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GnT - My condolences for your loss of your mother.
However your lonf post provides excellent reasons for removing the profit motive from the entire health care industry. Health care is not suitable for a profit driven market based system because the users have no choice but play and pay or die. I believe the entire system shoulod be government owned and operated.
FWIW: My wife had a kidney cancer removed without any chemo 10 years ago and has still cancer free. On some cancers the old ways work.
1. If you want the information, just ask. When my son was on chemo for leukemia we were given information about the expected results and the side effects and risks of each medication he received.
With any medical treatment or medication, the responsibility for informed consent ultimately rests with the patient. If the patient is too ill or too distressed, then there should be a friend or family member at each doctor's visit to help keep track of what is going on.
2. Why do you think the statistics are wrong? They are just compilations of the results from centers that treat cancer all across the country. When my son was treated, the cure rate for his particular leukemia was about 75%. Now it is closer to 90%. I have no reason to doubt the statistics.
3. Do you think we spend too much on cancer research and treatment? Or not enough?
4. Who do you think the researchers at the NCI are? What questions do you have about their qualifications?
As far as I am concerned, anyone willing to be an oncologist deserves every penny he makes and more.
8. What kind of review? What kind of reform?
What prompts you to ask these vague questions? Have you had treatment for cancer? Do you feel you were not treated appropriately? What prompts the distrust evident in your post?
If you have questions about your treatment, have you talked to your doctor about them?
I agree with everything that suzy has said above, especially the bolded area. Patients are directly in charge of their medical care. We have the right to refuse treatment, chose to go the natural route or just use vitamins or nutrition period to try to cure ourselves.
I am also confused regarding the purpose of these questions. There is always some sort of room for error in medicine, any medical procedure has risks, but on the contrary, any medical illness has risks. One must weigh the risk against each other and chose accordingly.
I have a little cousin who had a brain tumor at 18 months old about 2 years ago. His tumor was removed. He had a couple rounds of chemo as a baby and is alive, well, and healthy today.
My paternal grandmother acquired breast cancer in 1968. She was only 29. The only treatment available was mastectomy. She had the mastectomy and was cancer free for 5 years when her cancer returned (they of course did not have the technology to know that the mastectomy did not get all cancer cells nor did they have the treatments we have available today to save her life). She did not get an option of chemo or radiation. She died when she was 35 leaving a husband and 5 kids, three were under 12 years old. I wish chemo had been available back then as I may have had the opportunity to meet her.
I think too many people think about the whole bureaucracy of this and they are trying to make some sort of vast conspiracy theory. I have even heard it spoken that cancer is a "new" disease. I think that is some bull and that these treatments do indeed save or prolong lives. I have seen too many people benefit from them and how can one say whether or not chemo killed someone or an advanced form of cancer.
My maternal grandmother acquired lung cancer. It was stage 4 when she was diagnosed and she was told there was no way to cure her and that surgery would probably do nothing to prolong her life. She chose not to do surgery, but did the chemo even against the advice of her family as hers was a very advance case and had spread to her breast, lymph nodes, liver, and brain and we just didn't think it would be good for her to deal with the side effects when her prognosis was so grave. Her doctor gave her the choice, at that time, she was still cogent and cognizant of what was going on. He gave her other options outside of chemo and the option of just medicating for pain and living as good as she could for the last few months. She chose the chemo. She wanted to see if she could make it. It was her choice just like it is the choice of all patients and families put in this sort of unfortunate situation.
