Yes, I'm for stem cell research

tlcarolinagirl

it's crazy, but i take one pill a day and a monthly supply costs my insurance company $8,388...for one month!

Akimajuktuq

Yup the masses are always going to think that disease can only be treated with a drug or medical treatment (stem cells or whatever), and that getting diseased is inevitable. WRONG. The info to prevent (and even treat) cancer already exists. It's not a secret. Cancer, and other diseases, can be PREVENTED and very easily. But go ahead and wait for that miracle drug/treatment and think you bear no responsibility for your own health. Cuz cut, burn, poison is so wonderful and effective. (There's tons of cancer in my family and I lost my father to cancer at a young age so don't think I'm just a cold, heartless jerk; I might actually have some experience with this topic and certainly have a right to my opinion.)

As already mentioned, there won't be a "cure" announced anytime soon because cancer is great for profits. Same goes for all the other big diseases.

mmcdonald700

This is a topic near and dear for me. As my mom had battled cervical breast and angiosarcoma cancer. And due to that my doctors are on high alert for myself. My mother has worked for ontology for 20 years and its what I am thinking of specialising in myself. Premed right now... so have awhile to think which field is best. I just have anxiety with the whole cancer thing so not sure I could handle it emotionally. Hats off to all that do including my champion of cancer mother.


Haha ontology nice auto correct... oncology

I find it very interesting that you consider yourself pre-med and are considering specializing in oncology considering all of your comments on this thread about cancer are quite naive. I don't know how far along you are in your degree, and I know that half the people in health sciences at my university are "pre-medicine" (which isn't an actual program or anything it's just like I'm doing a health science degree and I am applying for medicine) so I guess I can't really give that a lot of weight but... you might want to do a little more research. Cancer is extremely complex - it isn't just uncontrolled cell proliferation and consititutive growth factor receptor signalling, it also involves anti-apoptosis (absence of cell programmed death), and very importantly abnormal cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions in order to transition from benign to metastatic. The issue with targeting cancer cells specifically is that they have a lot of markers common to the host cells, it's hard for the body (immune system) to recognize the cancer as non-self because.. well, they are self, technically. And even if it's recognized as non-self they are hard to kill because they don't respond to external apoptosis signalling. Additionally, within a population of cancer cells there are many unique mutations and so it isn't as simple as targeting a single marker because it is a mixed population. So... as you said earlier, yeah, there is a cure... to kill the patient with the highly toxic cancer drugs. I doubt that there is a cure as simple as inject T-cells back into someone, and I know that there is a lot of research being done on the immunology angle of targeting cancer but I don't think anyone is withholding a cure to cancer. There is no panacea for cancer. There will be better treatments that put more people into remission and make treatment less unpleasant for patients. Cancer is so complex you can't make a target specific enough for cancer cells and actually kill the whole population specifically due to the accelerated proliferation and high mutation rate of cancer cells that leads to a heterogenous population of cells. However, I would like to read the paper on the T-cell strategy you were talking about if you have a source for that study.

tl;dr Cancer is really complex and there will never be a cure-all for it.

Fullsterkur_woman

What?! Just because there's malaria treatments available doesn't mean I'm going to forget about malaria prevention or go roll around in an insect-infested fen!

Chieflrg

I don't believe cancer will be healed just because its such a money maker.

If they do cure cancer, there will be another disease that will sprout into an epidemic that we won't be able to cure.

I 100% agree with your 2nd statement.

As for the first, healing cancer new things are developed every day.

Just in the past few years, there is now a blood test that can detect on cancer cell amongst 1 billion healthy ones. The hope is that this will eventually be the "gold standard" that is affordable as a better way to screen for the disease than the mammograms and colonoscopies used now.

It will also be used to research which drugs are effective at killing cancer.

Perhaps I have more hope than most, as the chemo that flowed through my veins is fairly new on the market as far chemo's go. A few years back I would of died within a year. I was given 40% chance to make it two years. This last Christmas I had my four year anniversary of the last drop of chemo entering my body.

Cure maybe not, healing is always possible.

