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Medicine Science

The Cure Culture: Our Obsession With Cures That Are 'Just Around the Corner' 204

Posted by Soulskill from the past-performance-is-not-an-indicator-of-future-success dept.
citadrianne writes: Cures for major disease always seem just a few short years away. We constantly read about promising new treatments for cancer, diabetes, HIV, ALS, and more. While the prognosis for these diseases has improved over the years — sometimes greatly — we still focus doggedly on the cure. "The idea of a cure is simpler, it's more appealing as a fantasy." This article takes a look at so-called "Cure Culture" — the focus on reaching for a cure when our scientific efforts may be better expended attacking a disease in other ways. It asks, "Why are we telling our children, our friends, and our family members that we are going to cure them? ... What does it mean to be cured of a disease that is encoded within your DNA from the moment you become a zygote until the moment you are dead? ... And why are we eschewing or overlooking treatments—real, honest-to-god treatments—that can let patients lead longer, more normal lives?
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The Cure Culture: Our Obsession With Cures That Are 'Just Around the Corner' More

The Cure Culture: Our Obsession With Cures That Are 'Just Around the Corner'

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  • Customers vs Patients (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ohnocitizen ( 1951674 ) on Monday July 13, 2015 @11:06AM (#50098669)
    Isn't the problem the exact opposite? That we struggle to find cures when treatments are so much more profitable? That medicine is viewed as a profit generator rather than an utterly essential aspect of a modern society? This article reads like it was written by a spokesperson, and turns a blind eye to every disease that once had no cure - but now does.

    • If Company A develops a treatment and Company B develops a cure, which company would get your money in case you happen to get the disease in question?

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Guppy ( 12314 )

        If Company A develops a treatment and Company B develops a cure, which company would get your money in case you happen to get the disease in question?

        Note that this is exactly what has happened with the new generation of anti Hepatitis-C medications, with complete and permanent cures of a chronic viral infection at rates of 95+%. In about 12 weeks.

    • Isn't the problem the exact opposite? That we struggle to find cures when treatments are so much more profitable? That medicine is viewed as a profit generator rather than an utterly essential aspect of a modern society? This article reads like it was written by a spokesperson, and turns a blind eye to every disease that once had no cure - but now does.

      I'm cynical about the health care industry too but you're missing the key variable here.

      We can essentially cure two classes of illness, infection and physical defects.

      With infection we can kill the parasite and you're cured, and with physical defects we can do surgery and you're cured, but otherwise we're kinda helpless.

      Cystic fibrosis is a problem in the patient's genome, we can't cure them unless we fix the genome. Type 1 diabetes is the body either not producing insulin, we can't cure that without gettin

    • Isn't the problem the exact opposite? That we struggle to find cures when treatments are so much more profitable?

      That's *a* problem certainly, but it's not *the* (not that there's any singular problem in the first place), and it's a problem that's tied to Big Pharma. But the article isn't about Big Pharma. It's about Big Charity, which has a separate set of problems.

      This article reads like it was written by a spokesperson, and turns a blind eye to every disease that once had no cure - but now do

      • Isn't the problem the exact opposite? That we struggle to find cures when treatments are so much more profitable?

        That's *a* problem certainly, but it's not *the* (not that there's any singular problem in the first place), and it's a problem that's tied to Big Pharma. But the article isn't about Big Pharma. It's about Big Charity, which has a separate set of problems.

        Isn't the article actually about... "You big charities concentrating on finding a cure when there are treatments for CF are really annoying the piss out of those of us who are currently making an ass-ton of money off of selling treatments".

        So the *actual* problem they are addressing is the problem that big charity isn't funding their treatment research, and they are instead having to fund treatment research themselves, and that cuts into their profits. In other words, it's not enough that all of the public

    • Re:Customers vs Patients (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ColdWetDog ( 752185 ) on Monday July 13, 2015 @12:43PM (#50099593) Homepage

      This comes up all of the time. Here is a thought - you have a number of countries - like the entire rest of the world - where 'profit' isn't the driving force for medical care. There are dozens of governments who would love to have inexpensive cures. And these countries have lots of smart people, have lots of high end research facilities, have had lots of time. If there was some sort of simple 'cure' for any one of a number of chronic, expensive diseases it would have been studied six ways from Sunday.

