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We seem to have three or four posters extremely emotionally invested in proving that cancer is curable, and that's fine, but it's not what the post is about.
I'm simply emotionally invested in correcting the wildly incorrect assumptions illustrated by the original post.
Many cancers can be caught before they cause symptoms, including colon cancer, breast cancer, cervical cancer, and prostate cancer. We have screening tests for all of those
"Many" cancers, no. "Some" cancers, yes. But do 30 year olds go around getting colonoscopies? No. Do 30 year olds sometimes get colon cancer? Yes.
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Obviously if it's spread it has escaped the body's coping mechanism. That's why it's cancer.
And that's what I said.
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You keep speaking of cancer as if it is one disease. It might help you to understand malignancy better if you stop doing that.
I understand it sufficiently well. I worked for 3 years at a company whose only purpose is the development of technologies to kill tumors.
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It is not one disease, and many cancers are treated quite successfully
Not many. Some. Except in rare cases, "successful' does not mean "cure."
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The vast, vast, vast majority of people with untreated cancer do not survive.
The vast majority of people with treated cancer do not survive either. You're only buying time, and in some cases at high cost in quality of life.
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The pysiology of many cancers is understood on a molecular level.
The limited amount that is understood is not sufficient to explain how and why cancer arises nor what to do about it. So much is still poorly understood, and what they find is that the more that is learned, the more complicated it gets. Medicine doesn't know what conditions are necessary for cancer to arise nor what mechanisms the body uses to fight it, nor why these are successful in some cases, unsuccessful in other cases. One side of the camp believes there are a handful (3-6) of conditions (cumulative mutations or biochemical conditions) that are necessary in order for cancer to arise. This camp believes that these things accumulate one at a time and that once you reach the point where you have all the conditions, cancer arises and there's no way to turn it back because the preconditions are already there. Another camp thinks cancer is a form of speciation that arises from chance aneuploidic cells that become stable enough to clone. These are but hypotheses, nobody really knows.
"Many" cancers, no. "Some" cancers, yes. But do 30 year olds go around getting colonoscopies? No. Do 30 year olds sometimes get colon cancer? Yes.
Very few colon cancer patients are under age 30, although there is a disturbing increase in the incidence in younger people. there is even the possibility that HPV might be causing some colon cancers - another reason to vaccinate against HPV if you are the appropriate age to take the vaccine.
I understand it sufficiently well. I worked for 3 years at a company whose only purpose is the development of technologies to kill tumors.
Sorry, but from what I have seen here you do not understand it very well, as others have also tried to explain to you.
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Not many. Some. Except in rare cases, "successful' does not mean "cure."
Here is the type of statement that shows you really do not have a good grasp of the treatment of cancer. Early stage cancers of many types are cured - not in "rare cases" but every day. Millions of people have been treated and their cancer will never come back. That is cured.
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The vast majority of people with treated cancer do not survive either. You're only buying time, and in some cases at high cost in quality of life.
How many statistics do we have to provide showing you that the "vast majority" are surviving: two thirds of them, without regard to stage, close to 90 to 100% of many early stage cancers. those people go on to have normal lives. Is the treatment for cancer grueling? Yes. my kid was on chemo for three years. lots of hospitalizations, blood and platelet transfusions. You know what? He went to high school through it, graduated with his original class year, and got into the college of his choice.
You greatly overestimate the impact of cancer treatment on quality of life and underestimate its effectiveness.
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The limited amount that is understood is not sufficient to explain how and why cancer arises nor what to do about it. So much is still poorly understood, and what they find is that the more that is learned, the more complicated it gets. Medicine doesn't know what conditions are necessary for cancer to arise nor what mechanisms the body uses to fight it, nor why these are successful in some cases, unsuccessful in other cases. One side of the camp believes there are a handful (3-6) of conditions (cumulative mutations or biochemical conditions) that are necessary in order for cancer to arise. This camp believes that these things accumulate one at a time and that once you reach the point where you have all the conditions, cancer arises and there's no way to turn it back because the preconditions are already there. Another camp thinks cancer is a form of speciation that arises from chance aneuploidic cells that become stable enough to clone. These are but hypotheses, nobody really knows.
I think it is highly likely that there are more than two options for a mechanism to explain how cancers start. For one thing, we know there are carcinogenic chemicals and carcinogenic viruses.
The treatment Mr. Carter is taking, for example, is an immunotherapy product, a new approach to treating cancer.
The search is always on for better, less toxic options.
Congratulations, President Carter, on embracing a scientific approach to your disease that has allowed you to extend your your busy and rich life that continues to be one of fulfillment and accomplishment! (no matter how much your success in doing so will disappoint some who want to believe that cancer is untreatable or should not be treated)
Sorry, but you keep harping on a handful of cancers that are well-known to respond well to treatment in early stages, while ignoring the dozens of other cancers that do not. You can't generalize from the cases that appeal to you while ignoring the rest of them.
Treatment of the most common cancers, involving the largest numbers of patients, is resulting in better and better outcomes. You refuse to admit that. It's not a "handful" of them.
With treatment, two thirds of people with cancer live five years or more. That's all cancers, all ages, all stages. Those with early disease face much better odds.
I'm confused - your title line seems to have nothing to do with the body of your post.
Me, too. The body of my ORIGINAL post posed the question, since the "battle" against cancer has taken on such moral language (brave, courageous, etc.), is it now considered cowardly NOT to "fight."
Also in the original post, I voiced my OPINION that the cure rate is exaggerated.
It quickly devolved into a debate as to whether or not cancer is curable; if so, which kinds, etc.
Seems there's no getting it back to the original question, which is how cancer treatment is viewed: as an heroic act, a way to encourage and set an example to others to also aggressively pursue treatment, etc.
And, thus, whether or not people like Jimmy Carter feel morally obligated to pursue it.
Treatment of the most common cancers, involving the largest numbers of patients, is resulting in better and better outcomes. You refuse to admit that. It's not a "handful" of them.
you use a lot of advertising-type of phrases, like "better and better", but this doesn't mean anything without putting numbers on it.
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With treatment, two thirds of people with cancer live five years or more. That's all cancers, all ages, all stages. Those with early disease face much better odds.
I bet that across the board, all cancers, all ages, 2/3 of people without treatment live five years.
you use a lot of advertising-type of phrases, like "better and better", but this doesn't mean anything without putting numbers on it.
I bet that across the board, all cancers, all ages, 2/3 of people without treatment live five years.
I'm enclosing a link from NIH on cancer statistics. One fact that is mentioned is that 60% of cancers occur among people in third world countries. Yet, 70% of all cancer deaths occur among this population. Correspondingly, 40% of cancers occur in first world countries, but only 30% of all cancer deaths occur in those countries. This means that a person in a first world country who has access to effective cancer treatment is roughly 40% less likely to die of cancer than a person living in a third world country is. What is the difference? The primary difference is having access to effective cancer treatment. Many if not most people in first world countries have such access. Many, if not most, people in third world countries have no such access.
I can say "I bet that the moon is made of green cheese". Saying it is so, doesn't make it so, does it?
Your statement that 2/3's of people would survive cancer without treatment is provably wrong as I have just shown above. Analysis isn't your strongest quality is it?
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The body of my ORIGINAL post posed the question, since the "battle" against cancer has taken on such moral language (brave, courageous, etc.), is it now considered cowardly NOT to "fight."