It troubles me that with all the money pouring into cancer research we are still using such barbaric methods to treat it. Yes, it does work for some but in my heart I feel that there has had to be some amazing break-throughs, much more then we know about in the cancer research but if it were made public what in the world would happen to all of those hospitals, doctors and equipment that is now used to treat cancer???? How much money would be lost.....sadly our country works on money and not humanity so much. Personally I cannot fathom a person who may be knowledgeable about a new and better, safer and far less invasive cancer treatment that would not share that information when seeing a small child suffering with cancer and having to undergo those horrible treatments but I have to believe it is happening! I was informed by a Dr. friend who worked in the medical field years ago about treatments for cancer that were being used in animals years ago with a very good success in different countries--a pill form supposedly and only for certain types of cancers of course but somehow it up and disappeard. He explained to me that our country could not afford a cure to cancer that would not use the high cost equipment we already have in place and give the medical professionals who have spent years and lots of money to be trained using this equipment. Pretty scary and very very sad isn't it? I will say horray for those who have had success with todays treatments and I am very happy that lives have and are being saved but I have to believe there is much we the public do not know....The amount of money that goes into cancer research is staggering and the intelligent minds doing the reasearch is equally as amazing----and yet we are still using the same basic treatments with some variations of course. There is more cancer today but then there are more people on this earth and with communications being what they are we are of course made more aware of it all but...........I moved to a rural area in the middle of farmland and I see personally what is being done to our meat and foods. Nothing is grown without chemicals--they kill the ground/soil/weeds and insects with poisons to grow the next crops, they put chemicals/hormones to make the crops grow at extreme rates, they feed the livestock chemicals/hormones to grow big and fat all in a very short time, the water not only those animals drink but what we also drink has got to be contaminated with all that is put into the land---the air is contaminated with poisons sprayed onto the fields and who knows what else that we the public are not aware of...come on people...we are the cancer to this planet and we wonder why so many people are suffering from cancer and why we can't cure it. This is of course my opinion and I am not any kind of professional I just know what I see.
There is not and has never been a magic "pill" to cure "cancer."
Cancer is many conditions, not just one.
There is no reason to believe that cancer researchers are hiding simpler, less expensive treatments in order for the medical system to reap huge financial rewards.
When vaccines made infectious diseases much less common, hospitals closed the beds that had been used for those patients. We no longer need hospitals just for the treatment of tuberculosis, for example.
By having regular colonoscopies, many of us can be protected from ever having to need treatment for colon cancer, for example.
Women who have regular mammograms have breast cancers caught early. Chemotherapy and radiation mean fewer women need mastectomies.
The treatment for various cancers continues to evolve.
To say that the country cannot "afford to cure cancer" is ludicrous.
And despite all the concerns about chemicals in the environment, life expectancy has continued to increase. The biggest threat to a further increase in life expectancy is not what we eat, it is how much of it we eat: obesity.
I never said "magic pill" now did I? There was however a pill form of medication that did work on "certain" kinds of cancers, which I believe I did point out, on animals--and it all but disappeared from the foreign market. I did not say how or why it just did.
Obesity is a direct result from hormones in our food supply--my oipinion!
"I" do believe there are many reasons not to make public any new possible cures or procedures for cancer as I have already throughly explained "my" reasons for thinking this way and have also said in my post these are "my" beliefs. I do not consider myself an ignorant person and yet I am in no way a genius--but I do stay informed!
Yes, life expetancy has increased but I myself cannot say keeping someone "alive" and not living is necessairly a good thing--again my opinion. My grandmother lived to be 96 because of good genes not medicine. She was healthy until the day she died--she did not live on medications or machines. When she passed she told me she was tired and ready.....
Steve Jobs regretted not having surgery for his pancreatic cancer, didn't he?
Actually, Jobs did have the surgery, he just delayed it for 9 months, and that delay is unlikely to have mattered much. So this is a very poor example to use, for a great many reasons, none the least of which includes only a 5% survival rate (5 years) with surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, the latter two proven to be ineffective against pancreatic cancers without surgery, and with surgery, obviously not much better. Pancreatic cancer is one of the most aggressive and deadly forms of cancer, with the highest mortality rate of any cancer ... with patients often dying within one year of diagnosis, due to the fact that there are few symptoms until the late stages of the disease. Steve Jobs suffered a certain rare type that is less aggressive than the more common variety, though few survive past the 5 year period. Jobs survived 7 years, which represents only miniscule fraction of sufferers that manage to survive that long.
