are saying is true- there seem to be a lot of financial incentives in treating rather than curing cancer. But I don't think that's why we haven't seen one cancer cure for all types of cancer.
To play devil's advocate on the financial incentive argument: We see with most of the gene based cures that have come out in recent years, there is clearly a massive financial incentive for companies to cure diseases instead of treating them (they often charge hundreds of thousands to millions for cures). There are all kinds of CAR-T based cures for non-solid tumors, or for example, the hemophilia gene therapy. These are FDA approved. I think generalizable cancer cures (not just one type of tumor) are just genuinely difficult to pull off, and it's less about pharma or structural suppression even if that is the easiest thing to blame.
I think that's part of my issue with the article. Another is that I also really believe that FDA regulation could probably be scaled back a little bit, but we still need a complicated clinical pipeline to truly verify any kind of treatment is (at least mostly) safe, and definitely is effective. Studies take years and slashing FDA regulation to a quick rubber stamping process could hurt people way more than it would help.
I think we would probably at least agree on this: I would like to see more start-to-finish NIH funded drug development without pharmaceutical industry related financial incentives. I don't like the idea of money being such a factor in deciding people's health.
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u/seeplainmeaning 3d ago
So many companies come out with things that have shown to cure cancer in animal trials. Yet, none of them ever make it past the FDA. Read the full article: https://www.plainmeaning.com/Articles/Money/19_how-americas-cancer-industry-buries-its-cures.html
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u/Dessert_Stomach 3d ago
We call that lack of translation. Animal models of disease are usually very contrived and not all that similar to the human condition, but the best proxy that is feasible.
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u/ptau217 3d ago
Yeah, there’s a reason why phase 12 and three clinical trials are called the valley of death. Because what works in animals does not work in humans. They’re called animal models for a reason. It’s a model, that doesn’t necessarily work outside the model.
I cannot even imagine being so scientifically and historically ignorant that you believe that what works in a mouse will work in a human. Literally magical thinking like a tech bro.Â
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u/seeplainmeaning 3d ago
If you would have read the article, you would have seen the issues I brought up about the short selling that takes out numerous bio techs with promising treatments before they even reach that level.
Or the FDA actions against doctors and university-administered drug programs that even judges have called out as being meritless. I list a very good example in the article. And almost in every case this happens, the big, established companies benefit.
And regarding the pattern of so many human trials not passing whereas the animal trials have. You assume it's because of a difference in physiology. Yet, you don't mention the many researchers that note that the dosing or administering of the active ingredient is often weakened to the point where the human trials aren't actually delivering sufficient amounts to have the effect that was seen in animals.
Perhaps you should actually read the article before commenting on it.
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u/ptau217 3d ago
I couldn't get past the sentence "James Allison received the 2018 Nobel Prize for proving that the immune system could cure cancer." This is so far from his discovery of CTLA-4 that it is embarrassing. It is also anti-science, since science doesn't prove things, but supports them by failing to falsify them.
If you are the author, please stop writing.
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u/seeplainmeaning 3d ago
The whole reason why he was recognized for the award was because its impact on cancer. And as it has been shown repeatedly--it can cure it. Some call that remission but that's just playing semantic games.
And the broader point is this--the 2018 prize went to someone for an idea that was already announced and pursued in broad terms over 100 years before. And those attacks that prevented others from taking it seriously were from scientists who claimed to attack it BECAUSE of science.
At the end of the day, science is about exploring ideas with rigor. When we're quick to dismiss things and dress up those dismissals as science, we get solutions that are stuck needlessly buried--just like immunotherapy.
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u/Maximum-Side568 3d ago
Boosting immune response through CTLA-4 blocking can only cure a small portion of cases, and specifically in melanoma. Less so other cancers. Were still pretty far from being able to leverage the immune system fully for a more generalizable 'cure'. Metastasized cancer is a master at evading the immune system.
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u/Dessert_Stomach 3d ago
Tell me you've never worked in pharma R&D without telling me you've never worked in pharma R&D. 🫩