Much love.

Mr_Knight

I don't believe cancer will be healed just because its such a money maker.

If they do cure cancer, there will be another disease that will sprout into an epidemic that we won't be able to cure.

pretty sure they already have a cure but its not for the public..because of exactly that..monney money monnnaay money

You are in effect saying that someone is holding back what would be the most profitable invention in human history because they'd rather make less money.

That's just plain ridiculous.

tlcarolinagirl

Yup the masses are always going to think that disease can only be treated with a drug or medical treatment (stem cells or whatever), and that getting diseased is inevitable. WRONG. The info to prevent (and even treat) cancer already exists. It's not a secret. Cancer, and other diseases, can be PREVENTED and very easily. But go ahead and wait for that miracle drug/treatment and think you bear no responsibility for your own health. Cuz cut, burn, poison is so wonderful and effective. (There's tons of cancer in my family and I lost my father to cancer at a young age so don't think I'm just a cold, heartless jerk; I might actually have some experience with this topic and certainly have a right to my opinion.)

As already mentioned, there won't be a "cure" announced anytime soon because cancer is great for profits. Same goes for all the other big diseases.

Dang, where were you 5 years ago? I would have loved to have known how I could have PREVENTED my chromosomes 9 and 22 from translocating. And I can tell you this, I stop taking my medicine, I will die. The cancer will take over my bone marrow, kill all my white blood cells, and I will oh-fishally kick the bucket. If you know a way for me to get rid of this leukemia naturally, please tell me because I am dying to have another baby and can't while I am on this medicine.

mmcdonald700

Also, for anyone suggesting a conspiracy theory about cancer treatments being withheld because it makes pharmaceutical companies money that simply isn't true. Is big pharm industry corrupt? To an extent, yes. But cancer drugs make them the most money and so no one would develop a cancer drug and NOT immediately patent it and put it into clinical trials. What would be the point of paying people money in R&D to invent new drugs (or re-invent old drugs more like) just to withhold your product? Doesn't even make sense. Also, what I said in my initial post.

trojan_bb

I don't believe cancer will be healed just because its such a money maker.

If they do cure cancer, there will be another disease that will sprout into an epidemic that we won't be able to cure.

Not how enterprise works.

It makes money for the existing players. There are medical companies and pharmas which do not currently profit from cancer. These new and outside players have a HUGE financial incentive to beat cancer. Only hospitals, some equipment vendors, and some pharmas have a vested interest in the status quo. The rest of the world does not.

pretty sure they already have a cure but its not for the public..because of exactly that..monney money monnnaay money


also yay for stem cells

The list of patents is public information. So this company of yours with a cure being held back just decided not to patent their new cure to keep it secret? Right.

Even if you could believe that, why not patent? Said company would make far far more just from the patent alone.


The cancer conspiracy crowd is always good a for a laugh, It takes a pretty fundamental lack of economic and drug law knowledge to even consider it. And a massively warped view of human nature.

Hell, financial incentives aside, the drug inventor would have his name in every textbook for a thousand years.

Lovely_77

This is a topic near and dear for me. As my mom had battled cervical breast and angiosarcoma cancer. And due to that my doctors are on high alert for myself. My mother has worked for ontology for 20 years and its what I am thinking of specialising in myself. Premed right now... so have awhile to think which field is best. I just have anxiety with the whole cancer thing so not sure I could handle it emotionally. Hats off to all that do including my champion of cancer mother.