      It's not some evil collusion of rich, nasty old men. It's just that biology is fucking hard.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pepty ( 1976012 )
      Let me ask you this - You're a pharma with two different Diabetes drugs. They've both made it through phase II clinical trials and have the same side effect/risk profiles. Now you have to pick one to push forward.

      Drug A, a cure. Drug B, treatment Time til profit: Since it offers benefits far above a treatment, the cure gets gets a breakthrough therapy designation and accelerated approval from the FDA review panel, leading it to be approved months or years earlier than the treatment. Once in the market, the

  • "cure for cancer" (Score:5, Informative)

    by someone1234 ( 830754 ) on Monday July 13, 2015 @11:07AM (#50098677)

    Cancer is so diverse, saying we have cure for cancer is like saying we have cure for viral infections.
    I'm pretty sure lots of cancer types are now curable, and the number is growing.

    • Re:"cure for cancer" (Score:5, Funny)

      by Bovius ( 1243040 ) on Monday July 13, 2015 @11:33AM (#50098965)

      Obligatory SMBC: http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id... [smbc-comics.com]

    • They've got cures now that generate modified immune agents which target the cancer cells by genetic markers, making them universal. They're 100% effective.
      • Guess what? Not all cancers have easily identifiable markers, and even ones that do vary a lot from one cancer to another. You're not going to find a single agent (or even a set of agents) that you can use to target all of them. Therefore, no, it isn't universal.

        • even ones that do vary a lot from one cancer to another

          ...they do a biopsy, pull the cell from your body, compare it to your body cell, and use that to construct a genetic marker... it literally tunes to that particular cancer, not to a generalized "we have a treatment for leukimia" cancer model. The treatment is custom-built for your particular illness.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Ramze ( 640788 )

            I think you're conflating "tailoring treatments based on known DNA markers,antigens, and drugs" with "identifying new markers from tumor cell biopsies and creating new treatments based on those markers." We can do both, but tailoring is the faster of the two. Your statement is a gross oversimplification and overstatement of what current technology can do for cancer treatment (to say nothing of what's available to the general public vs what we can do in a lab or a test tube).

            You make it sound as if a new

            • Uhhhhhh. Carl June has been working on treatments for all types of cancer in which he genetically modifies T-Cells by reading a genetic marker out of a biopted cancer cell, installing a new antigen into a T-cell's DNA code, and releasing it back into the patient.

              Essentially, the cancer cells produce certain proteins differently: the protein on your cell surface for transporting a certain ion or signalling certain RNA messages may be structured in thousands of different variations and still carry out its

    • Very true. We have cures for many types of cancers if found early enough. For other types of cancers (eg pancreatic) the issue is being able to find it before it causes symptoms, which usually means it's too late.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tempmpi ( 233132 )

        For other types of cancers (eg pancreatic) the issue is being able to find it before it causes symptoms, which usually means it's too late.

        Well, we could likely detect most of these cancers, if we just do an high res full body MRI scan of everyone every 6 month. But that would not only be very expensive but would likely generate a lot of completely unnecessary surgeries as many things that get detected there would either be completely harmless or get killed by the immune system before they could cause any problems. We do not only need something that can detect cancer, we also need something that will not generate a lot of false positives and i

        • Actually, islet cell adenocarcinoma is detectable. You can do it with a rather simple/cheap blood test.

          However, nearly no insurance carrier will pay for this blood test (I just had a friend who died from islet cell adenocarcinoma (pancreatic cancer), which was in fact treatable, but Kaiser Permanente did not cover the testing at the point she had her first symptoms.

          NB: The following is NOT medical advice; consult an oncologist, if you have any of the following situations...

