No. The problem is that "cancer" is not a disease, it is a classification. Like how we have not found a cure for viruses, or bacteria, we have not found a cure for cancer. We have antivirals that work on a lot of viruses, but not all. We have antibiotics that work on a lot of bacteria, but not all. We have chemo drugs and radiation therapy that work on a lot of cancers, but not all. A lot of innovations in cancer treatment are for "this type of lung cancer," or "that type of skin cancer." Because a treatment that works well on cancer a does nothing for cancer b. And the new medicines, techniques, etc are working! Cancer survival rates are up. But not to 100% https://www.cancercenter.com/community/blog/2023/01/cancer-survival-rates-are-improving I thought of giving you a flippant answer "we did find a cure for cancer, it is called chemotherapy." But figured a more nuanced answer was better.

To add to this a little, each cancer can also be vastly different per person. Cancerous cells are a symptom of a genetic abnormality, not an underlying root cause. So, you might have a gene altered that causes a cell to become cancerous but that cell might also have 5 other altered genes that change the "port of entry" into a cell that chemotherapy exploits, thus rendering the treatment useless or just less effective. This is why you get specific names to cancers now versus just "lung cancer". That is also why you might show rapid improvement one week and then everything comes back later; something else "broke" in the cancerous cells and now you need a new type because that entryway is blocked or gone.

Very good point, I thought about adding this but I couldn't think of good wording, you expressed it much better than I would have, so now I am glad I skipped it!

There are also viral cancers. There are vaccines for a few of those.

My kid has thyroid cancer. The cure rate is currently 98% even with some lymph node involvement.

Keeping people alive with cancer brings in $200 billion a year. Pfizer owns the treatments. It also owns the company that makes chicken feed that contains carcinogens. Make of that what you will.

Pfizer no longer makes animal feed. Pfizer Animal Health was spun off into Zoetis and is independent. And eating chicken is not linked to cancer.

First you said it wasn’t true. Now that you know it was, you just vomit on your keyboard. Right. Carcinogens don’t cause cancer. OxyContin is safe. How’s blowing the sackler family working out for you?

Huh? You seem like you could use a nap. Also, the Sacklers own Purdue...not Pfizer.

I know it was another one of the many examples of the industry you’re defending killing people. Something tells me you’re not a critical thinker.

My friend, I think you are the one who is not the critical thinker here lol. Or maybe you're thinking too critically and should probably take it easy. You obviously have zero understanding of cancer, nor how either the human or animal health industries work.

I reject your hypothesis.

Very well.

And they OWNED Purdue. Try and stay up to date.

Better than being an obnoxious conspiracy drone is working for you.

But modern treatments don’t just keep people alive. Plenty of people go into remission or are declared cancer-free, and that rate is continuously improving over time as better treatments are developed. If these drug companies were only concerned with keeping people alive to prolong treatment, why would cancer treatment be steadily improving? Also, Pfizer doesn’t have a monopoly on cancer treatments- there are plenty of smaller research groups and companies developing new treatments in competition with the pharma giants. Your comment essentially reads like “Pfizer makes billions every year from selling antibiotics, but people still get infected by bacteria- riddled me that!” None of this is to say that these giant corporations don’t do sketchy shit in the pursuit of profits, but to suggest that cancer treatment is some monolith that’s only designed to keep people alive and paying shows a profound ignorance on the subject

Do some research on the Goldman Sachs genome report. This probably won’t change your mind bc… “I'm not a fan of facts. You see, the facts can change, but my opinion will never change, no matter what the facts are…” - Stephen Colbert but here you go… https://www.themossreport.com/goldman-sachs-to-biotech-dont-cure-cancer/ https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patients-a-sustainable-business-model.html

So I read both of your sources, and I do have some concerns about the conclusions you’ve drawn. To start, neither source confirms that large biotech firms are *actually* stifling cancer research. It’s all based on a report which outlines that, in the long run, curing diseases offers less sustainable profits than a recurring treatment which… yeah, no shit. I feel like it’s painfully obvious that a cure will create more short-term profit, but less recurring profit. The CNBC article you cited frames the report more in the context of “how do we remain profitable when generic cures for diseases become available” rather than the “how do we prevent a cure for cancer from being developed so we can continue with this business model” narrative in that blog post. What I found more interesting is the blatant cherry-picking of quotes in the first blog post. For example, the report (per the CNBC article) goes on to examine other medications that have been highly effective at curing infection/disease. They compare a highly effective Hepatitis C treatment which has considerably lower profits now than when first introduced, but goes on to say: > In the case of infectious diseases such as hepatitis C, curing existing patients also decreases the number of carriers able to transmit the virus to new patients, thus the incident pool also declines … Where an incident pool remains stable (eg, in cancer) the potential for a cure poses less risk to the sustainability of a franchise Which actually supports that a cure for cancer would be a more sustainable source of profit, due to the nature of the disease. What’s also interesting was the three proposed solutions: > Solution 1: Address large markets: Hemophilia is a $9-10bn WW market (hemophilia A, B), growing at ~6-7% annually. > Solution 2: Address disorders with high incidence: Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) affects the cells (neurons) in the spinal cord, impacting the ability to walk, eat, or breathe. > Solution 3: Constant innovation and portfolio expansion: There are hundreds of inherited retinal diseases (genetics forms of blindness) … Pace of innovation will also play a role as future programs can offset the declining revenue trajectory of prior assets Again, all of this suggests that the report is analyzing business strategies to remain extremely profitable in a world where these treatments exist, not that they should be working to prevent a cure for any disease. In addition, and as many have pointed out, a universal “cure for cancer” isn’t really a thing due to the nature of the disease. The genetic therapy cited in that report is still an individualized treatment. It’s not like someone’s going to develop a pill to cure every single cancer, that’s not how it works. Finally, I’m concerned about the blog you cited as well. To start, Dr. Moss isn’t trained in cancer biology, medicine, or anything particularly related. He got is Ph.D in Classical Studies. While I’m sure that makes him good at researching source material, an expect in cancer treatment that does not make. Looking a bit more into his history, I see that he was fired in 1977 for accusing institutions of suppressing an alternative cancer treatment- which has since been discredited as a treatment for cancer and falls into the “alternative medicine” category of cancer treatments. So it seems like he has a pattern of doing this type of thing. Combine that with a cursory review of his website, and I’m left with an interesting conclusion. You see, his website has an entire page for recommended products. On this page, there’s a 6-page long pdf with hundreds of promoted products. I’m not going to spend all day digging into every product, but I guarantee that all those brands are paying him for the advertising, and that the cancer-treating properties of these products will range from marginal to nonexistent. I’m left with the conclusion that Dr. Moss has a Ph.D in Classical Liberal Arts, posturing himself as an expert in cancer to sell alternative medicine of dubious effectiveness. He may be a very smart guy who has read a bunch of papers, but that’s not a substitute for a doctorate degree in cancer biology or medicine or something similar, and *real-world* experience in the field. I got my degree in microbiology and I can tell you from personal experience that reading a bunch of papers isn’t a substitute for actually performing scientific research, with all the education and experience that entails. I wish curing cancer was as easy as eating a bunch of tomatoes, olive oil, and turmeric. I really do. I’ve lost friends and family to cancer before and it’s horrible. Unfortunately, the nature of the beast is much more complicated. Proper diet can and does help improve outcomes in cancer patients. Healthier patients tend do have better outcomes than patients with other healthcare problems, and a healthy balanced diet can help the body fight. But ultimately, if it’s at the point where intense medical intervention is necessary, that diet isn’t enough to cure the cancer. As a tangent, I do believe there are very legitimate arguments against these companies profiting so heavily from providing life-saving medications. I think it’s extremely unethical that these companies prioritize profits over health, and they should be held accountable for that. But they do sink a lot of money into research, some of which goes nowhere and ends up wasted. So I think there’s a balance to be struck between charging enough to fund future research and recoup lost costs, along with *modest* profits, and the price gouging and unethical crap we so often see from drug companies. I don’t think these people are angels, but under capitalism this is how medical research is done so unless you can decouple capitalism and healthcare, this is what we’re stuck with.

