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No progress in 50 years....same drugs....what about taxol, taxotere, xeloda, herceptin, avastin....come on now. This conspiracy theory is unbelievable. In the first place, there are so many different kinds of cancer and variations within the subgroups that there will never be one magic potion to cure all cancer. There's tremendous amounts of money to be made for the cure. Even with breast cancer, there will be multiple "cures" - not just one. Sure, I think there was at least a 20+ year period where things didn't move much, but since the unraveling of the human genome and microassays and all wonderful scientific minds that have accomplished this lately, the progress has been impressive. I just saw a PBS show on DNA and cancer research in which they talked about Gleevec, which is a herceptin type drug used for myeloid (sp?) leukemia. What they found was just a tiny little part of this cell was messed up which causes this fatal leukemia. Gleevec goes in and takes care of the "damaged" portion and leaves everything else in good condition. That is oversimplifying it, but you get the message. Bottom line, there was this great old farmer who volunteered to take Gleevec who is alive years later. Very similar to Herceptin, etc. My point is they are looking at specifics now. This program suggested within another 4 or 5 years they will have figured out all the causes or damaged dna for all known cancers. At that time it will be a free-for-all with the pharmaceuticals trying to match up that info with something which will repair, inhibit or otherwise take care of that particular screwed up portion of the cell. No more large doses of poison....more herceptin, gleevec, avastin, etc. It will totally change the way cancer is treated. What an awesome thing this is. Finally, even if they find the "cure(s)" for all cancer, no one is going out of business until someone can keep us from getting it in the first place and that's not likely to happen unless everyone comes from a test tube with all errant genes removed. Just think about that. We have come a really long way. Thank God, Dr. Slamon, and all the countless others who are relentless in their research!!!!
Kitty
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