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A Cure For Cancer?

But, as I've pointed out, there's more to producing a drug than just the cost per unit. The benefits for any company that discovered a cure for cancer would still make the whole venture worthwhile even if it was cheap to produce per dose. There's more to the value of a company than just the cost of the products or services it produces. A cure would cause any companies stock price and market value to soar, and the profit potential is still there in terms of patents, licensing, etc.. But for some reason you seem to think that they'd rather forgo this and instead carry on making products which can have problematic side-effects, (on patients as well as the companies market value) etc. because they can't really be bothered and aren't that interested in making serious money.
 
I know people who have worked in pharmaceutical R&D, and this talk of the cost of manufacturing medicine is misleading.

It may well be that a medicine costs a couple of quid to make per pill. However, the cost of producing the first pill is usually tens of millions. For every drug on the market something like a thousand compounds will have been investigated, a hundred will make it to initial animal trials, maybe ten will make it to human trials. All of which costs money. A fuck of a lot of money.

As for cost benefit, how many here would turn down chemotherapy if they had cancer because they wouldn't want to inflate the profits of pharmaceutical companies? We can all be calm and rational about this stuff until it's our ass on the line, or that of of a family member. Then we don't give a stuff how much the drug costs.

What about Polio vaccine? Why wasn't that suppressed by the iron lung manufacturers?
 
If the drug companies supress one time cures, or even one time prevention of cancer, how do our conspiracy theorists explain Gardisil, a vaccine, which...

...which prevents infection with the two types of human papillomavirus (HPV) - HPV 16 and 18 -- that together cause 70 percent of cervical cancer cases worldwide. Gardasil also protects against infection with HPV types 6 and 11, which account for 90 percent of cases of genital warts.

Source:

Cancer Vaccine Fact Sheet

There's vaccines in development for other forms of cancer as well.

This doesn't look like a conspiracy to suppress a cure.

BTW: there probably won't be one cure, there're over a 100 forms or cancer, with a range of different causes, for which it's unlikely we'll find a single treatment or prevention strategy.
 
Yes, the fact that there's a variety of cancers actually expands any market for a cure. If one company came up with a cure that covered more than one, or cures for more than one type, they'd still be able to make money from it - especially if any treatment had few or no side-effects.
 
techybloke666 said:
If however it cost £7.36 I think the drugs companies would make more per a patient over the period of the sufferers life with cancer based on the prices of the new cancer drugs which prolong life a little and the spin offs they sell like anti sickness tablets , chemo etc etc.

Only they wouldn't, because their market would be destroyed by one manufacturer in China turning out the cure. Or are we assuming that the drug companies who appear to be in vicious competition are all acting together?
 
lemonpie3 said:
Have you read a single word of what anyone has said on this thread so far?


were u refering 2 me?

if not, i appologise in advance. If yes, then I think it's nieve to think that drug companies are in it for any noble cause. It's purely business.

Jerry_B said:
silvercoin said:
Any 'natural cure' however miraculous is bound to be supressed by drug companies - it stops them making money. Also one off cures mean less of an income for them than if people have to take a life long cocktail of drugs.

So how come we have cures for major killers (i.e. smallpox) that haven't been supressed?

When I say'natural cures', I mean that if a natural cure such as apricot kernels etc was proved to cure cancer, then this would not make the drug companies any money, so they would likely play down proof, and promote their own products. As I said it's business
 
That's doubtful IMHO - if there's something in apricot kernels that works against cancer, it woud make business sense to isolate it and develop it as a drug. The same thing has happened with asparin, for example.
 
Jerry_B said:
That's doubtful IMHO - if there's something in apricot kernels that works against cancer, it woud make business sense to isolate it and develop it as a drug. The same thing has happened with asparin, for example.


Hi Jerry, I know, I stated this earlier

silvercoin said:
if apricot kernals really do cure cancer, and drug companies know this, then they would withhold the information! They would then probably investigate and study the chemical action of the said kernals, and reproduce the effects in synthetic form in the lab,( eventually, ) and charge a fortune for it. I believe that most synthetic drugs, are probably just versions of what appears in nature anyway- Aspirin is a synthetic version of a drug found in nature, as is penicillin etc etc ,)

What I meant was, the drug companies would find a synthetic form of a particular natural remedy and market it in drug form rather than admit openly that a natural remedy works. All this would take time of course.
 
Why would they not admit a natural remedy works? It's no odds to them if they can produce and sell a sythetic version. Whether anyone choses to consume a sythetic or natual version is up to to the individual.
 
Yeah, Aspirin comes from nature, but who's going to go out and eat a load of willow bark when they get a headache? The drug companies make Aspirin in a concentrated form and sell it to us because its a whole lot easier than eating a ton of willow bark.

Its the same with Apricot kernels. I'd hazard a guess that if there was any kind of compound in Apricot kernels that could cure cancer it wouldn't be as easy as just popping a few and you'd be fine, you'd probably have to eat a ton of those things a week to get anywhere near a level of effectiveness. The drug companies would synthesize this so you could get the same effect from popping a couple of tablets a day.