          It was a type that would have bee

    • Naked mole rats seem to have the right idea when it comes to cancer (or the various diverse forms of cancers if you prefer). They have an extra genetic component against cells reproducing when they're too tightly packed, as would happen in cancer.

    • Hey man, never say never. History has consistently found a way to make fools of people proclaiming X will *never* happen.

      I know the point you are trying to make, and yes indeed cancer is a huge family of diseases, but all cancers do share a number of things in common: uncontrolled cell growth, lack of programmed cell death, etc., and advancements in fighting these common attributes have led to many of the "cures" you refer to. It's also why some cancer drugs work for many, many types of cancers, becaus

  • I'm not obsessed! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Lab Rat Jason ( 2495638 ) on Monday July 13, 2015 @11:09AM (#50098699)

    I haven't been obsessed with The Cure since the 90's when grunge took over.

  • Optimism, and profits ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gstoddart ( 321705 ) on Monday July 13, 2015 @11:23AM (#50098855) Homepage

    Part of this is the need for people to believe there is hope, and therefore want to believe desperately that some magic bullet will come along.

    But, I fear the biggest problem is the corporatization of the surrounding charities.

    Things like the Pink Ribbon stuff is increasingly about for-profit marketing [bcaction.org], and less about actually generating money for research.

    So, people put lots of hype into marketing the future cure because it can be fairly lucrative. Cancer "charities" can be a big business these days, because they capitalize on fear and hope.

    And much of what happens is more about PR and profits than any actual medicine.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      And you can only sell a cure once. Treatments are repeat business.

    • When you go to a coffee shop or convenience store and see a donation center for curing your favorite disease, read the fine print. Almost all of them will say the donations go to something like "cancer awareness". I think pretty much everyone is already AWARE of cancer. How about allocating the donations to RESEARCH?!

      • Re:Optimism, and profits ... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by gstoddart ( 321705 ) on Monday July 13, 2015 @01:27PM (#50100065) Homepage

        Worse than that (which is already pretty bad) is by the time they take out management expenses (remember, some of this is essentially for profit) a very small amount of donated money even goes to that.

        Many of these campaigns seem to be more about getting goodwill with being seen to care about cancer, but not actually focused on doing anything. And then all that happens in the for-profit or for PR places are competing for donations which could actually be doing something.

        I've seen a lot of stories where huge sums of money go to various breast cancer campaigns, but that it's mostly about selling shirts and connecting your brand with caring, even if you do nothing concrete.

        It just seems like the whole "awareness" campaign has become a cynical industry which does nothing at all for the people it purports to be helping.

  • If you do not yearn for a cure, you may stop looking for one.

  • Early Detection Trumps Everything. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by BoRegardless ( 721219 ) on Monday July 13, 2015 @11:27AM (#50098899)

    Earliest detection can lead to stopping a problem or getting rid of it with minor treatment or life style changes, so health systems are promoting "wellness" programs involving early detection/monitoring.

    If we manage early detection on a large % of the population, we won't need as much "treatment" and "cures."

    That would decrease the cost & need for healthcare overall and lead to a healthier population. A lot of companies are working on aspects of this.

    • Early detection of tumors can increase mortality (because not all tumors are malignant, but all cancer treatments to date are nasty nasty nasty).

  • Are you on the wrong planet? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tompaulco ( 629533 ) on Monday July 13, 2015 @11:27AM (#50098903) Homepage Journal
    There is no "cure culture". Medicine is all about treating the symptoms, hiding the symptoms, masking the symptoms, naming the disease after the symptoms. The doctors don't know what is wrong with you. They tell you you have "Red spots on arms and upset stomach" disease, but that is not a disease, those are just symptoms, and they won't cure you of the disease because they don't know what is wrong with you. Instead, they will put you on medicine, that will hide those symptoms...until you stop taking your medicine, and then the symptoms are right back again. My grandmother was having seizures, so they put her on anti-seizure medication. Do they know what was causing the seizures? No. Do they care? No. They just put her on medicine that she has to take for the rest of her life, and as long as she takes it every single day, she won't have seizures. This is not Medical Science.
    Treating symptoms should only ever be a short term comfort solution while Medical Science looks for a cure. It should ALWAYS be all about the cure. Article is exactly wrong.

