Orogogus wrote on May 3, 2018, 03:00:
In a less extreme light, I'm inclined to sort of agree with LurkerLito. While I don't believe that a pharmaceutical company would go out of its way to hide a cure, it's broadly true that pharmas aren't investing the money needed for new antibiotic development -- some of the closest things we have to actual cures -- because they wouldn't make their money back. Most people only take antibiotics for a few weeks, and the old antibiotics are still widely used until a patient is found to be harboring resistant bacteria. There really is a lot more money to be made chasing lifestyle conditions like diabetes, high cholesterol annd erectile disfunction. It's more a matter of where they're investing their R&D money than of some Snidely Whiplash CEO raising a toast to human misery.

And I don't know about the LASIK argument. My vision insurance has a $100/year allowance, which just about covers a pair of glasses or contacts (which I don't even bother to replace every year). Google says LASIK costs about $2,100 per eye, on average. So that's 42+ years of glasses and/or contacts all up front, which seems like a good deal for the provider.

That said, lots of things don't have cures because it's straight up hard and the technology just isn't there yet. If we had the genetic manipulation techniques to cure cancer instead of subjecting people to debilitating chemotherapy and radiation treatment, then we'd probably have a real-life Jurassic Park already, too, or at least eliminated a gamut of inherited conditions. We don't have nanomachines to zap cancer cells, either. Without that kind of technological breakthrough, the advanced stages of cancer probably just aren't something that can be defeated by drugs or anything else we have available.

Phages are showing promise as a cancer cure. They target just the cancer cells and little else.

MeanJim wrote on May 3, 2018, 00:40:
While I don't agree that we'll never have a cure for cancer or other things as long as medicine is for-profit based, it will take longer. There is still non-profit medical researcher being done, mostly at colleges and universities.

Beamer wrote on May 2, 2018, 10:56:
And hey, why did doctors invent LASIK, which cures many vision issues, when they could have kept patients coming in and needing to get new glasses every 1-3 years?

You make a lot more money from an $8000 Lasik procedure than a $100 yearly eye exam.

LASIK isn't a cure, it's a profit maker. I had LASIK done when I was 23. I wasn't told at the time that it will eventually reverse as you age, but if I had known that I would still have had it done. Also, back then my insurance didn't cover it, I paid out of pocket for it. I don't know if it's covered these days. All I know is my insurance doesn't cover preventative things like routine dental cleaning and eye exams, but it does cover dental and vision medical procedures.

In a less extreme light, I'm inclined to sort of agree with LurkerLito. While I don't believe that a pharmaceutical company would go out of its way to hide a cure, it's broadly true that pharmas aren't investing the money needed for new antibiotic development -- some of the closest things we have to actual cures -- because they wouldn't make their money back. Most people only take antibiotics for a few weeks, and the old antibiotics are still widely used until a patient is found to be harboring resistant bacteria. There really is a lot more money to be made chasing lifestyle conditions like diabetes, high cholesterol annd erectile disfunction. It's more a matter of where they're investing their R&D money than of some Snidely Whiplash CEO raising a toast to human misery.

And I don't know about the LASIK argument. My vision insurance has a $100/year allowance, which just about covers a pair of glasses or contacts (which I don't even bother to replace every year). Google says LASIK costs about $2,100 per eye, on average. So that's 42+ years of glasses and/or contacts all up front, which seems like a good deal for the provider.

That said, lots of things don't have cures because it's straight up hard and the technology just isn't there yet. If we had the genetic manipulation techniques to cure cancer instead of subjecting people to debilitating chemotherapy and radiation treatment, then we'd probably have a real-life Jurassic Park already, too, or at least eliminated a gamut of inherited conditions. We don't have nanomachines to zap cancer cells, either. Without that kind of technological breakthrough, the advanced stages of cancer probably just aren't something that can be defeated by drugs or anything else we have available.

While I don't agree that we'll never have a cure for cancer or other things as long as medicine is for-profit based, it will take longer. There is still non-profit medical researcher being done, mostly at colleges and universities.

Beamer wrote on May 2, 2018, 10:56:
And hey, why did doctors invent LASIK, which cures many vision issues, when they could have kept patients coming in and needing to get new glasses every 1-3 years?

LASIK isn't a cure, it's a profit maker. I had LASIK done when I was 23. I wasn't told at the time that it will eventually reverse as you age, but if I had known that I would still have had it done. Also, back then my insurance didn't cover it, I paid out of pocket for it. I don't know if it's covered these days. All I know is my insurance doesn't cover preventative things like routine dental cleaning and eye exams, but it does cover dental and vision medical procedures.

Beamer wrote on May 2, 2018, 16:25:

jdreyer wrote on May 2, 2018, 16:18:

Beamer wrote on May 2, 2018, 09:41:
Whoever comes up with a cure for cancer will get a Nobel Prize, and the company that does it will become instantly beloved and see their stock price make a huge jump.

"There isn't a monetary incentive" is a dumb, dumb response. This would be the biggest medical breakthrough since penicillin. The researchers names, and probably the CEO who enables it these days, would be known to history forever.