On the whole I agree with Jerry, although I do think a drug company might sit on something like this on the short-term until they are sure they have the sole license.
 
They'd have to sit on any possible cure for anything until it's gone through clinical tests - but there's nothing conspiratorial in that.
 
silvercoin said:
I mean that if a natural cure such as apricot kernels etc was proved to cure cancer, then this would not make the drug companies any money, so they would likely play down proof, and promote their own products. As I said it's business

But the drug companies are not the only players. There is lots of government involevement from all over the world too, hence, for example, we get told to do natural things like eating fibre, cutting down salt etc. rather than taking drugs to get the same benefits.

Business works at the other end too: if apricot kernels were shown to cure cancer, then the mighty apricot growing syndicates would be the first to let you know about it. And the price would go up :D
 
I'm sure those who believe that they can cure or prevent cancer or whatever it is will pooh-pooh it, but don't apricot kernals contain fairly significant quantities of something which is broken down by enzymes in the body to create cyanide? I am pretty sure I have read about deaths from eating them ....
 
A large dose of cyanide would probably prevent you from developing cancer. Or any other life threatening medical condition.
 
misterwibble said:
A large dose of cyanide would probably prevent you from developing cancer. Or any other life threatening medical condition.

Apart from death.
 
There would be that side effect I admit. But I'm sure you'd agree that would be a small price to pay for peace of mind.
 
silvercoin said:
As you can see, drug companies really are in it for the money.

Which means that they're very unlikely to sit on a surefire money-spinner in the form of a cure for cancer.
 
Cyanide: I think it's apple pips that have that.

I'm a little rusty on my poisons, these days. :(
 
silvercoin said:
As you can see, drug companies really are in it for the money.


No shit, Sherlock.

And there was me thinking they spent billions on R&D and employed tens of thousands of people out of philanthropic charitable impulses.

The scales have fallen from my eyes, bless you and thank you.
 
Small co-incidence: I've been following this thread for a few days and last night I finished the book I'd been reading. Part of the plot was an old lady trying to work out who'd killed her husband. Well, it turns out he'd been killed by someone who he was about to expose as having found a cure for cancer but had covered it up after being paid off by the drug companies! The book's about 5 years old so I guess this idea's been around for a while.
 
Cyanide: I think it's apple pips that have that.
Yeah they have it too. The seeds with the highest concentration are of course bitter almonds but the same cyanide precursors are in apple pips and in apricot pits and probably others too ..... I don't think anyone has died from eating apple seeds (I could eeeeasily be wrong) but I recall reading about apricot stone deaths in ..... Turkey?

/edit/ I just googled this to make sure I wasn't talking utter nonsense and it seems that the stuff in the apricot kernels which makes cyanide in the body is actually the stuff you want to 'cure' cancer ... except they rather cunningly called it 'vitamin b17' which sounds soooo much better for you than cyanide .....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdalin
 
It takes about 100 grams of crushed (crushing causes the "prunasin" or "Amygdalin" to produce the cyanide) apple seed to make a person of about 150 pounds rather ill. This is around half a cup of seeds. To commit suicide using apple seeds you need to crush and eat these seeds fairly quickly, both to avoid evaporation of cyanide from the crushed seeds, and so as not to lose consciousness before ingesting a lethal dose.

Source
 
Whoah - it is bamboo shoots you have to watch out for by the look of it - here - death (or cancer prevention, depending on how you look at it) by chinese takeaway!

Totally biased debunking of amygdalin for cancer here - seems the idea has been around long enough that you'd expect there'd be more evidence to support it if it worked imo ....
 
misterwibble said:
silvercoin said:
As you can see, drug companies really are in it for the money.


No shit, Sherlock.

And there was me thinking they spent billions on R&D and employed tens of thousands of people out of philanthropic charitable impulses.

The scales have fallen from my eyes, bless you and thank you.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
 
misterwibble said:
silvercoin said:
As you can see, drug companies really are in it for the money.


No shit, Sherlock.

And there was me thinking they spent billions on R&D and employed tens of thousands of people out of philanthropic charitable impulses.

The scales have fallen from my eyes, bless you and thank you.


Ok, I meant to add 'and they dont give a s***t about anything else.'
 
Why should they? The sole purpose of all corporations is to make money.
 
silvercoin said:
misterwibble said:
silvercoin said:
As you can see, drug companies really are in it for the money.


No shit, Sherlock.

And there was me thinking they spent billions on R&D and employed tens of thousands of people out of philanthropic charitable impulses.

The scales have fallen from my eyes, bless you and thank you.


Ok, I meant to add 'and they dont give a s***t about anything else.'
This just in: Fire is hot. Water may be wet. Film at 11.
 
Come on guys and gals I don't mean to be patronizing, but silvercoin was only 16 the other day. She's 18 now?? (maybe your petty sniping has made her a bit paranoid).

We were all young once, it just seems like a gang of mature smart arses pouncing on the slightest mistake made by an obviously younger poster. Grow up you bullies.
 
I think you'll find the 16, 18 thing is her post count. We don't know how old silvercoin is.

Her posts were on-topic, though, so there's that for which to be grateful :). It's always nice to have posters who understand what the thread's actually about.
 
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