Haha ontology nice auto correct... oncology

I find it very interesting that you consider yourself pre-med and are considering specializing in oncology considering all of your comments on this thread about cancer are quite naive. I don't know how far along you are in your degree, and I know that half the people in health sciences at my university are "pre-medicine" (which isn't an actual program or anything it's just like I'm doing a health science degree and I am applying for medicine) so I guess I can't really give that a lot of weight but... you might want to do a little more research. Cancer is extremely complex - it isn't just uncontrolled cell proliferation and consititutive growth factor receptor signalling, it also involves anti-apoptosis (absence of cell programmed death), and very importantly abnormal cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions in order to transition from benign to metastatic. The issue with targeting cancer cells specifically is that they have a lot of markers common to the host cells, it's hard for the body (immune system) to recognize the cancer as non-self because.. well, they are self, technically. And even if it's recognized as non-self they are hard to kill because they don't respond to external apoptosis signalling. Additionally, within a population of cancer cells there are many unique mutations and so it isn't as simple as targeting a single marker because it is a mixed population. So... as you said earlier, yeah, there is a cure... to kill the patient with the highly toxic cancer drugs. I doubt that there is a cure as simple as inject T-cells back into someone, and I know that there is a lot of research being done on the immunology angle of targeting cancer but I don't think anyone is withholding a cure to cancer. There is no panacea for cancer. There will be better treatments that put more people into remission and make treatment less unpleasant for patients. Cancer is so complex you can't make a target specific enough for cancer cells and actually kill the whole population specifically due to the accelerated proliferation and high mutation rate of cancer cells that leads to a heterogenous population of cells. However, I would like to read the paper on the T-cell strategy you were talking about if you have a source for that study.

tl;dr Cancer is really complex and there will never be a cure-all for it.

I don't think that having an opinion based from what I have experienced with my mother snd three differrnt kinds of cancer makes me ignorant, but an idea based off of experience. I think you also missed the post where I stated that cancer will always rule the medical field even with a cure. I also never said that they were withholding a cure so I am very confused where that idea came from. I will definitely post a link to the T cell article I was discussing since you're showing an interest in it. They are not only looking into this for a cancer cure, which many patients have under went for treatment but as well to cure the flu, since the proteins of the flu virus never change even with mutation, they are assuming these T cells will always recognize it on a protein level. Pre-med is not a degree, or a course as it's still considered undergraduate and just simply means taking medical courses. I have an associates in applied science and just taking purely the last few medical courses I need to apply for PA school. I understand and know that cancer is not the same for everyone and how advanced it can be from one person to the next, which again brings up my point in saying cancer will always rule the medical field. Give me a moment to track down that article or a few and to post it.

Lovely_77

http://www.fhcrc.org/en/news/center-news/2013/11/cancer-research-powerhouses-form-juno-therapeutics.html

Here is one of many links, I am trying to track down the link that discusses the flu virus as well. Only issue with this is I believe at this point they have only been able to re-program the T cells to recognize B cell type cancers such as leukemia. And of course the funding just isn't there.

mmcdonald700

Great, thanks. And I said that your comments sounded naive, not ignorant. I think naive has a different connotation than ignorant, no offense was intended. Also, I think I misread someone's post inbetween your multiple posts about a cure being withheld, sorry, my bad. This article sounds interesting I might look into some of the papers this guy has authored to read up some more on this work.

Lovely_77

http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_20-9-2013-17-43-38


Here is an article discussing the flu virus and a universal flu vaccine based from t cells

Lovely_77

Great, thanks. And I said that your comments sounded naive, not ignorant. I think naive has a different connotation than ignorant, no offense was intended. Also, I think I misread someone's post inbetween your multiple posts about a cure being withheld, sorry, my bad. This article sounds interesting I might look into some of the papers this guy has authored to read up some more on this work.

Sorry I 're read and saw that you said naive not uneducated. My mistake. But yes, I think T cells are being looked into for not only their promises with curing cancers but for the flu and including HIV. I may be a tad naive in the fact that I am becoming more and more positive about these T cells therapies and their promises. But so far they are proving to possibly be the cure all for mamy illnesses. My thing is. That easy? This whole time the cure was right under our noses, then again sometimes the thing hardest to find is the thing hiding in plain sight.

dumb_blondes_rock

Watched a documentary that massive doses of vitamin c have shown signs to stop, and reverse cancer, but they won't allow it to be put into medical textbooks because there is no real money to be made from vitamin c. Who knows, just hope I never get it

QueenBishOTUniverse

tl;dr Cancer is really complex and there will never be a cure-all for it.