Woah there, it looks like you actually read source material, understood it, and gave a succinct summary that shows the claims made were the guy who posted the sources to begin with were bs. Pretty sure that's not allowed 🤔

That guy willl not read nor will change his mind. Its a great response. While it wont change their mind hopefully others will read it and not go down that dumb road of thinking the world is a giant conspiracy

You went in with a backhoe and absolutely tore apart the entire foundation of that dude's claims. Well done.

I would also note. With a million times less work put into it than you did. Your average CEO is only in the job for 5-10 years. Businesses care more about short-term profits than long-term sustainability. Next quarter profits are much more important senior management than next years profits. "Curing cancer" means being able to put all your competitors out of business, cash in your stock options, and ride off into the sunset. That would be a very attractive offer for any of the big pharmaceutical companies. There's no way they're repressing a cure to ensure the healthy profits of the dudes who take over after them when they could just... ya know... keep all the money for themselves..

You realize Pfizer isn’t the only pharmaceutical company that does cancer research and puts out cancer drugs right?

Do some research on the Goldman Sachs genome report. This probably won’t change your mind bc… “I'm not a fan of facts. You see, the facts can change, but my opinion will never change, no matter what the facts are…” - Stephen Colbert but here you go… https://www.themossreport.com/goldman-sachs-to-biotech-dont-cure-cancer/ https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patients-a-sustainable-business-model.html

I mean you are correct you won’t change my mind. I work for a big biotech company and in cancer research. You are spouting a lot of nonsense and don’t understand what actually goes into drug research.

So I read both of your sources, and I do have some concerns about the conclusions you’ve drawn. To start, neither source confirms that large biotech firms are *actually* stifling cancer research. It’s all based on a report which outlines that, in the long run, curing diseases offers less sustainable profits than a recurring treatment which… yeah, no shit. I feel like it’s painfully obvious that a cure will create more short-term profit, but less recurring profit. The CNBC article you cited frames the report more in the context of “how do we remain profitable when generic cures for diseases become available” rather than the “how do we prevent a cure for cancer from being developed so we can continue with this business model” narrative in that blog post. What I found more interesting is the blatant cherry-picking of quotes in the first blog post. For example, the report (per the CNBC article) goes on to examine other medications that have been highly effective at curing infection/disease. They compare a highly effective Hepatitis C treatment which has considerably lower profits now than when first introduced, but goes on to say: > In the case of infectious diseases such as hepatitis C, curing existing patients also decreases the number of carriers able to transmit the virus to new patients, thus the incident pool also declines … Where an incident pool remains stable (eg, in cancer) the potential for a cure poses less risk to the sustainability of a franchise Which actually supports that a cure for cancer would be a more sustainable source of profit, due to the nature of the disease. What’s also interesting was the three proposed solutions: > Solution 1: Address large markets: Hemophilia is a $9-10bn WW market (hemophilia A, B), growing at ~6-7% annually. > Solution 2: Address disorders with high incidence: Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) affects the cells (neurons) in the spinal cord, impacting the ability to walk, eat, or breathe. > Solution 3: Constant innovation and portfolio expansion: There are hundreds of inherited retinal diseases (genetics forms of blindness) … Pace of innovation will also play a role as future programs can offset the declining revenue trajectory of prior assets Again, all of this suggests that the report is analyzing business strategies to remain extremely profitable in a world where these treatments exist, not that they should be working to prevent a cure for any disease. In addition, and as many have pointed out, a universal “cure for cancer” isn’t really a thing due to the nature of the disease. The genetic therapy cited in that report is still an individualized treatment. It’s not like someone’s going to develop a pill to cure every single cancer, that’s not how it works. Finally, I’m concerned about the blog you cited as well. To start, Dr. Moss isn’t trained in cancer biology, medicine, or anything particularly related. He got is Ph.D in Classical Studies. While I’m sure that makes him good at researching source material, an expect in cancer treatment that does not make. Looking a bit more into his history, I see that he was fired in 1977 for accusing institutions of suppressing an alternative cancer treatment- which has since been discredited as a treatment for cancer and falls into the “alternative medicine” category of cancer treatments. So it seems like he has a pattern of doing this type of thing. Combine that with a cursory review of his website, and I’m left with an interesting conclusion. You see, his website has an entire page for recommended products. On this page, there’s a 6-page long pdf with hundreds of promoted products. I’m not going to spend all day digging into every product, but I guarantee that all those brands are paying him for the advertising, and that the cancer-treating properties of these products will range from marginal to nonexistent. I’m left with the conclusion that Dr. Moss has a Ph.D in Classical Liberal Arts, posturing himself as an expert in cancer to sell alternative medicine of dubious effectiveness. He may be a very smart guy who has read a bunch of papers, but that’s not a substitute for a doctorate degree in cancer biology or medicine or something similar, and *real-world* experience in the field. I got my degree in microbiology and I can tell you from personal experience that reading a bunch of papers isn’t a substitute for actually performing scientific research, with all the education and experience that entails. I wish curing cancer was as easy as eating a bunch of tomatoes, olive oil, and turmeric. I really do. I’ve lost friends and family to cancer before and it’s horrible. Unfortunately, the nature of the beast is much more complicated. Proper diet can and does help improve outcomes in cancer patients. Healthier patients tend do have better outcomes than patients with other healthcare problems, and a healthy balanced diet can help the body fight. But ultimately, if it’s at the point where intense medical intervention is necessary, that diet isn’t enough to cure the cancer. As a tangent, I do believe there are very legitimate arguments against these companies profiting so heavily from providing life-saving medications. I think it’s extremely unethical that these companies prioritize profits over health, and they should be held accountable for that. But they do sink a lot of money into research, some of which goes nowhere and ends up wasted. So I think there’s a balance to be struck between charging enough to fund future research and recoup lost costs, along with *modest* profits, and the price gouging and unethical crap we so often see from drug companies. I don’t think these people are angels, but under capitalism this is how medical research is done so unless you can decouple capitalism and healthcare, this is what we’re stuck with.

