do you think that the cancer treatment business is largely a fraud?

Question

it's just i have heard so many things about how cancer rates are rising rather than lowering. and the treatment industry takes billions of pounds/dollara per year. I AM NOT APPEALING OR REFERRING TO ANIMAL RIGHTS CAMPAIGNS. i simply want to ask if anyone has any opinions on whether our current methods and practices of cancer treatment are misguided, and perhaps only continue due to all the money and vested ineterests poured into current practices. perhaps it iwould be impossible by now to admit we are doing things wrong...has anyone heard any stories or has any real opinions on this? i do not agree with animal experimentation, but that is a whole other issue and this cancer thing is unrelated. i am talking about regardless of animals, is our approach at best wrong and at worst fraudulent???

Answer 1

I am still alive!!!

The treatments given in my case were beneficial to the extent that my Non - Hodgkins Lymphoma is in reccesion.
In that respect I do not believe the treatment business to be a fraud.
In the light of further experience and (expensive) research the treatments and hopefully, prevention will further improve.
My family and I are very grateful for the treatments I was fortunate enough to be given.

Answer 2

Just an opinion, but I would say that the whole pharmaceutical industry business is just that a "business". Many good drugs/vaccines have already been discovered but are not commercialized because the forecasted profits do not have the right amount of zeros on the right.
So many ppl keep dying from some illnesses where the cure has already been found but it is not given.
On the other hand, there are some other drugs that have been discovered and proven to have too many secondary effects on the people and that are only a paliative treatment but they turn out to me more profitable.
Cancer treatments are way too expensive and it is a business from the drug companies and the clinics. SAD BUT TRUE.
And it is not just that the medicines are a bit expensive and you can still reach them. They are unreachable. But they take advantage of your situation where you would do anything that is available for you if it means you can save the life of a beloved one or at least try to. I know some people who had a business and had to sell everything in order to afford these treatments. They are still bankrupted.
I am not saying that the drugs for cancer should be as cheap as a package of aspirins. Because they are so specific they are very expensive, but I am sure in top of that a part of the high cost of the drugs is real but the rest is business.
On the other hand, consider the following: an increasing number of foods and food ingredients are approved today by FDA or pertaining authorities in each country, and tomorrow they are found to be cancer promoting substances. So first of all you are never sure on what to eat. What today is good, tomorrow may be wrong.
Also 80% of the food products we buy in the supermarket contain artificial substances, colorants, preservatives, ... and the list goes on and on... Who can assure they are not harmful for us in the long term.??

Answer 3

Do you think the people who have been cured of their cancer would say that our current methods are wrong? That's why we have treatments and not cures. It doesn't work for everyone. A lot of money is being invested to find a cure. Just because we don't have one yet doesn't mean progress is not being made. Research breeds technology. I'm sure there is a lot of new research being done that we don't know about. You don't hear about research until testing and retesting can prove that it's worth going public with.

Answer 4

I do believe to some extent it is a fraud. many people survive in spite of the treatments not necessarily because of the treatments. there are many treatments that just as effective and cost way less in other countries but alas not allowed in america. chemo radiation etc weaken the immune system, something you do not want to do. do you honestly think if the medical community (which is run by the pharma companies who set up the american medical association) would allow cheaper effective treatments in the usa?

if one uses these chemo treatments it might be wise to use it sparingly and follow a immune system strenghtening diet and execise program. but they are coming up with better treatments where they target just the tumors themselves because they are activly taking up glucose before other cells can, which weaken the immune system furthur, and thus the cancer cells pick up the radiated glucose molecules and the rest of the body is spared the full affects. this has promise.

RRRRR

Answer 5

There was recently a massive campaign announced whose result would be to increase the number of people dying of cancer.
It was to prevent premature deaths from heart disease.

If you stop people having early heart attacks, they don't "not die", they have to die from something else. Later, which is why it's worthwhile.

But as deaths from other causes fall...
Smallpox is gone, TB's not the killer it was in most places, etc., etc.,
...Cancer is left as something a lot of people will get if they live long enough. About one person in three, by the end of their lives. (see URL)

Cancer rates drop in a war zone, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Yes, improvements to cancer detection and treatment are required. Many people are not picked up early enough, but there are now established cases of unecessary and excessive treatment. Not least from doctors "covering themselves" against the risk of being sued.

Answer 6

Brief answer, no.
Better answer, have you concidered WHY cancer rates are rising?
The biggest risk factor in getting cancer is age, so as we improve health care and people live longer there is more of a chance of them getting cancer.
Cancer is more likely to be diagnosed now than a couple of hundred years ago. Going back a couple of centuries, unless you have visible tumours you wouldn't be diagnosed with cancer.
We are exposed to more carcinogens in our modern society, smoking, petro-chemicals, pollution in general.
We eat more processed foods laced with chemicals than in times gone by. (Grandma made cakes with eggs, milk, flour, sugar and maybe lemon juice or cocoa, have you seen the lists of ingredients on pre-packaged cakes!)
We eat less fresh fruit and vegetables.
We have damaged the ozone layer so we are exposed to higher concentrations of UV radiation from the sun.
We choose to live at lattitudes other than those of our ancestors and our bodies are not designed for te resultant sun exposure.

Fix all of these things, and we may see a drop in cancers.

Answer 7

obviously they are doing something wrong. For all the money gone into Cancer research and to not have come up with more cures than what we have right now is rediculous.

I have a foundation set up in honor of my dad who passed away due to cancer, and though I keep donating and collecting donations for research, I sometimes sell on ebay for cancer research, I do garage sales for cancer research also etc.. etc.., sometimes I wonder where exactly that money is going and what they are doing with it.

I do it for other cancer patients, I do it in hopes they find a cure to save others, but it still all leaves me wondering... they should have had more by now with all the money going into cancer research

Answer 8

I think there is too much special interest going on.The drug companies don't want a cure to be found and they are the ones sponsering the research.
Maybe if Doctors were paid the millions of dollars to research cures, we pay sports figures to play a game,they would come up with something.