The way I have always explained it, think of it like bugs in a new OS release (and I'm a biologist not IT so read with a grain of salt). If an OS is constantly being upgraded and updated, there will be a constant stream of bugs that need to be worked out of the system. Older OS that have been around for a long time have likely had most of the bugs corrected so they are a more stable platform, BUT most people would still rather have the newer and more advanced systems, understanding that it comes at the cost of more bugs. You will NEVER eliminate all of the bugs as long as you are constantly making updates. This also explains why older species (such as sharks) are less prone to cancer, their genetics have remained relatively unchanged for extrememly long periods of time.

So yea, there will always be cancer (ok maybe if we MASTER genetic manipulation, but that's a long way off), but not because some big pharma company is trying to make money. The best we can really hope for is the ability to find and elimate cancerous cells before they ever have the chance to cause a problem (i.e. the nanotechnology referenced in another post).

anro86

My daughter was born with Optic Nerve Hypoplasia, thankfully in her case it is unilateral, which means that she is only blind in one eye. The vast majority of children born with this genetic condition have bilateral ONH, which means they are completely blind because their optic nerves did not grow enough in utero. Nerves cannot be repaired or operated on... there is no cure. The only chance for regaining sight? Stem cells, which once injected into the body can allow the optic nerves to grow.

China is one of the only countries offering the treatment, and the first round of stem cell treatments cost $80,000.00 cash.

BrainyBurro

Watched a documentary that massive doses of vitamin c have shown signs to stop, and reverse cancer, but they won't allow it to be put into medical textbooks because there is no real money to be made from vitamin c. Who knows, just hope I never get it

you are gullible if you believe that.

you should be more skeptical of outlandish claims like those.

dumb_blondes_rock

If there are people it works for, why is it so outlandish to believe? If I didnt have proof that chemo worked, j would think it would be weird people would want to pump toxins in my body that makes hair fall out and no one can be around you because your immune system is so low. Someone had to be the first to try that theory out

Lovely_77

That's sounds a lot like the claim that vitamin c can prevent flu and other viruses. No, it only strengthens the immune system, the immune system has to be able to first recognize the virus in order to stop the virus from multiplying. No amount of vitamin c will prevent the flu since it mutates thus making it hard for the immune system to recognize it and trigger a response. The common cold is another tough one as there are over 200 different strands of the common cold. You never know which one you're going to get hence why there is no cure for the common cold. Even anti-viral medicines need to be started within days of your first symptoms, because viruses like the flu only causes illness because its able to multiply, if it can not multiply or hasn't then you are a carrier not the ill.

Lovely_77

If there are people it works for, why is it so outlandish to believe? If I didnt have proof that chemo worked, j would think it would be weird people would want to pump toxins in my body that makes hair fall out and no one can be around you because your immune system is so low. Someone had to be the first to try that theory out

The fact that your hair falls out due to chemo is proof that it works as a treatment. As hair cells are in the list of fast growing cells, so are tumor cells or cancer cells.

BrainyBurro

If there are people it works for, why is it so outlandish to believe? If I didnt have proof that chemo worked, j would think it would be weird people would want to pump toxins in my body that makes hair fall out and no one can be around you because your immune system is so low. Someone had to be the first to try that theory out

i don't know if vitamin c works or not. that's not what i was referring to. i was referring to the outlandish statement that the people who write medical books won't include vitamin c in their books because they can't make money from it. that's the part i boldfaced.

Lovely_77

If there are people it works for, why is it so outlandish to believe? If I didnt have proof that chemo worked, j would think it would be weird people would want to pump toxins in my body that makes hair fall out and no one can be around you because your immune system is so low. Someone had to be the first to try that theory out

i don't know if vitamin c works or not. that's not what i was referring to. i was referring to the outlandish statement that the people who write medical books won't include vitamin c in their books because they can't make money from it. that's the part i boldfaced.

