Scientists cure cancer, but no one takes notice

• Yoorah wrote on 2012-02-23 06:28

  Quote from Episkey;782413:

  Googling dichloroacetate leads me to a bunch of articles refuting and disproving what you wrote .... sadly.
  
  However, it's not that dichloroacetate is useless, it may actually have potency against cancer cells.
  
  
  Here's a scientific paper on it if you are curious:
  
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2567082/?tool=pubmed

  
  Notice the paper was written by guys from the University of Alberta as well. Maybe the news is based on advances made since then?
  
  

  Quote from TA;782444:

  Bogus. It's also from 2006. I don't know why it was brought back up.
  
  The article itself was written by someone who obviously has no clue what they're talking about.

  
  ..or it's a re-post, idk.
  
  

  Quote from The Hero Luka;782453:

  This article seems to be more of an attack on capitalists rather than being about cancer cures.
  
  If a cheap cure for cancer is found, it will go viral whether the market wants you to find out or not. Some Doctors may be about money, but most of them chose their profession because they want to help people. They wouldn't just pretend something like that doesn't exist.

  
  The attack on capitalists, when it comes to pharmaceuticals and the related patent BS, is fully justified. They are deliberately taking the more expensive, complex, mostly ineffective and more importantly, patentable path because this leads to better profits. It's an example of capitalism not working out for the better.
  
  I had a friend who researched cancer at John Hopkins. His team made huge progress in treating some form of cancer in rats, the team was excited and stuff, but then the higher ups came and told them they weren't allowed to publish it. Apparently, their school got funding from the pharma industry and given that, they had to block research that wouldn't be patentable. >_>
  
  Then there was that other story in the news recently, about how some university had promising drug research that it had to fund itself, because no pharma corp would be interested as it wasn't patentable.
  
  Then there was that interesting TED Talk about how scientists in India are developing cheaper drugs by basing them on traditional herbal medicine, then further refining and testing them with modern science. These drugs take less time to develop, they are cheaper to develop, and they are effective. But they can't be patented. So they don't exist here.
  
  The list could go on and on.
  
  Sadly, I can't imagine what any of us could do about it.
• TA wrote on 2012-02-23 06:31
  It's true about big pharma. I've experienced it myself.
• Episkey wrote on 2012-02-23 06:37

  Quote from Yoorah;783555:

  Notice the paper was written by guys from the University of Alberta as well. Maybe the news is based on advances made since then?

  
  
  Well, the paper I linked was from the 2007/2008 revision.
  
  Apparently there was an update by the team done in May 2010, which can be found here:
  
  http://www.dca.med.ualberta.ca/Home/Updates/2010-05-12_Update.cfm
  
  I think it lists out their expectations and what people can and can't say about the effectiveness on dichloroacetate.
  
  So yeah.
• Cucurbita wrote on 2012-02-23 06:37
  Man, that sucks.
  
  People suck.
• Claudia wrote on 2012-02-23 06:38
  Pharmaceutical companies are depressing in general, it seems.
  Although, I guess it's not entirely their faults, since it apparently(?) takes a ton of funding just to develop something that seems so simple.
  
  Maybe someday they'll have generic everything and then my dad won't have to pay so much money for his medications...
• RebeccaBlack wrote on 2012-02-23 06:42
  Where there is money to be made, people will be trying to make as much of it as possible. It would be silly to think that things aren't held back for profit and that profits aren't maximized whenever possible.