Chasing Phantom Cures
Why haven't biologists cured cancer?
Great article, and while they do mention some politicians, they don't bash them destructively, which makes it very readable. Reminds of muscular dystrophy, where despite people like Jerry Lewis and his telethon raising a shitload of money, we're still no fucking closer to a cure than we were back then.
While I do agree that things like living a very unhealthy lifestyle 24/7 will definitely kill you, I still think things like the health risks of smoking are very exaggerated, since there are huge flaws in antismoking studies like not considering diet, exercise, and environment, and there are some inconvenient facts like smoking not killing a single person below the age of 35.
My mom went through lymphoma recently, despite having not smoked at all (but she was exposed to a lot of secondhand smoke when growing up, and Oklahoma is a very toxic place to live given all the oil drilling that occurs there and a shitload of fumes) and generally eating healthily (though she was largely deprived of an overall balanced diet since her parents were very frugal with their money growing up).
But there are also people like George Burns, who had a cigar-and-martini diet yet lived to a fucking hundred, and others like Andy Kaufman and Christopher Reeves' wife who didn't smoke but still got lung cancer and died young. So I guess in many cases, longevity is a matter of sheer damn luck.
I know smoking allegedly "kills more people than anything else," but most "smoking-related" deaths tend to happen when people are old, like in their 80s, so are they actual smoking-related deaths or simply deaths due to old age? Correlation doesn't equal causation.
I guess the general message of the article is, we aren't close to completely eradicating cancer because of money. Money definitely is the root of all evil, or at least 99.99% of it. And there is this thing called the "antismoking industry" as well (all the "quit smoking" shit like gum and patches), and I think money overall corrupts everything, like politicians, the media, and scientists. Whenever money or politics is involved, that's definitely my cue to call bullshit on studies.
Hope you all have a nice week.
Great article, and while they do mention some politicians, they don't bash them destructively, which makes it very readable. Reminds of muscular dystrophy, where despite people like Jerry Lewis and his telethon raising a shitload of money, we're still no fucking closer to a cure than we were back then.
While I do agree that things like living a very unhealthy lifestyle 24/7 will definitely kill you, I still think things like the health risks of smoking are very exaggerated, since there are huge flaws in antismoking studies like not considering diet, exercise, and environment, and there are some inconvenient facts like smoking not killing a single person below the age of 35.
My mom went through lymphoma recently, despite having not smoked at all (but she was exposed to a lot of secondhand smoke when growing up, and Oklahoma is a very toxic place to live given all the oil drilling that occurs there and a shitload of fumes) and generally eating healthily (though she was largely deprived of an overall balanced diet since her parents were very frugal with their money growing up).
But there are also people like George Burns, who had a cigar-and-martini diet yet lived to a fucking hundred, and others like Andy Kaufman and Christopher Reeves' wife who didn't smoke but still got lung cancer and died young. So I guess in many cases, longevity is a matter of sheer damn luck.
I know smoking allegedly "kills more people than anything else," but most "smoking-related" deaths tend to happen when people are old, like in their 80s, so are they actual smoking-related deaths or simply deaths due to old age? Correlation doesn't equal causation.
I guess the general message of the article is, we aren't close to completely eradicating cancer because of money. Money definitely is the root of all evil, or at least 99.99% of it. And there is this thing called the "antismoking industry" as well (all the "quit smoking" shit like gum and patches), and I think money overall corrupts everything, like politicians, the media, and scientists. Whenever money or politics is involved, that's definitely my cue to call bullshit on studies.
Hope you all have a nice week.