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A Cure For Cancer?

Mythopoeika

Mythopoeika

I am a meat popsicle
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I don't know if there's a thread on this already, but thought I'd post it anyway.

I can't remember where I heard this, but there seems to be a conspiracy theory that definitive cures for the many types of cancer have now been found, and that the medical profession won't reveal this fact to the public.

They won't reveal this information because (1) it would cost too much to treat everybody and (2) there are so many cancer charities and researchers that there are a lot of livelihoods at risk - it's now big business and rather a lot of people would lose their jobs/grants/etc. if we all thought they'd cracked it.

Anybody care to comment on this or have any evidence either way?
 
In a way I hope this is true. Imagine the additional population and resource usage if everyone that would die of <insert serious disease here> didnt die.

Malaria is a good example.
Malaria kills between 1 - 3 million per year (reports on this vary a lot).

The areas that tend to have a lot of malaria also have other issues such as lack of housing, fresh water, food, wars, general poverty etc etc. Curing malaria would add to all the other problems.

As far as I can see these diseases keep the population down for a reason.


If there is a cure for cancer lets keep that conspiracy laden lid on it.

The thought of some unemployed UK housing benefit teenage kiddy factory smoking herself to near-death then getting cured via the NHS using my tax pennies does not sit well with me.
 
I wouldnt be surprised if drug companies witheld cancer cures for financial purposes. They get so much funding for research. But then again, once we find a cure for one serious illness, mother nature invents a new one to take its place, so drug companies will have something else to research anyway. Also, drug company bosses also have friends and families with cancers - would they want to deprive their love ones of a cure for the sake of monetary gain? Who knows what they are up to. Who knows what anyone is up to!
 
chriswsm said:
If there is a cure for cancer lets keep that conspiracy laden lid on it.

The thought of some unemployed UK housing benefit teenage kiddy factory smoking herself to near-death then getting cured via the NHS using my tax pennies does not sit well with me.
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Suppose that the cure for cancer actually turned out to be cheaper than the current cost of medicating and caring for terminal cancer patients. Would this change your opinion?
 
As far as I can see these diseases keep the population down for a reason.


If there is a cure for cancer lets keep that conspiracy laden lid on it.
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I spent most of last year supporting a good friend after the death of her 32 year old sister from melanoma. She died in great pain and my friend and her family are still grieving, horribly, for their loss.

I have to say that comments like yours sicken me.
 
I agree with Quake.
My grandfather died of cancer, and the pain and suffering he went through near the end was very distressing for all the family. chriswsm, has anybody in your family ever had cancer?
 
No. I don't think this is true. I promise you there just isn't the co-ordination between healthcare providers to keep this kind of conspiracy going and the vast majority of people who are looking for a cure are good people who want to find a cure. I doubt drug companies would sit on this kind of info. the first one to market a cure would have money pouring in. And as someone else said, the cost of caring for someone with cancer is much greater than curing them.

Apart from anything else cancer isn't just one disease with one facet. There are different types of tumour etc and there will never be one blanket cure for all aspects of all cancers.
 
chriswsm said:
The thought of some unemployed UK housing benefit teenage kiddy factory smoking herself to near-death then getting cured via the NHS using my tax pennies does not sit well with me.
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I wonder if anyone will discover a cure for Daily Mail reader syndrome? ;)
 
There's also the (separate) research of these two gentlemen :

Harry Hoxsey - an elixir made from herbs
and

Royal Rife - using light and sound to treat illnesses (something I'd mused upon some years back, incidentally; looks like he beat me to it though)

It would be easy to dismiss as quackery, but then the US establishment has to go and do the whole 'destroying all the records/ridiculing the person/confiscating all equpiment' thing just the raise the conspiratorial hackles.
 
Apparently they can kill certain types of brain cancer with radioactive scorpion venom.

Better than cutting of the top of the skull, slicing it out, then leaving the person to grow a new skull I suppose.

Also, on New Scientist;

Probable cause of deadly brain cancers established
18:34 19 July 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Roxanne Khamsi


New evidence adds weight to the theory that one of the most deadly forms of brain cancer, called malignant glioma, is caused when stem cells deep within the brain begin to proliferate abnormally, researchers have announced.

Special receptors on the surfaces of these cells trigger cancerous cell division in response to a particular growth hormone, the team's experiments in mice reveal. Absence of this hormone caused such tumours to shrink, they discovered, raising hopes for a potential treatment.
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New Scientist article


I said to people years ago that I thought that cancer cells are just super cells that are made in reaction to certain types of damage.