    • We don't know everything yet. Deal with it. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Monday July 13, 2015 @11:47AM (#50099065)

      Medicine is all about treating the symptoms, hiding the symptoms, masking the symptoms, naming the disease after the symptoms.

      Hogwash. That is only true when we do not understand the underlying condition. There are plenty of conditions we understand quite well and can treat the underlying cause. For those that we don't yet understand we comfort the patient as best we can until we can figure out what causes the disease. Finding out may take longer than the life of the patient sometimes.

      The doctors don't know what is wrong with you.

      Sometimes they do and sometimes they do not. We know a lot about a lot of diseases but we do not know everything about every disease. If you think doctors never know what is wrong with you then you don't really understand what you are talking about.

      They tell you you have "Red spots on arms and upset stomach" disease, but that is not a disease, those are just symptoms, and they won't cure you of the disease because they don't know what is wrong with you. Instead, they will put you on medicine, that will hide those symptoms...until you stop taking your medicine, and then the symptoms are right back again.

      That only happens when the underlying cause is unknown. Sometimes treating the symptoms is the best we can do. Frequently we can do much better. My wife happens to be a pathologist specializing in skin. She sees "red spots on arms" all the time. Sometimes the cause is known with 100% certainty. Sometimes the best she can do is to give a differential diagnosis.

      My grandmother was having seizures, so they put her on anti-seizure medication. Do they know what was causing the seizures? No.

      Ahh, so because doctors don't know about the root cause of that specific condition for that specific patient, you generalize that to say that they know nothing in general? That simply isn't true or fair.

      Do they care? No.

      If you think the doctors don't care then you don't actually know any. They care very much. It's why most of them went into the profession. They don't know how to cure everything but that doesn't mean they don't care.

      Treating symptoms should only ever be a short term comfort solution while Medical Science looks for a cure.

      Which is the point you seem to be missing. Sometimes finding a cure takes a long time. The human body is absurdly complicated and disease pathology even more so and there is a lot we still don't know. A cure may take several lifetimes to find. That doesn't mean we understand nothing and it doesn't mean nobody cares.

    • Ask your grandmother to donate her body to medical science after she dies. It might actually help other people with random seizures.

    • Medicine is all about treating the symptoms...

      At the onset of serious illness often the answer to that is "yes". And that's a good thing. Because the "symptoms" can kill you. A common fever from an infection can kill you, even in cases where the actual infection can be cleared by the body itself is short order. The same with anaphylaxis. The allergic reaction as such won't kill you, it's the lack of breath from your throat swelling shut, or precipitous drop in blood pressure, (with heart failure) that kills you. Treating those symptoms is 99% of "curin

  • No one wants treatment (Score:5, Informative)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Monday July 13, 2015 @11:29AM (#50098925) Homepage
    I have kidney disease. Current Kidney at about 24% functionality. 20% means you go on the list, 15% is when you actively ask your friends/family to donate, 10% is when you start dialysis.

    I am on treatment. Have been for years. Treatment fucking SUCKS. It takes over your life. Treatment controls what you eat, drink, what medication you take.Treatment keeps you alive and stable, but it is not the same as a cure. It's what we beg for until we get a cure.

    Treatment means I get twice as tired as a normal person my age.

    Treatment means I can't stay up late, get drunk, or smoke marijuana.

    Treatment means keeping your blood pressure low that you need Viagrea to get an erection when you are 30.

    I thank god for treatment - it keeps me alive. But it is not enough.

    GIVE ME THE CURE. Some people will literally kill for a cure. If you tell someone they can cure the lung cancer their 8 year old child has just by killing a criminal in China and stealing their organs, some people will do it.