Really ... what planet have you been residing on? There are thousands of documents proving FDA coverups, corruption and conflicts of interest, and Michael Taylor is only one of the more obvious ones.
Here's what a few who know had to say about the FDA:
"People think the FDA is protecting them - it isn't. What the FDA is doing and what people think it's doing are as different as night and day." - Herbert L. Ley, Jr., M. D., former Commissioner of the FDA
"The hearings have revealed police state tactics . . . possibly perjured testimony to gain a conviction . . . intimidation and gross disregard for Constitutional Rights." - Senator Edward Long, U.S. Senate hearings on the FDA
Dr. J. Richard Crout, test director at the FDA Bureau of Drugs beginning in 1971
(Congressional testimony on April 19, 1976)
"There was open drunkenness by several employees which went on for months ... crippled by what some people called the worst personnel in government. There was intimidation internally by people . . . People, I'm talking about division directors and their staff, would engage in a kind of behavior that invited . . . insubordination - people tittering in comers, throwing spitballs; I am describing physicians, people who would . . . slouch down in a chair, not respond to questions, moan and groan with sweeping gestures, a kind of behavior I have not seen in any other institution as a grown man . . . Prior to 1974, not one scientific officer in our place knew his work assignments, nor did any manager know the work assignment of the people under him."
"It is not our policy to jeopardize the financial interests of the pharmaceutical companies." - from testimony before Congress of Dr. Charles C. Edwards, Commissioner of the FDA
I never said "magic pill" now did I? There was however a pill form of medication that did work on "certain" kinds of cancers, which I believe I did point out, on animals--and it all but disappeared from the foreign market. I did not say how or why it just did.
Obesity is a direct result from hormones in our food supply--my oipinion!
"I" do believe there are many reasons not to make public any new possible cures or procedures for cancer as I have already throughly explained "my" reasons for thinking this way and have also said in my post these are "my" beliefs. I do not consider myself an ignorant person and yet I am in no way a genius--but I do stay informed!
Yes, life expetancy has increased but I myself cannot say keeping someone "alive" and not living is necessairly a good thing--again my opinion. My grandmother lived to be 96 because of good genes not medicine. She was healthy until the day she died--she did not live on medications or machines. When she passed she told me she was tired and ready.....
Actually, life expectancy has only increased in the lower class categories who's poor access to clean food and water and lack of good hygiene impaired their life expectancy. The privileged have enjoyed very long lives ... every bit as long as people live today, with very little in the type of medical care that claims to be providing this life extension.
Look back at many of the prominent people of history, like former presidents and other historical figures that lived well into the 80's and 90's.
Longer life due to modern medicine is a complete myth.
We frequently read the praise of the fortunate who have survived cancer and give great plaudits to their Dr's. Very understandable. However upon taking an objective (rather than emotional) evaluation of the BIG picture it appears that the populace in general has been taken to some degree or less for a very long time.
1--If food ingredients must be labeled how many of us are properly informed of the origin and content of chemotherapys?
2-- Do you believe the stated percentage of success of various cancer treatments.?
3--Do you believe that we are getting a appropriate degree of success for the amounts of money directed to cancer.
4-- Do you believe cancer treatment is properly regulated---are those Dr's hired by the NCI's properly qualified to the intricacies of cancer treatment and are they appropriate personnel to practice in our country and on us?
5-- Why are Dr's at gov't subsidized cancer institutes allowed to incorporate to gain the many advantages when they are insured by the institution in which they work ---and their practice is not a private practice?
6-- Why do only approx. 13% of cancer deaths in America result in wrongful death or other litigation as a result of the treatment the deceased got or did not get or some other degree of wrong doing?
7--If there are sunshine laws and we can gain knowledge of the salaries of our leaders including our President why can we not do the same concerning those who hold our lives in their hands as health care professionals?
8--Do you believe cancer treatment in America needs a stringent review and perhaps reform?
1) That's a poor comparison.