I still hold that certain types of blood cancer happen when the blood becomes thick because of blood cancer cells produced by the spleen when you drink too much and your body has to compensate for the blood thinning effects of alcohol - and that skin cancer comes about because UV rays damage skin which makes your body produce stronger skin cells.

My evidence? Well just look and think for a bit.

When you break your leg, the bone if set properly grows back stronger. Why stronger? Better cells and more of them.

This is how the body reacts to trauma of that type - it produces better cells and more of them in order not only to replace that which was lost, but to prevent the same from happening again.

If it is genes or hormones that suddenly switch on in that situation to produce the cells, then some of them have to switch off to stop the production.

Now that article in New Scientist appears to back me up a bit.

I hope that I am right, because if I am then in less than 20 years maybe scientists will find out for themselves after having exhausted all other possibilities and proven that their name is maud or whatever and then simple, easy gene or hormonal therapy can cure certain types of cancer.

Then of course, a new deadly plague will be introduced to cull the population further.

Damn. Always has to be some balance.
 
I dunno, have the feeling that cancer is on the rise because people nowadays survive it and pass their dodgy genes on to the next generation. I know some cancers may be viral or triggered by external causes but that doesn't change the fact that some people seem more susceptible to it. So if there was a cure, I fear that cancer would eventually be like chickenpox. Everybody contracts it at some point but hey there is a remedy. This would make our genepool so much weaker.
Humans fiddle too much and when they think they have closed one hole, another much bigger one seems to open.

Edited omitted word
 
Humans fiddle too much and when they think they have closed one hole, another much bigger one seems to open.
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I agree with that totally, we should leave well alone with the fiddling :shock:

We are our own worst enemy most of the time.
 
Dingo667 said:
I dunno, have the feeling that cancer is on the rise because people nowadays survive it and pass their dodgy genes on to the next generation.... So if there was a cure, I fear that cancer would eventually be like chickenpox. Everybody contracts it at some point but hey there is a remedy. This would make our genepool so much weaker.
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Surely you could apply that argument to any illness that might have a genetic component? Would you also be in favour of leaving things like heart disease and diabetes untreated?

Besides which the majority of people don't develop cancer until late-middle or old age - by which time they've already bred.
 
Yeah the last remark is true. However some people have parents with cancer, they know that they themselves might be at risk and subsequently their children. On the other side, before cancer as such was a named desease, people just died from it and others diagnosed it as something less harmful. So nobody knew and could do anything about it.
I dunno. Too early, been up since 5 a.m.
 
The real cancer-drug conspiracy is the way those whose lives are touched by the illness - or illnesses - turn their lives into one long fund-raising jamboree to benefit research, "so that others in future won't go through what we did."

Lovely sentiments and great people - well, maybe. However, start to ask who is going to own any new treatments and you will be quickly put in your place as a miserable nerd who never climbed a mountain in a fright-wig with a shopping-trolly.

Money raised or money bequeathed to Cancer Research seems to give people a fuzzy, warm and healthy glow. To show any concern about the destination of all this loot is seen as unsporting or even malignant.

It's easier just to drop another quid in the tin and shut up.


:evil:
 
One reason that cancer has become more important as cause of death, is that before the advances in medicine and plumbing in the Western world in the late 19th and the 20th centuries, people were more likely to die of something else, probably a bacterial or viral infection of some type, before they had a chance to develop cancer.
 
One reason that drug companies may be withholding a cure is because the cure may be 'natural' and therefore not make them any money. Example 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 But the rate at which we are cutting down our rainforests means that some natural cures will be lost for ever. (But that's another thread,)
 
Oh come on, no-one seriously thinks 'drugs companies' are withholding 'a cure for cancer', do they? I mean puhleeeze...
 
lemonpie3 said:
Oh come on, no-one seriously thinks 'drugs companies' are withholding 'a cure for cancer', do they? I mean puhleeeze...
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Well, they might - because 'cancer' is a convenient way of pulling in all kinds of finance that allows them to do research on drugs for other purposes (you know, the 'we were looking for a cure for cancer, but we stumbled across a cure for impotence' scenario).
'Cancer' is a convenient accounting 'hole' in which to sweep all kinds of other stuff and share/subsidise costs.
If a 'cure for cancer' was found, a lot of charities and funds would stop pumping money into research, and that would seriously hit the costs of research.
 