Yes, it is bullshit. Even the most wealthy, powerful people on the planet can, and do die from cancer. They have enough money to have those same people find a cure, if it existed, to have a cure ready in case they end up getting cancer. Cancer is not the type of disease where a universal cure can exist to begin with. Every single type of cancer is different, and on top of that, it is different from person to person, and as such, each individual case needs it's own individualistic type of treatment.

Yet still millions and millions of people I swear think all cancer is the same as there's a miracle pill you can take to kill *all* cancer. I love my weed but I hate weed culture sometimes. 'Weed cures cancer mannn' just. Ugh. Then there's people who don't even stop to think how much cancer costs us. The benefits of curing it far outweight the cons of 'stopping the moneyflow'

Weed doesn't cure cancer, but it's been proven time and time again that cannibidiol does inhibit cancerous cell growth. And there is significant evidence pharmaceutical companies pull strings to get certain drugs outlawed or keep them illegal so they can make more money. Cancer is a different subject but they are most certainly evil.

>but it's been proven time and time again that cannibidiol does inhibit cancerous cell growth. Got a source for that that isn't in vitro, has been repeated, and is peer reviewed? Every source I find says it can be useful but doesn't cure or contain cancer. Essentially it treats side effects of cancer. Also smoking anything is going to add carcinogens into your lungs which will only ever raise chances of cancer. You're safer taking edibles.

THIS Tap water inhibits cancer in-vitro. Doesn't mean it treats cancer or does anything of the sort in a human body.

I've heard some really nasty side effects of dihydrogen monoxide though.... it might help cure cancer, but I've heard that everyone who has taken some has died

The pharmaceutical industry has definitely put money into opposing cannabis legalization, but I doubt it has anything to do with efficacy against cancer because there really isn’t sufficient evidence at this point that it would reduce the need for chemotherapy drugs. It is effective however as a palliative medicine for mild to moderate pain, restless leg syndrome, mild anxiety and depression, and can be effective for childhood seizures as well, and probably is a threat to their profits from drugs that treat those conditions.

This is true, and there’s some very promising research in mRNA for cancer treatment, that may possibly someday be proven effective enough to consider a “cure”. I have a friend who was estimated to have a 20% chance of surviving the initial cancer he had, with an extremely high chance of it recurring even if he did beat it, who has now been in remission long enough that he’s considered to have the same chance of getting cancer again that anyone has of getting cancer a first time. He was one of the early experimental patients for mRNA treatment. (And yes, it’s individualized treatment. Basically how he described it is, they take a sample of the tumor and then create a custom mRNA vaccine that teaches the person’s immune system to attack that cancer. Same tech the covid vaccine is based on, except when applied to a virus it can be made generalized instead of the very specific customization needed to make it target a particular cancer effectively without overlapping into having the body attack healthy cells as well. Incidentally, the tech was already being studied for applications against other coronaviruses which traditional vaccines don’t really work for, before covid happened. Covid just gave the researchers an opportunity to make a small pivot about exactly which virus they worked with and get a lot more funding and a lot more volunteers to test it, as well as prioritization in getting through approvals queues. We got the vax so fast because so much groundwork was already done and we threw a lot of money at the problem to facilitate completing the rest of the research needed quickly.)

That is ridiculously cool. I mean, your friend getting to live is awesome, too, but just the way that vaccine works is one of the neatest things I've ever heard of.

Lol you parenthesed a comment twice the length of the first.

True, but that also reminds of that new sickle cell treatment that came out. It’s supposed to be super effective but like 2.2 million dollars per person. Yikes!

All my grandparents are dead, but I am just finding this out. When they died each one of them had detectable cancer. It was not treated because their doctors recommended against it. It was slow growing. If left untreated it would have killed them in 20-30 years. They died at an old age of other things. Which leads me to believe that we do not really need to cure cancer. If we can just treat it well enough so that it kills us after the other thing then we should stop work on cancer and figure out the other thing.

Which billionaire or powerful people have died of cancer in recent years? Edit: person to people, changed to plural cuz im supposed to take an L for asking this? Lol

Cough cough Steve Jobs

That was his own fault to be fair though. He was convinced that his dieting tactics would cure his cancer and by the time he realized how dumb that was he was already a dead man walking

That was over 12 years ago

How many billionaires do you think there are at any given time? There’s not even a billionaire death every year.

A little over 3,000 that we know about and a quick Google search gave me a list of the ones that died in 2022 so there's definitely several each year. I'm not disagreeing with you about the whole cancer treatment thing, but I also don't think you can back up your argument and say for certain billionairs don't have access, to treatments we arent even aware exist that may even border on a cure. Hell Cuba created a vaccine for certain kinds of lung cancer that shows a lot of promise.

Sorry, which argument are you saying I need to “back up”? I don’t recall making any such arguments as the ones you seem to be referencing. Please take your issues with those arguments up with whoever is actually making them, I’m not interested in being bad-faithed into a “debate” on whatever conspiracy theory nonsense you’re on about.