    Treatment is nice - but it isn't close to a cure.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ramze ( 640788 )

      I sympathize, but there is no cure for damaged kidneys. The damage can't be repaired and must be replaced. Until we can find a way to regenerate organs or create better artificial ones, your best shot is a kidney donor -- and I urge you to find a way to ask for a donor. A friend of mine donated his kidney to a young guy he didn't even know well -- a friend's daughter's husband, I think. He figured he was in his late 40s and could do fine with just one kidney while it would make a world of difference

  • Not just cures, but inventions too. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gestalt_n_pepper ( 991155 ) on Monday July 13, 2015 @11:32AM (#50098947)

    Story: New energy source based on [insert some form of unicorn fart here] may one day solve energy crisis!

    Story: New memory storage based on [insert excited hand waving] may one day replace current RAM!

    Story: New computing method based on [something, something, carbon, something] may one day re-instate Moore's law!

    Story: New AI algorithm based on [GAs, deep multi-layer neural nets, connecting organic brains together, a little man in a box that answers the questions and pretends to be a machine] may one day give us true artificial intelligence (whatever the fuck that means).

    At 57, I've been hearing this crap since I was 6. There's no magic energy source. Moore's law has been stopped by physics. HAL has yet to enter the building. There's no cure for cancer or alzheimers, and so on.

    Editors and writers with liberal arts or journalism degrees who can't evaluate the research anyway *love* this kind of filler shit because it attracts the eyeballs of the sort that read popular science magazine and take it seriously. It's the science literature equivalent of Reece's Pieces (meaning no disrespect for that fine candy).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by k6mfw ( 1182893 )

      At 57, I've been hearing this crap since I was 6.

      hey you forgot to mention we will be on Mars 20 years from now and we will have fusion power plants in 10 years (been said for past 50 years). And we're 15% into the 21st century, where's the flying cars? oh wait we have a few of those roadable airplanes.

  • But SCIENCE am I rite? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by responsibleusername ( 4065123 ) on Monday July 13, 2015 @11:36AM (#50098991)
    I think a big part of the issue is that science journalism (by which I mean pop science journalism) caters to our optimistic "something-will-come-along-to-save-us" mindset. Scientists are happy for the attention and might make their research seem further along than it is and/or the journalists spice it up (consciously or sub-consciously) and to a lay-person everything sounds like its just around the corner. Now there is a whole internet sub-culture around science worship that tries to show science as seemingly fun and easy and I think we're far too reliant on some breakthrough to solve our problems. The sad truth is we will have to solve most of our problems with the tools we have no, or assume some constant conservative improvement in those tools. You can't predict breakthroughs, thats why they are breakthroughs. Thorium reactors and cold fusion and nanobots and whatever other BS popular science is espousing today might happen eventually, but we're fucked if it gives us the confidence to put off doing what will most likely be the fix for our worlds problems - hard work.

  • Begging the question? (Score:3)

    by wonkey_monkey ( 2592601 ) on Monday July 13, 2015 @11:41AM (#50099025) Homepage

    Does anyone else get the feeling that the author has decided we're all obsessed with cures just so they could write their article bemoaning the fact?

    • I found the first statement in the summary disturbing:

      While the prognosis for these diseases has improved over the years — sometimes greatly — we still focus doggedly on the cure.

      Homosexuals are intentionally contracting HIV so they can stop worrying about HIV. This was a big thing in the 90s, right down to people getting on TV to tell folks that HIV wasn't really a problem now because it's "a Managed Condition instead of a Disease". Do you know how horrifying that is? Contemplate that. Anyone you know may, in fact, think that the fucking plague is a managed condition. They might think, hey, so I got this skin condition t

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ramze ( 640788 )

        What, like this movie?

        The Returned: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt20... [imdb.com]

        Zombies that are completely normal people unless they don't take their retroviral injections!!!