I agree with that, especially since I read on the BBC site that some scientists rushed out half baked ideas just to get funding, and that the pressure to perform can really push them to unusual behaviour.

Pharmacuticals is a major industry isn't it?

So I agree, if a cure for even one type of cancer was found and actually accepted by the world - then this would leave some people producing the cure and making money, and others out of pocket.
 
coldelephant said:
So I agree, if a cure for even one type of cancer was found and actually accepted by the world - then this would leave some people producing the cure and making money, and others out of pocket.
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This is the whole point of business, you don't actually care if your competitors don't make money.


The 'hidden cure for cancer' thing is a myth, pharmaceutical companies do produce cures for diseases.

For example, the discovery that some types of stomach ulcer can be cured by course of antibiotics reduced the market for the range of treatments that manage the symptoms of stomach ulcer. The discovery wasn't suppressed even though a one off course of antibiotics is less profitable than life-long use of acid-supressing medications.
 
B17 taken with bromelain - in other words concentrated pineapple cores and apricot kernels seem to do the trick.

Google Bromelain and B17 - you will find countless examples of people who have been "cured" - of course the medial profession has a name from this - spontaneous regression -

I do not promise it will work with everyone - but it has worked with enough people for you to give it a go

To further add to the conspiracy - you will find that apricot kernels are very hard to get hold of. In addition Bromelain is becoming harder to find as well.

2 firms that make Bromelain include:

Dr Veras
Solgar

Companies that use Apricots for jam yoghurt etc.... throw away the "useless" seeds.... maybe you can contact one of these - it may be possible to get the seeds that way - although you will will need a nut cracker to open them one by one.

Joe
 
If a 'cure for cancer' was found, a lot of charities and funds would stop pumping money into research, and that would seriously hit the costs of research.
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But there are already "cures" - or at least effective treatments - for a whole host of cancers if caught early enough - I know many people who have recovered from breast cancer, leukaemia, skin cancer etc after appropriate surgery and/or drug therapy.
 
JoeWestSydney said:
http://www.vialls.com/vialls/laetrile1.html
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Dangerous rubbish that relies on people who being ill and desperate for a cure. The only certain thing about apricot kernels is that they're toxic if you eat too many.

Interesting link from that site Smoking Helps Protect Against Lung Cancer I hope it's an example of humour...


As Quake points out several forms of cancer are treatable if you catch them early.
 
Ok Timble "dangerous rubbish" maybe - now before you accuse me of having an agenda - I would like to say the following:

I do not have cancer - I know no one who has cancer:

However - I used to know a university professor who, when he was younger, was diagnosed with advanced cancer in his lymph / testicle / soft tissue regions.

Choemotherapy was not common in those days, 1970s, and being Dutch and therefore possibly more open minded than you, Timble, he started on a course of Apricot Kernels and Bromelain - as recomended by an alternative practicioner in The Hague.

The cancer disappeared - spontaneous regression - he was told....

It may be rubbish to you Timble but it gave the guy in my example a life when you would have condemned him to death.

I do hope you are not a doctor

Joe
 
Dingo667 said:
On the other side, before cancer as such was a named desease, people just died from it and others diagnosed it as something less harmful.
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Timble2 said:
One reason that cancer has become more important as cause of death, is that before the advances in medicine and plumbing in the Western world in the late 19th and the 20th centuries, people were more likely to die of something else, probably a bacterial or viral infection of some type, before they had a chance to develop cancer.
Click to expand...
Sort of by the way, as I understand it (a pal's an immunologist) it's quite possible that you're both right - cancer was rife in Victorian big cities (the smoke and pollution generally), but it was usually lesser diseases that killed people as their immune systems were weakened by the cancers, especially leukaemia, which until comparatively recently was to all intents and purposes invisible until the later stages. My own father has had it for seven years now - it's held in stasis, but he knows that it'll be a bad bout of 'flu or similar that does for him, rather than the leukaemia itself. Anyway, Victorian doctors would have just passed the overt as the cause of death in most cases. Consumption (TB) and lung cancer share a lot of symptoms.

Anyway, I asked said immunologist a long time ago about cures for cancer, and as he pointed out that, if found, full-blown cures for the major cancers could eradicate a big chunk of the NHS deficit within a few years, as present treatments cost a lot both in chemical terms and man-hours. Also, the chemist who comes up with a proven cure is on an instant Nobel prize, and on that basis alone the idea of a supressed existing cure doesn't stand up ;).
 
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