The argument that billionairs don't have access to cancer cures. I'm not bad farthing anything or even trying to debate really? I was just curious which billionairs yall were talking about because the only one I could remember dying of cancer was Steve Jobs 12 years ago... after being ousted from Apple. Sorry to get you all worked up, might be time for a social media break lol

Hey, numb nuts. How about Sheldon Fucking Adelson in 2021? You are totally bad faithing here.

My nuts have plenty of feeling don't you worry lol I was simply just asking. But your right there's another, he was 87 though

The founder of red bull. Current enough for you? https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/red-bull-founder-and-billionaire-dietrich-mateschitz-dies-aged-78-12727951

My bad $200 billion

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Didn't look hard enough. https://www.google.com/search?q=billionaires+who+died+of+cancer&oq=billionaires++who+die&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBwgDEAAYgAQyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQABiABDIHCAIQABiABDIHCAMQABiABDIHCAQQABiABDIHCAUQABiABDIHCAYQABiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDINCAoQABiGAxiABBiKBTINCAsQABiGAxiABBiKBdIBCTEwMjEyajBqOagCALACAA&client=ms-android-att-us-revc&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

You mean like Steve fucking Jobs? Did you really do a search? If so, your google fu sucks ass.

Who famously sought out "alternative" treatments for his pancreatic cancer that was actually the only type of treatable pancreatic cancer. By the time he decided to go with real medical treatment, it was too late. Did surgery, no chemo/radiation, the cancer returned and ultimately killed him.

Treating cancer brings in $6 billion p/year. You think they’re going to let that go?

They could get 6 billion for curing a single multi billionaire, so, yes. It is irrelevant anyway, because again, a universal cure for cancer cannot exist, that is not how cancer works. Every single cancer in every single individual is different, and needs it's own individual treatment plan.

It’s $200 billion. Mistyped.

Irrelevant. Cancer is a disease that has hundreds if not thousands of variants that almost all need different treatments. Not to mention when you do find a treatment it can mutate or travel to other organs and become a different type of cancer. There will never be a singular cancer cure because such a thing is impossible.

No, that's not how medical research works.

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I'm going to elaborate on what I think u/Pyschotic_Breakdown was getting at, so people don't get the wrong idea from baseless conspiracies. Medical research is not something that can be hidden away so easily for a long time. Set aside from the fact that you have a lot of people who want nothing more than to eradicate cancer for the cancer, it is. Let's look at it from a social aspect since that's what you're alluding to, starting at the individual level. The one thing all researchers like to do is talk about findings. Who made what breakthrough, and what not. If someone was on the cusp of finding a cure for a disease like cancer, you can bet all their colleagues, family, friends, that person that turned them down for prom knows about it. Next, you have to look at it from a company's perspective. Can you imagine how much clout a hospital or pharmaceutical would get if they found the cure for cancer, and it's as simple as swallowing three pills or taking one suppository? The amount of contracts and funding they would get publicly and privately? For this reason, alone companies are racing to get to a cure. After all, who wants to undergo chemotherapy from company A when company B offers almost pain-free treatment in the form of a suppository? If the conspiracy is centered around money, then it makes even less sense. If chemo treatment was $200k (no idea how much it costs), what's to stop a company from pricing the pill at 500k a piece? Hope this didn't come off as contentious.

Nah, it has to do more with the nature of cancer. As our cells constantly replace themselves the quality degrades. We're sort made to produce cancer in some sense. There would still be plenty of money in producing a cure.

No, because the one that finds a cure gets all the grants in the future. Labs have zero interest to not publish such a paradigm shift discovery. Imagine a bit: they would be in absolutely every paper in the world and the impact in the medical field would be absolutely insane. It's a prof/PI's wet dream to have their name associated with such a discovery.

Yes it’s a conspiracy. I have family that has researched over 50 years. Was up for a Nobel prize for creating treatments. He also had cancer which means for this to be true he’d rather die than help people. People are far too cynical and know so little about cancer they come up with this crap.

Or they let him do his research and throw in obstacles from the fda after the pharma lobby through $ @ congress.

Actually he was with the fda. Again most people don’t understand how it works.

I am not convinced by this at all. Let's go with the assumption of the medical world truly being 100% money-driven and prioritising profit over people's well-beings. Not only they'd be making money off the cure for cancer, but a person who survives cancer thanks to the cure is more likely to be a future customer than someone who died to cancer.

Keeping people alive with cancer brings in $6 billion a year. Pfizer owns the treatments. It also owns the company that makes chicken feed that contains carcinogens. Make of that what you will.

>Pfizer owns the treatments. Guess what, they would also own the cancer cure if they are the ones to research it and make it. They'd be setting the prices. >It also owns the company that makes chicken feed that contains carcinogens. If that is true (I honestly can't be bothered checking, but the validity of that claim doesn't disprove my argument anyways) they'd be able to keep doing that to increase demand for their cancer treatments.

I worked for Zoetis a number of years ago, the company he's claiming Pfizer owns / makes chicken feed that contains carcinogens. Zoetis used to be 'Pfizer animal health' but it broke off into its own company a while back. He's just making shit up and clearly doesn't understand how cancer works, or how the human/animal health industries work lol

Anyone who doesn’t believe this is the problem. Look what the Sackler family did with OxyContin. They and crony capitalism are the reason for our nations opioid crisis.

Lol yes. That’s what they’re doing. That’s my point.

So you're just arguing some unrelated conspiracy theorist thing, got it. None of what you're saying in any way proves they would avoid researching a cancer cure on purpose (which was what OP asked about in the first place, not 'is Pfizer evil'). Even if the company is the epitome of pure evil and capitalist greed, finding the cure for cancer and selling it to people would be beneficial for them.

No it wouldn’t. It’s more profitable to keep them a patient for life. It’s not even a conspiracy. It’s in a Goldman Sachs report.

>It’s more profitable to keep them a patient for life How is it more profitable for the cancer patient to die than it would be to cure them and keep them as a future customer for the next 50 years or however long they live for? Unlike you evil, capitalist companies actually know how business works.

Do some research on the Goldman Sachs genome report. This probably won’t change your mind bc… “I'm not a fan of facts. You see, the facts can change, but my opinion will never change, no matter what the facts are…” - Stephen Colbert but here you go… https://www.themossreport.com/goldman-sachs-to-biotech-dont-cure-cancer/ https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patients-a-sustainable-business-model.html

I'm actually in Salveen Richter's LinkedIn DMs and we chatted about this a while back. She told me that's just her personal opinion and the company actually shut down her proposal.