There's a vaccine now for HPV, which causes several types of cancer. I don't know if the company did it on its own, or was given a grant.

Edit: I see you mentioned that up thread.

Mansplainer!

Burrito of Peace wrote on May 2, 2018, 07:12:

jdreyer wrote on May 2, 2018, 03:39:
I do take solace that, as a race, we continue to improve our technology, and that someday, death from cancer will no longer be a thing.

It will continue to be a thing so long as medicine and healthcare are profit driven. There is far more money, currently, in treating cancer than in curing it. No cure will be forthcoming so long as treating it is a billions per year cash cow.

While I could see a company behaving that way (it's hard to find a pharmaceutical company that will make the flu vaccine due to the low margins), lots of medical research is done at universities. In these cases getting published, grant money, tenure, fame, etc. are motivating factors, and discovering cures hits all of those buttons.

jdreyer wrote on May 2, 2018, 16:18:

Beamer wrote on May 2, 2018, 09:41:
Whoever comes up with a cure for cancer will get a Nobel Prize, and the company that does it will become instantly beloved and see their stock price make a huge jump.

"There isn't a monetary incentive" is a dumb, dumb response. This would be the biggest medical breakthrough since penicillin. The researchers names, and probably the CEO who enables it these days, would be known to history forever.

There's a vaccine now for HPV, which causes several types of cancer. I don't know if the company did it on its own, or was given a grant.

Edit: I see you mentioned that up thread.

Mansplainer!

Beamer wrote on May 2, 2018, 09:41:
Whoever comes up with a cure for cancer will get a Nobel Prize, and the company that does it will become instantly beloved and see their stock price make a huge jump.

"There isn't a monetary incentive" is a dumb, dumb response. This would be the biggest medical breakthrough since penicillin. The researchers names, and probably the CEO who enables it these days, would be known to history forever.

There's a vaccine now for HPV, which causes several types of cancer. I don't know if the company did it on its own, or was given a grant.

Edit: I see you mentioned that up thread.

Beamer wrote on May 2, 2018, 10:56:
But hey, keep thinking medicine prefers to keep people paying for treatment, even when people are terminal. Wouldn't a treatment of cancer that kept patients alive for decades, needing medicine, be preferable to one that kept them alive for months?

Yeah. It's bad business to let your customers die, for obvious reasons. Cure cancer, increase human longevity, you're going to have more people alive at any given time, which increases the need for other types of healthcare, which in turn means more money for healthcare profiteers. The "there's a secret cure for cancer but its worth more to just keep it secret" shit is definitely just a stupid conspiracy theory.

That's not how science works anyway. Even if you get some scientists to hide their discovery, some other group of scientists is going to discover the same thing on their own a few years later, and so on.

Creston wrote on May 2, 2018, 15:27:

Beamer wrote on May 2, 2018, 09:41:
The researchers names, and probably the CEO who enables it these days, would be known to history forever.

"Yeah yeah, history, forever, what about next quarter's balance sheet and my hedge fund?"

- shitheel Wall Street guy.

Having your name printed in history books don't put food on the table now. I doubt the majority of researchers are doing this for the fame.

Beamer wrote on May 2, 2018, 09:41:
The researchers names, and probably the CEO who enables it these days, would be known to history forever.

"Yeah yeah, history, forever, what about next quarter's balance sheet and my hedge fund?"

- shitheel Wall Street guy.

LurkerLito wrote on May 2, 2018, 09:48:

Burrito of Peace wrote on May 2, 2018, 07:12:

jdreyer wrote on May 2, 2018, 03:39:
I do take solace that, as a race, we continue to improve our technology, and that someday, death from cancer will no longer be a thing.

It will continue to be a thing so long as medicine and healthcare are profit driven. There is far more money, currently, in treating cancer than in curing it. No cure will be forthcoming so long as treating it is a billions per year cash cow.

Unfortunately so true. There won't be a cure for anything anymore because cures are just not profitable. If a company ever found a cure they would hide it in some deep dark hole and then find a way to make it into a treatment that people pay over a lifetime on a daily basis. Don't think that drug companies aren't like every other company out there that wants you to pay them a monthly fee. IIRC the last cure invented was polio.

As far as TB goes, I am saddened by the news. While I haven't watched his reviews much recently, I did use to watch it a while back. My condolences to him and and his family.

Again, this isn't true. As others point out, there's more money in having someone live to 80 than die of cancer at 30 or however old TB is, and the amount of money people would earn from curing cancer is unreal.

Just to demonstrate how off base you are, polio isn't cured. There is no cure for polio. If you get polio, you are fucked. What we do have is vaccines to prevent polio, but that is just to stop you from getting it, not cure you when you have it. We have new vaccines all the time, with HPV recently getting a vaccine. We also very recently created vaccines for ebola and malaria. Since polio, we also have vaccines for chicken pox, anthrax, measles, mumps, rubella, lyme disease, etc. In other words, LOTS of diseases are in the same category as polio in the time since polio.

