Folmsbee: There will never be a cure for cancer

There will never be a cure for cancer. Despite consistent promises of the elimination of this modern plague over the past few decades, no panacea is in sight. Cancer has evaded the pressures of evolution and diverged in a multi-headed hydra, becoming more difficult to wrestle the more we fight to understand its biology. This has made it all too easy for charlatans to peddle false cures to those stricken by this scourge, but vigilant scientific progress into the nature of cancer can give us reason to find optimism not in its cure, but in its treatment.

Why is cancer so resilient and ubiquitous? The answer is evolution. Organisms have been subjected to natural selection for millions of years, protecting and improving our survival with the sole objective of increasing reproductive success. But as soon as we senesce, evolution is a cruel caretaker. There are few evolutionary reasons to promote health in the elderly, and thus cancer received an unfortunate window into humanity.

Scientists have a history of hubris, predicting a future cure for cancer over the last half of the century. Advances in technology and medicine have spurned nearly every new generation of researchers to claim a cancer cure is just on the horizon. Yet a cure is still unavailable.

But a “cure for cancer” is an oversimplified and ultimately ignorant goal. Cancer is not a single disease with a single cause and single treatment. Cancer is a collection of many different kinds of uncontrolled cellular growths: leukemias, solid tumors, cancers from a variety of tissues and more. There are hundreds of cancers, each with a diverse array of treatments tailored by research. Some cancers can be surgically removed, others require chemotherapy, but most often are treated by a combinatorial approach.

Billions of dollars have been spent on biomedical research of cancer, and the overwhelming results demonstrate the inherent complexity of the disease. To claim to want a single “cure” for cancer would be the same as wanting a single food to cure world hunger. False expectations are clouding scientific progress.

This deceptive reading of modern cancer treatments has had a price; it has opened the doors for charlatans to peddle bogus cures, preying on patients at their most vulnerable and promising false hope. Physicians of cancer patients can be intimidating, forced by ethics to deliver an honest explanation of the difficulty of the disease and the limitations of treatment. But alternative medicine practitioners can promise natural cures, tempting the patient to abandon medical science. These alternative treatments are often without any scientific merit or evidence, tearing the patient away from real medicine.

However, there is still reason to be optimistic. Survival rates for cancer are rising as diagnoses and treatments improve. As complex as cancer is, there are novel treatments based on new scientific discoveries, taking what we learn from each type of cancer and providing a targeting treatment. Although there will never be a cure for cancer, there almost certainly will be better treatments.

— Folmsbee is a senior from Topeka in neurobiology.

 

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Comments

Yes I agree there will never be a cure for cancer but each of us can eliminate the cause for cancer. I had cancer almost 20 years ago treated it naturally and I have not suffered from it since because I give it no reason to grow back. I learned through Naturopathic Medicine that if I stopped doing the things I was doing that caused the cancer to grow that it would go away. The reason categories were 1 change what I was bringing into by body 2 eliminate toxins from my body 3 exercise 4 avoid toxic people and environments 5 establish a strong spiritual foundation.

The work that goes with each of those categories is rigorous it was as though I had taken on a second job but fairly quickly I noticed many positive changes. I was involved in some form of cleansing, detoxing, healing technique or lifestyle change from the time I got up till I went to bed a night. In about 3 months of this I was symptom free a year and a half later I was cancer free but not cured. If I allowed my lifestyle to deteriorate back to the average American lifestyle which I believe is the cause of cancer my cancer would come right back probably stronger then before.

I am 65 this year, my grandfather was dead of prostate cancer at 59 and at this age my father was on his way out brought low by the same cancer. I feel like I am in my 30's and in a few minutes I am going out for about an hours hard bike ride up in hills of Thailand, you can imagine the temperature but I love it. Each year gets better and I discover more new ways to improve my health and energy which has become my path in this life.

As far as modern medicine goes they will never find a cure just as you said. One very good reason is they are a monopoly and with no competition because they outlawed any there will be no realistic treatments for cancer or any disease other than the novel ones of cut, burn and poison. Cancer is now the number one killer taking first place away from heart disease and third highest killer of Americans is now modern medicine via treatments, mistakes and drug reactions. They have not found a cure for a single disease in over half a century now isn't that a fine kettle of fish. And yet our very trusting American citizens continue to place their lives in the doctors hands as though they were just a notch below God, too bad. You wonder how does one remain a doctor if you have the mental capacity to understand what is going on and not be appalled.

I think Sai already covered the merits of things like "Naturopathy."

Kujayhawk- Humans still can't fly, but we made a machine that we can ride on that flies.

My guess is that we'll never come up with a magical vaccine that cures cancer, but we'll probably invent machines and new/better ways to treat cancer and the many adverse affects caused by this disease.

In more then half a century modern medicine has not cured one disease, zero, zip. Not even something as simple as the herpes virus, how could they possibly cure cancer.

When I see the ad "help us find the cure by donating your time and money" I just laugh and shake my head. Everybody must be brain washed, hypnotized, or asleep if they cannot see what is going on. Medicine is not the least bit interested in finding cures because cures destroy business. Wake-up folks there are thorns on those roses.

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