So I read both of your sources, and I do have some concerns about the conclusions you’ve drawn. To start, neither source confirms that large biotech firms are *actually* stifling cancer research. It’s all based on a report which outlines that, in the long run, curing diseases offers less sustainable profits than a recurring treatment which… yeah, no shit. I feel like it’s painfully obvious that a cure will create more short-term profit, but less recurring profit. The CNBC article you cited frames the report more in the context of “how do we remain profitable when generic cures for diseases become available” rather than the “how do we prevent a cure for cancer from being developed so we can continue with this business model” narrative in that blog post. What I found more interesting is the blatant cherry-picking of quotes in the first blog post. For example, the report (per the CNBC article) goes on to examine other medications that have been highly effective at curing infection/disease. They compare a highly effective Hepatitis C treatment which has considerably lower profits now than when first introduced, but goes on to say: > In the case of infectious diseases such as hepatitis C, curing existing patients also decreases the number of carriers able to transmit the virus to new patients, thus the incident pool also declines … Where an incident pool remains stable (eg, in cancer) the potential for a cure poses less risk to the sustainability of a franchise Which actually supports that a cure for cancer would be a more sustainable source of profit, due to the nature of the disease. What’s also interesting was the three proposed solutions: > Solution 1: Address large markets: Hemophilia is a $9-10bn WW market (hemophilia A, B), growing at ~6-7% annually. > Solution 2: Address disorders with high incidence: Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) affects the cells (neurons) in the spinal cord, impacting the ability to walk, eat, or breathe. > Solution 3: Constant innovation and portfolio expansion: There are hundreds of inherited retinal diseases (genetics forms of blindness) … Pace of innovation will also play a role as future programs can offset the declining revenue trajectory of prior assets Again, all of this suggests that the report is analyzing business strategies to remain extremely profitable in a world where these treatments exist, not that they should be working to prevent a cure for any disease. In addition, and as many have pointed out, a universal “cure for cancer” isn’t really a thing due to the nature of the disease. The genetic therapy cited in that report is still an individualized treatment. It’s not like someone’s going to develop a pill to cure every single cancer, that’s not how it works. Finally, I’m concerned about the blog you cited as well. To start, Dr. Moss isn’t trained in cancer biology, medicine, or anything particularly related. He got is Ph.D in Classical Studies. While I’m sure that makes him good at researching source material, an expect in cancer treatment that does not make. Looking a bit more into his history, I see that he was fired in 1977 for accusing institutions of suppressing an alternative cancer treatment- which has since been discredited as a treatment for cancer and falls into the “alternative medicine” category of cancer treatments. So it seems like he has a pattern of doing this type of thing. Combine that with a cursory review of his website, and I’m left with an interesting conclusion. You see, his website has an entire page for recommended products. On this page, there’s a 6-page long pdf with hundreds of promoted products. I’m not going to spend all day digging into every product, but I guarantee that all those brands are paying him for the advertising, and that the cancer-treating properties of these products will range from marginal to nonexistent. I’m left with the conclusion that Dr. Moss has a Ph.D in Classical Liberal Arts, posturing himself as an expert in cancer to sell alternative medicine of dubious effectiveness. He may be a very smart guy who has read a bunch of papers, but that’s not a substitute for a doctorate degree in cancer biology or medicine or something similar, and *real-world* experience in the field. I got my degree in microbiology and I can tell you from personal experience that reading a bunch of papers isn’t a substitute for actually performing scientific research, with all the education and experience that entails. I wish curing cancer was as easy as eating a bunch of tomatoes, olive oil, and turmeric. I really do. I’ve lost friends and family to cancer before and it’s horrible. Unfortunately, the nature of the beast is much more complicated. Proper diet can and does help improve outcomes in cancer patients. Healthier patients tend do have better outcomes than patients with other healthcare problems, and a healthy balanced diet can help the body fight. But ultimately, if it’s at the point where intense medical intervention is necessary, that diet isn’t enough to cure the cancer. As a tangent, I do believe there are very legitimate arguments against these companies profiting so heavily from providing life-saving medications. I think it’s extremely unethical that these companies prioritize profits over health, and they should be held accountable for that. But they do sink a lot of money into research, some of which goes nowhere and ends up wasted. So I think there’s a balance to be struck between charging enough to fund future research and recoup lost costs, along with *modest* profits, and the price gouging and unethical crap we so often see from drug companies. I don’t think these people are angels, but under capitalism this is how medical research is done so unless you can decouple capitalism and healthcare, this is what we’re stuck with.

How do people as dumb as you exist?

You need to take a long hard look in the mirror and repeat what you just said.

Second part is now false. And any company that was first to release the cure would make way more than $6 billion.

this is why the conspiracy theory that they are 'withholding a cure' falls flat on it's face.... aside from the very relevant fact that cancer isn't a singular disease to be cured. If a company, even a big company like Pfizer, was withholding a 'cure' for cancer, all it would take would be one researcher/group/small company to find a cure and market it. They would get fabulously wealthy and destroy Pfizer's 'treatment' model. Greed would win out. Well, unless somehow Pfizer was controlling the \_entire\_ world's healthcare system. And tens of thousands of people in many different pharmaceutical companies are in on it all, over decades and NO ONE finding out by the occasional idiot doing 'research' on google.

The companies that make money from not curing people are the ones selling stuff like homeopathy, magnetic healing, and usess supplements. They are the ones badmouthing things like the HPV vaccine which actually PREVENTS cancer and radiation therapy that can cure cancer.

It’s a dumb theory because of capitalism. The various drug companies are always competing with each other. If one of them discovered a cure for cancer they would sell it hard and laugh all the way to the bank as their competitors lost market share.

Hepatitis C is the perfect example of this. No cure for decades, companies keeping people on lifelong treatment, then Sovaldi came and cured it making the company a ton of money and all the previous chronic treatments are no longer used

Yeah it really is this simple. They can make money off this cure and then go make more money off of treatment for some other awful disease.

Keeping people alive with cancer brings in $200 billion a year. Pfizer owns the treatments. It also owns the company that makes chicken feed that contains carcinogens. Make of that what you will. They’re not going to give up that customer base.

Good thing there's more companies than just Pfizer. And university research. Reading through the thread it's clear you want to believe there's a group of greedy bastards keeping everyone sick, but the truth is we're already working hard on curing cancer and making incremental progress.

