[novacrazy]

Yep, as far as I know, they've pretty much found one. Happened about a week ago. Guess why no one has picked up on it? That's right, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money....

The cure is cheap, cheaper than any med produced by the pharmaceutical companies, and with much less side effects. So, being like most modern businesses, they've completely ignored anything that doesn't make money, even if it could save countless lives. Actually *curing* it would also remove a consumer, so no return visits to buy more of the companies standard "magic pills".

Well, here is a source here.

Enjoy.

NOTE: I really do hope this is real, btw.

EDIT: Yeah, after some more research, this doesn't seem as promising as it first sounds...

This post has been edited by novacrazy: 01 January 2012 - 08:49 PM

[tlhIn`toq]

Maybe its just me but... The cost of paying off EVERY research lab, EVERY media outlet, EVERY employee and so on around the globe... Would completely negate the profit of medical maintenance v. cure, for Big Pharma.

Not to mention the idea that not one legitimate research scientist would feel the glory of cure to be beyond the bribe to keep it quiet? Nobody wants a Nobel prize for this? Come on...

It might be possible for 10 people to keep the secret of who killed Kennedy.

But it isn't reasonable to think 100,000 people can keep a secret - Especially of the magnitude that a cure for cancer would be. It just flies in the face of human behavior. Somewhere some rich guy with a chip on his shoulder because he lost a family member would make a point of having this cheap, perfect, minimal side effect drug produced... Some person with a conscience would get the story to every reputable media source because it was the right thing to do and so on... Some legitimate reporter looking to become the next Dan Rather or Anderson Cooper would blow the lid off this conspiracy theory in order to get a Pulitzer.

[jon.kiparsky]

Looks like a steaming heap of bullshit to me. The original article has disappeared, and there's no link to the study (warning sign). Web searches reveal no trials worth mentioning - one human trial with five subjects! - and nobody working on it. The mention of "last week" corresponds to nothing (no results of interest in early May 2011, the week prior to the article's date) . There is an result for "dichloroacetate cancer Alberta" dated May 10, 2010 but that'd be "last year" not "last week". So it looks like the people providing this information don't have a lot of compunctions about making shit up. Not good for their credibility.

Further research finds this link to an article in the New Scientist but of course it's not uncommon for New Scientist and Scientific American to report "promising" results which don't turn out to lead anywhere.
And be sure to read the disclaimer article when you follow that link, it's probably the most interesting part of the whole business.


So my reading of it is this: the compound might be useful in cancer treatment, but so far no serious studies have been done to establish this. Since medical professionals and researchers are aware of this compound, and anyone who worked on an actual generalized cure for cancer would have a lot to gain from this work, and no further work seems to be ongoing, I suspect that the professionals know something I don't, and that something is why they're not pursuing this.

What is certainly not supported is the extravagant claim of a "cure for cancer", and the attendant invective about the "big pharmaceutical companies" trying to bury this. The studies they're reporting on - the only studies they're reporting on - involved five live patients and a few dozen petri dishes. That is not by any means enough to start yelling about a cure for cancer, let alone to establish that The Man is somehow trying to keep this down.

[Choscura]

I smell bullshit.

[Programmist]

As much as I might agree with the OP's assessment of Big Pharma, I need more evidence to believe this.

[ishkabible]

[h4nnib4l]

Sounds like cold fusion again... or dry land. Both myths...

[gabehabe]

Quote

Sun, 15 May 2011 17:05 CDT

I remember reading about this before. Has to have been flawed/fake in some way to have not taken off by now.

http://www.newscient...rfaces-and.html

This post has been edited by gabehabe: 05 January 2012 - 01:25 AM

[Atli]

tlhIn`toq, on 02 January 2012 - 03:19 AM, said:

Maybe its just me but... The cost of paying off EVERY research lab, EVERY media outlet, EVERY employee and so on around the globe... Would completely negate the profit of medical maintenance v. cure, for Big Pharma.

It would probably be cheaper to just kill the scientists and destroy the research... I mean, a scientist calls a news outlet with "I've got the cure for cancer!", which is overheard by Big Brother and reported to the pharmaceutical companies. Once the reporter shows up he finds nothing but an empty lab. - Any news report about it is disregarded because there is nothing backing it, and, thanks to Hollywood, any conspiracy theory (however valid or invalid it may be) is automatically filed away as nonsense.

It's not like people haven't been killing each other forever for a lot less than all those millions made by treating these diseases.

P.S.

[Craig328]

Awful lot of paranoia in that link. There's lots of money to be made by the first pharma company who produces an effective and comprehensive cure for cancer (not that there's likely to be a single product that will be able to do that) so the whole money angle suggestion seems shortsighted to me.

I suspect that while we may one day happen upon a compound that is effective in treating the disease our best best is probably going to start focusing on nanotech as soon as it's proven to be controllable and effective.

[kaminoten]

I think the article isn't very realistic. As Craig said, theres A LOT of money for the first company to sell it. I need some definite proof before believing an ONLINE article.

[Atli]

How exactly would they make money of a cure? I'll admit, I'm not at all good with business or finances, but it seems to me like selling a cure to a disease is a bad business move when you can sell those same patients a long term treatment. - They might be able to make a lot of money right now by curing every current cancer patient, but wouldn't they lose money over time as their share of those patients stop paying for their treatments?

Unless they fix it so that the cure needs to be followed up by years of treatment with another drug to maintain it... That might work.

[baavgai]

There are a few magic words for google that everyone should know.

One word is "sucks," as in "X sucks," giving you much clearer view of X than "X shits rainbows."

The other is "hoax." So: university of alberta cancer cure hoax.

Yep, there you are.

[Craig328]

Atli, on 07 January 2012 - 05:09 AM, said:

How exactly would they make money of a cure? I'll admit, I'm not at all good with business or finances, but it seems to me like selling a cure to a disease is a bad business move when you can sell those same patients a long term treatment. - They might be able to make a lot of money right now by curing every current cancer patient, but wouldn't they lose money over time as their share of those patients stop paying for their treatments?

Unless they fix it so that the cure needs to be followed up by years of treatment with another drug to maintain it... That might work.

How would they make money from a cure? The same way vaccine companies don't make anything from producing polio, rubella, mumps, measles, TB and other vaccines. Those are all cures and yet those folks aren't exactly hurting for funds. There will always be new cancer patients...and then consider this: do you think folks who sell tobacco, asbestos and such wouldn't want to see a cure for cancer? Can you imagine the boom tobacco companies would enjoy if their product was no longer associated with a cancerous death?

[Atli]

Perhaps my first question there was poorly worded. What I meant was: How can they make more money than they do now by switching from treatments to cures? - I don't doubt they could make money selling the cures. The question is: which would earn them more money, a cure or a treatment? After all, it's all about the bottom line.

As to the tobacco companies. Sure, I can see that. If they could only cure cancer and manage to make the cigarettes stink less, we'd probably all be addicted to nicotine by now. And honestly I wouldn't mind the trade