But hey, keep thinking medicine prefers to keep people paying for treatment, even when people are terminal. Wouldn't a treatment of cancer that kept patients alive for decades, needing medicine, be preferable to one that kept them alive for months?

And hey, why did doctors invent LASIK, which cures many vision issues, when they could have kept patients coming in and needing to get new glasses every 1-3 years?

LurkerLito wrote on May 2, 2018, 09:48:
There won't be a cure for anything anymore because cures are just not profitable. If a company ever found a cure they would hide it in some deep dark hole and then find a way ...
IIRC the last cure invented was polio.

Because profit and money were not a thing in the 1950's.
Matter of fact money had not even been invented yet.

Burrito of Peace wrote on May 2, 2018, 07:12:

jdreyer wrote on May 2, 2018, 03:39:
I do take solace that, as a race, we continue to improve our technology, and that someday, death from cancer will no longer be a thing.

It will continue to be a thing so long as medicine and healthcare are profit driven. There is far more money, currently, in treating cancer than in curing it. No cure will be forthcoming so long as treating it is a billions per year cash cow.

Unfortunately so true. There won't be a cure for anything anymore because cures are just not profitable. If a company ever found a cure they would hide it in some deep dark hole and then find a way to make it into a treatment that people pay over a lifetime on a daily basis. Don't think that drug companies aren't like every other company out there that wants you to pay them a monthly fee. IIRC the last cure invented was polio.

As far as TB goes, I am saddened by the news. While I haven't watched his reviews much recently, I did use to watch it a while back. My condolences to him and and his family.

Whoever comes up with a cure for cancer will get a Nobel Prize, and the company that does it will become instantly beloved and see their stock price make a huge jump.

"There isn't a monetary incentive" is a dumb, dumb response. This would be the biggest medical breakthrough since penicillin. The researchers names, and probably the CEO who enables it these days, would be known to history forever.

Burrito of Peace wrote on May 2, 2018, 07:12:

jdreyer wrote on May 2, 2018, 03:39:
I do take solace that, as a race, we continue to improve our technology, and that someday, death from cancer will no longer be a thing.

It will continue to be a thing so long as medicine and healthcare are profit driven. There is far more money, currently, in treating cancer than in curing it. No cure will be forthcoming so long as treating it is a billions per year cash cow.

I don't know about that. It's not a zero sum situation. Curing cancer doesn't have to mean these companies lose all kinds of money. After all, most people cured of cancer are going to go on to die of some other medical issue that will need research and treatment.

That's what's so terrible about how profit driven our healthcare is. There's always going to be a way to milk tons of money out of people because of the inelastic demand.

Burrito of Peace wrote on May 2, 2018, 07:12:
No cure will be forthcoming so long as treating it is a billions per year cash cow.

DangerDog wrote on May 2, 2018, 01:02:
Meanwhile, people like Jimmy Carter get access to "special" cancer cure medicine.
wouldn't probably mater if he got access to behind closed door cancer treatments ...

What is it. There will never be a cure for cancer because I want moar money. (forgetting that there are thousands of types of cancers and that even the people working on cures have also have loved ones)

Or there are magical "closed door" cures that only Magic Johnson and Bill Gate have access to but they let the Mr Carter get some of that tasty tasty medicine.

sigh

I have always had a love-hate relationship with John Bain. His passion for gaming has always been admirable, and when he behaved with class he was a fantastic asset to the industry. When he's let his arrogance and condescending nature get the best of him, though, I couldn't turn him off fast enough. All that said, love him or hate him as a critic, he deserves nothing but respect for the way he has handled what was clear was a death sentence for the last 4 years since he announced his illness. He clearly loves his wife and best friend, Jenna, and though he rarely got mentioned, there's no doubt he thought the world of his young son as well. His suffering will be over soon, but theirs will linger on for a long while, and I feel terrible for all of them. FUCK CANCER.

jdreyer wrote on May 2, 2018, 03:39:
I do take solace that, as a race, we continue to improve our technology, and that someday, death from cancer will no longer be a thing.

It will continue to be a thing so long as medicine and healthcare are profit driven. There is far more money, currently, in treating cancer than in curing it. No cure will be forthcoming so long as treating it is a billions per year cash cow.

MattyC wrote on May 2, 2018, 02:08:

Shok wrote on May 1, 2018, 21:00:
if you have pain or abnormal bleeding, even in the most embarrassing part of your body, DON'T IGNORE IT

Everyone should note this.

I only know him from his reviews and casts, but I feel confident he was a great guy and this... just sucks.

Yup, had these lumps in my neck I ignored for years. I just figured they were swollen lymph nodes from catching colds and stuff. I'll never forget the look on my doctor's face when she felt them. Her face was ashen, and she was like "I'm doing a biopsy RIGHT NOW." A week later I was in surgery. Doc was like, "Another couple of weeks and it would have spread, and you'd have been terminal." That was 12 years ago, and I'm still chuggin' along. Fingers crossed.

I do take solace that, as a race, we continue to improve our technology, and that someday, death from cancer will no longer be a thing.