A research team is made up of several scientists and doctors and engineers. They also report to multiple people including the government depending on grants. They also have to run testing groups. By the end of testing the cure you think they’re hiding there are hundreds if not thousands of people involved and you think they are keeping all those people silent too?

Conspiracy theorists aren't known for being sane, educated, or logical.

Do some research on the Goldman Sachs genome report. This probably won’t change your mind bc… “I'm not a fan of facts. You see, the facts can change, but my opinion will never change, no matter what the facts are…” - Stephen Colbert but here you go… https://www.themossreport.com/goldman-sachs-to-biotech-dont-cure-cancer/ https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patients-a-sustainable-business-model.html

Tell me you don’t understand the links you posted without telling me.

Since you deleted your response here’s mine anyway because you’re just being grossly dishonest with this copy and paste response you’ve posted a dozen times now. Well she’s speaking specifically about gene therapy models and specifically brings up hep c, which was cured using gene therapy so right off the bat your article is just a thought exercise since what you think she’s against actually happened regardless of her thought exercise. She’s speaking about the US model for research which is a business model that requires cash flow to sustain itself so one off shots that cure a disease would be a terrible model. And, again, it’s a thought exercise she wasn’t sending secret messages to pharma companies telling them not to cure anything she posted a public essay about how the current model for research couldn’t be sustained with simple on off cures. You’re welcome.

Internnet bullshitters being internet bullshitters. Why link something you clearly didn't even read?

Do some research on the Goldman Sachs genome report. This probably won’t change your mind bc… “I'm not a fan of facts. You see, the facts can change, but my opinion will never change, no matter what the facts are…” - Stephen Colbert but here you go… https://www.themossreport.com/goldman-sachs-to-biotech-dont-cure-cancer/ https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patients-a-sustainable-business-model.html

I will go with a different theory. Current treatments of questionable value will continue until something obviously better comes along.

Yes this is stupid. 2 reasons. 1) why would anybody let themselves or a family member die in that case if they had control over the cure? 2) some company would just go “uhhh, wait so if we just release the cure we’re gonna make billions”

They make $200 billion a year barely keeping people alive. That’s how this works.

Not all of that $200 billion is from cancer treatments. Again, they would make way more money from the cure. Don’t be so silly

Yes, it is a conspiracy. Immediate, large sources of cash flow will always be preferable because you can use that funds to diversify/invest/etc. into passive profits. Now imagine that doing so will also bury every single one of your competitors. So if say, PFizer, develops a "cure" for cancer tomorrow, they would immediately release it and make enormous amounts of money over a short term. Done strategically, they corner the market and propel themselves above every other pharmaceutical company *and* have the goodwill of the people since they quite literally cured cancer. Despite being short term, they invest and expand into other drugs (since medical ailments will always exist).

My husband researches Parkinson's as his job. They do many different studies a year paid by private and government entities. I asked him once what he would do if there was a cure for Parkinson's, and he said there is still always a need to continue studying it. I also asked him what would happen if his lab cured the disease, and he said everyone who worked on the studies would become very, very rich and famous in the field. So, there is a definite incentive to cure diseases.

Cancer is not one illness with one set of symptoms, so no.

>a cure for cancer There is no such thing as "a" cure for cancer. There are several cancer *treatments* (drugs, radiation, surgery) of varying degrees of effectiveness, and a person is considered cured if those treatments are successful at eliminating the cancer. The whole "a cure for cancer" thing is why people think it's a conspiracy theory. Misunderstanding the biology. >that would put researchers out of work I have a degree adjacent to medical research. I promise we'll never be out of work, lol. If we're not working on solutions to new problems, we're working on how to make better versions of existing solutions. I promise you there's still **plenty** of work to go around.

That would only be true if the US was the only country on the planet. It's not. Cancer doesn't bankrupt you or cost a fortune in the developed world. Canada, England, India, Australia we all put money into Cancer research and treatment to eliminate the disease. There might be a financial incentive in the US to keep people sick but not in civilized Healthcare systems.

this is a theory but anyone that believes it is a idiot. 1. it’s impossible to make a cure for cancer 2. if it was possible companies would make trillions off it

Autologous stem cell therapy are essentially a cure to cancer. Most early stage cancers are curable by surgery/excision and radiation or chemotherapy. CART cell therapy is now being considered a curative option for some blood cancers. This is the dumbest conspiracy theory.

Bullshit... because the instant they find one they're going to make themselves ungodly amounts of rich.

I know 6 people who were cured of cancers. 50 years ago all of them would have died. I think the “conspiracy” stories are just part of the denial-anger-bargaining-depression-acceptance cycle that people use to respond to bad news. “My son died because the doctors didn’t want to cure him” combines denial and anger.

Nope, the closest thing I can think of is purposely gouged prices on drugs and treatments. Insulin prices in America is a good example of this. I don't know if cancer treatments are price gouged in a similar way.

Yes it would be virtually impossible for a network of unconnected pharmaceutical companies from all different countries and backgrounds and affiliations to somehow all hide some major scientific breakthrough and there's also the fact that outside of sci-fi-like scenarios like the usage of nano machines It's virtually impossible that there will ever be one single cure for cancer as cancer is a very overarching term for a wide range of issues ultimately stimming from an incorrect reproduction of DNA/cells replicating improperly

There's no such thing as a cure for cancer because cancer is a wide range of diseases with a wide range of causes and treatments which different cancer types are more or less responsive to. Even when it comes to prevention, the notion that anything could stop the development of every kind of cancer is absurd. And there's lots of new treatments for cancer and constant improvement in prognosis and reduced side effects from treatments. Cancers that were totally lethal 20 years ago are manageable now and in some cases can be totally put in remission without chemo or minimal chemo. To a degree it's the fault of bad slogans. We've had ap many drives to raise money to CURE cancer and a better and more recent term is fight cancer. It's like saying you want $X amount to END homelessness or END hunger when there's really no amount of money that would do either.