        Zombie babysitters are just fine until they forget their meds and eat the baby! ;)

  • I think the writer makes a good point. How do you "cure" something that is part of your DNA? To put it in perspective, how do you "cure" yourself from having brown eyes? I think the best you can hope for is to "treat" your brown eyes with differently colored contacts.

    As a person with a chronic, degenerative, genetic disease (type 1 diabetes), I have become less interested in talk about cures, and more interested in improved treatment. Specifically, an inexpensive, non-invasive method of detecting glucos

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jedidiah ( 1196 )

      Gene therapy for psoriasis? Really. While I can sympathize as someone that might get a nasty case of skin GVHD, it's just not in the same ballpark as other conditions where bleeding edge medical experimentation is actually considered acceptable.

      You're just going to have to accept the fact that children with cancer are way ahead of you on that train and that's just in it's early stages yet.

  • Because... mainstream media.

    Why would you run a story that says "Treatment of cancer type "A" has been marginally improved and an additional .3% of patients will survive", when you could instead report that "Scientists at have taken another important step toward the curing of cancer. Cancer cells injected into mice have shown a significant reduction after... etc etc".

    Why did I call this the circle of life? Because the media jumped on the initial sickness for great sensational headlines. Then they

  • nature has a cure (Score:4, Interesting)

    by swell ( 195815 ) <jabberwock@poetic.com> on Monday July 13, 2015 @11:50AM (#50099087)

    This is a hard reality for humans to accept, but there is a permanent cure for many terrible diseases.
    We call it DEATH.

    Am I joking? No.

    We have all seen those dramatic nature shows where the lion catches the gazelle and rips it apart. The narrator of the show explains that by catching and eliminating the slower gazelle, the lion benefits the gazelle species by removing defective elements that otherwise would reproduce.

    Human evolution has taken a turn for the worse. Rather than eliminating the weak elements and promoting the strong, we have reversed the evolutionary direction. We expend great resources to help the weak survive. OTOH, If a certain deadly disease was allowed to run its course, and all victims died before they could reproduce, the disease would kill itself. It would be removed from the gene pool.

    If we live long enough as a species, and don't blow up the planet, we may well solve these problems without too much death and discomfort. Nature's way is not pretty to watch.

    • Too bad that not all ailments kill you BEFORE you can reproduce....

    • Human evolution has taken a turn for the worse. Rather than eliminating the weak elements and promoting the strong, we have reversed the evolutionary direction.

      In your world Stephen Hawking dies in 1964 before completing his graduate thesis.

      How does eugenics define "strength and weakness" in a modern society which is fundamentally defined by intelligent --- cooperative --- behavior? Brains, not brawn

      We spent a weekend in November hunting deer for sport with superbly engineered guns and bows and haul the carcasses out with our FWD and ATVs.

      When we want meat on the table, we raise chickens and cattle on an industrial scale.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday July 13, 2015 @11:54AM (#50099115)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Science journalism (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nine-times ( 778537 ) <nine.times@gmail.com> on Monday July 13, 2015 @11:59AM (#50099153) Homepage

    In my mind, the "cure" mentality is linked up with a general problem with science journalism. I think there may be scientists who contribute to the problem in some way or another, and once silly ideas or bad information is out there, everyday people will spread it around, but it's primarily about journalism.

    And the problem with journalism, as far as I understand, breaks down into two general causes. One cause of the problem is oversimplification-- either the journalist doesn't understand the science, or they don't expect that their audience will understand, so their explanation of the science cuts out a lot of the complications and gives a simplified explanation. That is not a problem in itself, but when you simplify, you run the risk of oversimplifying and ending up with an explanation that's actually misleading.