2) Yes. THere are a number of private groups that track cancer statistics. Breast cancer in particular has had increasing survival rates.
3) I don't know.
4) ditto.
5) Need more info. If you look around there are plenty of corporations getting some sort of federal subsidy so I would need you to explain this better.
6) Please share the statistics for other medical treatments that end badly and the resulting lawsuit rates. Having worked with medical malpractice insurance in the past, I think that % is not unreasonable when compared to the % of docs that are sued when someone isn't happy after back surgery, has a heart attack, baby has medical issues etc.
7) For the same reason we don't get to know the salary of airline pilots and the guy that puts the tire on your car after rotating it and may not tighten the lugs. Private vs. Public. I'm not sure why you are bringing this up.
8) I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop after reading your list that hits on a whole bunch of rather disconnected topics. Is this going to turn into one of those threads where the OP is waiting to spring their "doctors keep you sick to make money" or "you can cure cancer with vitamins alone" ?
Seems like you are holding back something but are easing into it....
I never said "magic pill" now did I? There was however a pill form of medication that did work on "certain" kinds of cancers, which I believe I did point out, on animals--and it all but disappeared from the foreign market. I did not say how or why it just did.
Obesity is a direct result from hormones in our food supply--my oipinion!
"I" do believe there are many reasons not to make public any new possible cures or procedures for cancer as I have already throughly explained "my" reasons for thinking this way and have also said in my post these are "my" beliefs. I do not consider myself an ignorant person and yet I am in no way a genius--but I do stay informed!
Yes, life expetancy has increased but I myself cannot say keeping someone "alive" and not living is necessairly a good thing--again my opinion. My grandmother lived to be 96 because of good genes not medicine. She was healthy until the day she died--she did not live on medications or machines. When she passed she told me she was tired and ready.....
The pill that "worked on 'certain' kinds of cancers in animals never existed.
You are welcome to your opinions, but for the purposes of discussion, some facts to support those opinions would be nice.
People are not only living longer, they are staying healthy longer.
My mother in law will be 90 in January. She has gotten a bit frail, has some vision and hearing problems, but still is a wicked sharp bridge player.
Americans are fat because they eat too much, not because there is anything evil in food.
Thanks to surgery and chemicals 750,000 people die in the United States A N N U A L L Y. Those that survive them, fully believe that it saved them, yet they have no idea that there is almost always an easier, cheeper , less invasive and more healthy alternative, because the cutters and the poisoners have kept you in the dark.
How do you think appendicitis should be treated?
Wave a turkey feather over the kid's belly?
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I was informed by a Dr. friend who worked in the medical field years ago about treatments for cancer that were being used in animals years ago with a very good success in different countries--a pill form supposedly and only for certain types of cancers of course but somehow it up and disappeard. He explained to me that our country could not afford a cure to cancer that would not use the high cost equipment we already have in place and give the medical professionals who have spent years and lots of money to be trained using this equipment. Pretty scary and very very sad isn't it? I will say horray for those who have had success with todays treatments and I am very happy that lives have and are being saved but I have to believe there is much we the public do not know....The amount of money that goes into cancer research is staggering and the intelligent minds doing the reasearch is equally as amazing----and yet we are still using the same basic treatments with some variations of course. There is more cancer today but then there are more people on this earth and with communications being what they are we are of course made more aware of it all but...........I moved to a rural area in the middle of farmland and I see personally what is being done to our meat and foods. Nothing is grown without chemicals--they kill the ground/soil/weeds and insects with poisons to grow the next crops, they put chemicals/hormones to make the crops grow at extreme rates, they feed the livestock chemicals/hormones to grow big and fat all in a very short time, the water not only those animals drink but what we also drink has got to be contaminated with all that is put into the land---the air is contaminated with poisons sprayed onto the fields and who knows what else that we the public are not aware of...come on people...we are the cancer to this planet and we wonder why so many people are suffering from cancer and why we can't cure it. This is of course my opinion and I am not any kind of professional I just know what I see.