They don't include it because there is not enough evidence to support the claim. Medicine is science thus it needs to be able to replicate the same result in a great number of studies in order to consider more than just a theory.

dumb_blondes_rock

If there are people it works for, why is it so outlandish to believe? If I didnt have proof that chemo worked, j would think it would be weird people would want to pump toxins in my body that makes hair fall out and no one can be around you because your immune system is so low. Someone had to be the first to try that theory out

i don't know if vitamin c works or not. that's not what i was referring to. i was referring to the outlandish statement that the people who write medical books won't include vitamin c in their books because they can't make money from it. that's the part i boldfaced.

Ooo...well thats different lol. Like I said I just pray I never get it, but with all the soda I have drank, artificial sweetner I use and hormone infested chicken I eat, things dont look so good lol

mmcdonald700

Watched a documentary that massive doses of vitamin c have shown signs to stop, and reverse cancer, but they won't allow it to be put into medical textbooks because there is no real money to be made from vitamin c. Who knows, just hope I never get it

I was actually told in a metabolism class that discussed taking vitamins/supplements that when you take vitamin C, the first place it goes is to a tumour. So technically... you're feeding a tumour, not likely to help reverse it. That is to say, tumours will pull a lot of nutrients from your bloodstream to serve their growth needs so it's not like this is vitamin C specific. Nor am I saying not taking vitamin C prevents tumours or tumour growth. Vitamin C is a water soluble vitamin which means you pee out any that your body doesn't use. Your body actually requires very little vitamin C (you could get enough from eating half an orange a day or a bell pepper) so taking a vitamin C supplement is pointless because if you have a reasonable diet you shouldn't be getting scurvy any time soon and you will just urinate out the excess. And if you have a tumour growing it will take up that excessive vitamin C you're ingesting. Could probably find a legitimate source for this information buuuut I don't have time to look one up at the moment so you can google it if you want more information/verification. Who knows, that prof could've been telling us bull****.

BrainyBurro

If there are people it works for, why is it so outlandish to believe? If I didnt have proof that chemo worked, j would think it would be weird people would want to pump toxins in my body that makes hair fall out and no one can be around you because your immune system is so low. Someone had to be the first to try that theory out

i don't know if vitamin c works or not. that's not what i was referring to. i was referring to the outlandish statement that the people who write medical books won't include vitamin c in their books because they can't make money from it. that's the part i boldfaced.

Ooo...well thats different lol. Like I said I just pray I never get it, but with all the soda I have drank, artificial sweetner I use and hormone infested chicken I eat, things dont look so good lol

none of what i've boldfaced has been shown to cause cancer in humans. none of it. if any of it had been shown to cause cancer, it would have already been removed from the food supply.

QueenBishOTUniverse

Ooo...well thats different lol. Like I said I just pray I never get it, but with all the soda I have drank, artificial sweetner I use and hormone infested chicken I eat, things dont look so good lol

none of what i've boldfaced has been shown to cause cancer in humans. none of it. if any of it had been shown to cause cancer, it would have already been removed from the food supply.

Was giving benefit of doubt that was sarcasm....

sullus

The point is there is already a cure for cancer what they are doing now is finding a better less life threatening cure.

This statement is ignorant.

ninerbuff

I do hate that especially in the US healthcare is a for profit venture.

so you believe that the government should force people to work at gunpoint for free? ...or that taxpayers should be robbed of the fruits of their labors at gunpoint to fund a bloated federal bureaucracy to do this work much less competently because the economic benefit has been removed?

neither of those options appeal to me.

The doctors and nurses aren't seeing the millions of dollars in profit. That's the executive and administration and board. Why do you think nurses are striking every couple of years? And taxpayers are getting robbed anyway. They're still being taxed for hospital costs that aren't paid.

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Chieflrg

My daughter was born with Optic Nerve Hypoplasia, thankfully in her case it is unilateral, which means that she is only blind in one eye. The vast majority of children born with this genetic condition have bilateral ONH, which means they are completely blind because their optic nerves did not grow enough in utero. Nerves cannot be repaired or operated on... there is no cure. The only chance for regaining sight? Stem cells, which once injected into the body can allow the optic nerves to grow.

China is one of the only countries offering the treatment, and the first round of stem cell treatments cost $80,000.00 cash.

My son was also born with this. He also has sight in one eye.