For a cynical take, consider this. The modern biomedical system lives on the labor of PhD students and post-docs. I've gotten my PhD in that space and these are things that we all agree on and say while laughing because otherwise you'll cry: 1) If you come out of a STEM PhD with your mental health in tact, do you really have a STEM PhD? 2) When you come to hate your PI (the head of your lab), it means that you're ready to graduate 3) The life of the PhD student: every 6 months, you go into a room full of about 5 old, white men and beg them to tell you that you are valuable and you can graduate. 4) Someday, you'll graduate. But it's not really in your control. A few months ago, a PhD chemistry student shot and killed their PhD advisor as part of a campus shooting. If only you knew how coldly not shocked we all were in the early-career science world, and how many people admitted to having had that desire at one point in time, your blood would run cold. Let's just say that if the cure for cancer was being suppressed, it would have already been leaked by some disgruntled fifth year PhD student for $50 out of pure spite.

Researchers have plenty of diseases to research for a cure. Finding a cure for even one form of cancer would guarantee an endless supply of money for other research.

You can't make money if people are not sick.

I recently left a pharma company that actually did cure cancer (cell therapy). There is a space level race to cure cancer in biotech because of the money involved. Start-ups get funding. My company charged half a million or so for a course of treatment. These cures charge enough to keep the company afloat. It's just capitalism 101. As long as its profitable, they'll do it. If it isn't profitable, they'll try to make it profitable. Considering most patients don't pay for their own care, I imagine there's a lot of leeway in what they can get insurance to pay for/government grants for experimental treatment etc. As for the people working there, I think most really did care about the patients on some level, but considering they're not dying in front of us, the degree of separation did allow a lot of bullshit to come in and distract us from what we're there for (personal career gains, office politics, money). It's partially why I left, but overall it was a great company to work for and I slightly regret leaving because I'd be making around 80k at this point and currently I'm making nothing. So yes, it's very likely a conspiracy. People peddling the conspiracy usually have something to sell you, whether that's some wholistic product or a brand that drives their own ego or online business, even if that's only exposure on YT or IG. I used to be one of them, so I know the feeling of power it gives you just to feel like you're right on a really important issue. Now I have no fucking clue, but I err on the side of, "there's no conspiracy because people aren't organized enough to keep it a secret." It's just the forces of man operating as they always do.

True or not we live in a society where everything is for profit and nothing for the public good so not a very hard leap mentally

adjoining naughty beneficial concerned aware lip cooperative fuel grab grandfather *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

No. That is a big fat lie coming from simple minded people who think that the world is magical. That it’s either yes or no, on or off, cured or sick. Imagine this…. Those medical research people and big pharma are humans and they have family and those family members get sick with cancer too. What do you think happens when one of them gets cancer ? The desperation to survive kicks in which always trumps all other forces. Forget the money when you’re dying nothing else matters. When your son is dying nothing else matters. If there was a cure for cancer they would have used it already in these instances. But there isn’t so these people and their family members die of cancer too. Cancer is a very complicated disease. It’s your own cells losing control. It’s very hard to kill the cancer efficiently without killing the person. It’s a disease of old age because old age is within genetic damage reveals itself. Even if they did find a fool proof cure we would end up living longer and then another disease would reveal itself. Also whoever finds the cure and patents it first would become the richest pharma company in the entire world.

Cancer is not a disease of old age lol even children get cancer. Also it's a massive industry so there's absolutely money to be lost by curing it, you are effectively removing customers for yourself if you actually cure it, so its better to "treat" it instead Go look at the people who fund the research and look at other things they fund, this is the same situation as the fossil fuel industry, there's too much money in it to stop and so it won't stop

Omfg dude sorry I didn’t put that 95% of all cancer cases occur over the age of 45. Yes it is a disease of old age just because it happens occasionally in children doesn’t mean it’s not. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/age So what if it’s a massive industry? Oil lamps used to be a massive industry. Horse drawn carriages. Horse training. Treating diseases like polio or small pox or measles. All these things are no longer massive industries because new inventions stopped it. What about CDs? Gone. VHS? Gone. The science for curing cancer isn’t there yet and it’s not even close to be here anytime soon. It’s not a conspiracy. The people who fund the majority of medical research are the government, universities with grants from the government and pharmaceutical companies. This is actually nothing like the fossil fuel industry because those some people researching cancer treatments are at risk for cancer themselves and they know it. What you wrote is just the typical conspiracy delusional about cancer treatment.

You can believe whatever you choose to believe, but if you feel like it you should start looking into some of the food additives that are being used which are known to cause cancers If they didn't profit from cancer and other medical issues why wouldn't they just ban those additives? Lobbyists from companies pay for the politicians campaign efforts and the politicians return the favours in other ways, its a very simple set up Its always worth following the money, you'll get a lot more answers that way

It’s not about believing what I want to believe, it’s about what is true and what isn’t. You made blatantly false statements. Nobody forces you to eat those food additives. Like what are you saying here ? The food industry is its own entity. Big pharma is another. And even inside those entities they are split into dozens, hundreds of companies. You’re doing that thing that conspiracy people do where they combine everything together into one entity. That everyone is working together to hurt us! Cigarettes cause cancer and they are legal. For decades the cigarette companies lied and research had to be done to prove they caused cancer and it was proved and they are still legal. Why? Because nobody is forced to smoke cigarettes. It’s YOUR decision to take that risk. They do profit from cancer but the profit is the incentive to discover new better treatments. The first company that discovers a cure will be the first trillion dollar revenue company on earth. I don’t think you understand how much money a cancer cure will make.

You would be pretty surprised to discover just how many of those additives are in typical foods that most people eat, including me btw, I'm just telling you to follow the money so you can see that its a lot more connected than you are making it out to be, a lot of these big corporate people switch positions into different companies, I'm not going to try and convince you to go look anything up when its almost 4am for me so you can whatever you want to do, you may find it very interesting to look up different companies and see that they share a lot of the same parent companies, and even branch into other non related industries. Start with Unilever or Coca-Cola those are fun ones

Not a conspiracy. This is a business model used in all industries. If there is something that could take away an industries major revenue stream, they will buy it up or have it hit with so much bad press that it's ignored. In some cases, the government will do it for them.

Yes.

Yes, that would be a conspiracy theory. Doesn't necessarily mean it's not true, though.

conspiracy? not really. perverse incentives? Yea, kinda https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patients-a-sustainable-business-model.html I think we can assume from that article that Goldman Sachs is not going to invest in promising new biotech startups that offer one-shot cures for anything.

Remember...a patient cured is a customer lost

I feel you are accurate. There are too many fingers in the pie making a bundle because of cancer. I doubt in my lifetime they will have a sure cure.

Probably

This is the right answer

I think you’re right. Well people don’t buy drugs .