    The other big cause of problems seems to be sensationalism. Journalists want people to read their stories and get excited about their stories. More people will be excited about a story about a "cure for cancer" than "a treatment for cancer that will meaningfully extend life in select cases." More people will be excited about a story about how "drinking coffee will kill you," than one about how "a single study indicates some adverse effects of coffee consumption, but more study is needed." More people want to read about "A new breakthrough that will make time travel possible" than how "A single scientist who's a little on the fringes is trying to develop a new variant of string theory, which if it turns out to be true, might possibly mean that time travel is theoretically possible but practically impossible and/or well beyond any technology we have. Or it might still mean that time travel is impossible. We don't know yet because the theory isn't complete."

    The result is a lot of misinformation, and a lot of focus on the wrong things. One example might be a focus on "cures" when "treatments" may be more realistic. Another problem is an expectation of impending wild technological advancement. We read about someone developing a new technology for manufacturing processors or displays that will be give us super-gadgets in the next 3 years, when even if those advances materialize, they're 20 years out. Another problem is fad diets, since every study relating to diets is suddenly reported as a miracle that will allow everyone to shed all of their unwanted weight and become super healthy. Another problem is scifi concepts being reported as "just around the corner". In the next couple of years, we'll all be immortal, living with AI, time traveling, traveling faster than light, with unlimited perpetual motion machines generating all of the energy we'd like. It's always just a couple of years out, but never materializing.

    Arguable the most damaging problem is that all of the other problems makes science appear to be complete bullshit. With the kind of ideas being pushed as "scientific", I almost have a hard time blaming people who disbelieve that pollution is bad, people who believe that homeopathy works, or people who are afraid of vaccinations are harmful. We're flooded with constant promises that are unfulfilled, and conflicting reports about things being "scientifically proven". One year, eggs will kill you, and the next they're a miracle cure for everything. A few years ago, we were all being told to replace fatty foods with sugar-filled substitutes, and now we're being told the opposite. If you see enough of those stories, I can understand not knowing who to trust.

  • Because it's easier to sell advertising on the news that "something better is coming" rather than "the same old treatment still works."

  • ...in decreasing utility far as the patient is concerned. Unfortunately, as far as the medical-industrial complex is concerned, "expensive treatment for the duration of the patent" is the primary goal, with cures and vaccinations to be avoided if possible. We'll be stuck with that as long as medical research is paid for out of drug company profits. If, on the other hand, we had a "single payer" health care system, the federal government would have an incentive to fund research into cures and prevention.

    • So why aren't we seeing cures come out of Scandinavia?

      The health insurance companies are the ones who profit most from finding cures. This is especially true now that everyone in the U.S. is required to purchase private health insurance.....they can keep charging the same amount while spending less on treating the disease they cured.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jedidiah ( 1196 )

        Exactly. They come out of the US and then Germans brag that their national healthcare system "stiff" the companies that went to the bother of developing the wonder drug.

        Where are the socialist countries in all of this? Why aren't the stepping up? Why aren't they providing the free miracle cures?

        The fact that there are any drugs for what I have, never mind the fact that new ones are being developed, blew my mind a bit.

  • diseases, but we expect someone to cure them once we contract them, except for people who only pray for divine intervention. People are weird.

  • It's tempting to argue that pharma companies have secretly given up on major cures because they make nore long-term money from ongloing treatments, but the major diseases are a worldwide problem and medical research is being done in numerous places not under control of Big $DEMON. A Chinese researcher who finds the cure for a major cancer has just as certain a Nobel as an American researcher.

    And even in the context of American medicine, the fame attached to being a discoverer of that magnitude eclipses pecu

  • "Disintegration is the greatest album ever!!"

      -- kyle.. or was it stan?

  • DCA cures most cancer. Not sure why it hasn't received more attention.

  • The reason is that many of the 'science' articles are now just total BS. A large group of scientists have been pushed to lie, manipulate, etc any information to make themselves sound good.

  • At least as simple as computers.

    For folks who pride themselves on rationality, you idiots are vastly underestimating the complexity of biological systems. It's almost like you have a model that biological entities were simple clockwork mechanism designed by a higher power or something.

    Give up the irrationality and paranoia - sometimes cures are just far away. You want cures? Commit to the hard work they take to find.

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