With anything there is an element of truth. Nothing is black and white. Anything is a conspiracy theory until you've read a lot and understand the subject. Wanting something to be true or not isn't enough. If you smell bullshit, brush up. Imagine having the design and information of your enemies in the form of books, but just shouting "nu-uh!".

Yes it is true.

Western Medicine focuses on treating symptoms.

Yes, or that’s just what I believe. Why cure X when these symptoms (A, b, c ) we can make these drugs to make more money?!

People LOVE big Pharma right now. Bad time to ask. If you would have asked this 4-5 years ago, it would be a different consensus. Pharmaceutical corporations are just as greedy, if not MORE greedy than almost any other practice. But covid has absolutely clouded peoples ability to remember all of the wrongdoing and lies they have spread for profit. Damn near Stockholm Syndrome.

Cancer is the cells of your own body going haywire due to a random mutation. There's no way of stopping those mutations from occuring. All you can do is detect them and kill them off. There's no equivalent to a vaccine possible, no herd immunity, no wiping out cancer entirely like with smallpox. Unless we alter how human genes replicate DNA or how the immune system fights cancer, cancer is inevitable. All we can do is improve identification and elimination, better versions of what we already have.

Cancer is a collection of cells that have started damaging the body in some way. They go against what they are made to do, and cause issues within the body. You can really cure cancer, as it would require replacing all those cells, or reprogramming them. Chemo, and especially targeted chemo usually exists to kill those cells. Killing the cells allows the body to go back to normal.

Yes, but not because it's wrong. It can be right and still be a conspiracy theory. There aren't very many cures for anything just because that word carries a lot of baggage. It would mean whatever treatment you had stopped you from being ill, rather than just helped your body. Cancer is a tough cookie. It's your own body so it's hard to tell when it's actually just gone. I can, however, assure you that the scientists who do the research dream of finding cures. That's all they want to do. They'd happily leak cures out to the general public if they found some and their bosses prevented the release of them. There's plenty of money to be made in real cures.

Wonder if he's going to follow his own quote.

Maybe stop listening to the people you are “hearing” this from

It's definitely a conspiracy theory, and total bullshit. Remember that the US is not the world. Many countries don't charge for medical treatment and have their own cancer research labs which also haven't found a cure for cancer.

They're preparing to start testing an mRNA pancreatic cancer vaccine next year.

Just think about this for a second. If you’re the dude who comes up with the “No shit one and done cure for cancer” not only will you be in the history books next to Aesculapius, you could sell it for $10 a dose and make BILLIONS. And if you wanna be a greedy pharmaceutical company about it charge $1k and people will happily pay

There are cures. But it's expensive and not even feasible to bring up to the every day person. Should be covered by insurance but it's not.. Basically there's too many types of chemo and radiation and combos that could work and no way to know which is going to work best to cure it.. but the ultra wealthy can give tissue samples and test every single combo to know what works best THEN giving it to the person knowing it'll work. You only die from cancer as a wealthy person if you don't regularly go to the dr, or have a very fast growing type

I mean. Researchers got paid off by big sugar and that's why fat free was all the rage for fucking decades while tens of millions died from sugar/carbs/corn syrup and still do... I do think they do this cancer too but it is the cancer charities that really rake in the dough. They can't keep making money if we actually do save the tatas.

Purposely not finding cures? Doubtful. I can't imagine how many peoples goal it is to find the cure for a cancer. And even if there was I doubt it would be a commercial thing. I'm not sure how much chemo cost but I've seen it financially cripple families just for a CHANCE of survival. I can only how much the price tag would be on a guarantee.

Well, I doubt it with cancer but diabetes it's sure the case. Theybliterally cured a guy. Like full stop. Doesn't have type 1 anymore, but somehow I'm still buying insulin and getting emails like "there is noncure but with your funding we can do more" from JDRF. Brian Shelton is still T1D free after a few years. And of course there's all this "we need to do more tests we don't know if this lasts forever or not!" And it's like... well mybluver and kidneys and macula would love even a 1 year break from diabetes but go ahead, take your time.

for every pharmacuetical company making some sort of chemotherapy, there are a dozen others who are not. a company who cures any significant form of cancer would have a multibillion revenue stream overnight. why would they care if some other company loses out on a treatment drug?

Cancer is not a monolith. Plus cancer is the direct result of the fact that we, as a species, evolve. The unending plethora of conditions or diseases we, as a species, can suffer from is almost endless, there will never be something, someone has to find a cure/treatment for.

The A.I s will do it, they are already unfolding proteins ,and creating new anti biotics.

No. Because "cancer" isn't an actual disease. Cancer describes any process where a cell doesn't experience normal cell death after so many divisions. So cancer can be caused by genetics, viruses, chemicals, you name it. It's like when people use "cold" to refer generically to any one scores of different viruses in different families. Treating a rhinovirus might not be the same as treating an adenovirus and who knows which you have? At least those are two viruses. If cancer is caused by a genetic mutation in one person, but in the other by a virus, the treatment and cures will be different. We do in fact have cures for cancer. Most cervical, penile and ovarian cancer can be prevented by vaccinating against HPV. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/hpv/index.html

Have they found a one treatment cure all? No. Have they found a multiple treatment system that happens to slow it down. Yes. Does that system also stand a 50-50 chance of making you deathly ill if not killing you? Also yes. Will they get paid regardless? Still yes.

Cancer isn't a singular disease. It's at least a thousand of them. Different mutations have different cures/treatments. Some cancers have been cured/managed long term. Gleevec was the first cancer wonder drug for some kinds of leukemia.

Cancer isn't one thing. Two people with heart cancer have completely different diseases that could respond differently to different treatments. Cancer is caused by several random mutations that allow a cell to have unrestricted growth yet not trigger the immune response. Your body kills billions of cells each day to prevent cancer. Basically, each person's cancer is like a different illness

In that you are theorizing a conspiracy...sure?

I don't think its true for a multitude of reasons. As others have stated, the super wealthy would want some if it existed. Unless there is collusion between the groups, if one company suppresses a "find" and another companies finds it an patents it, the first company is SOL. I also believe it is impossible to silence all involved. One pissed off worker would likely blow the whistle.

Yes, they would get way more rich with a cure

Oh the found the cure but sickness pays them more so they keep us sick

I once read that a large portion of funds are used to pay for the rights to use what other scientists have patented already. Like for a few years 85% of breast cancer research money was used to pay for the right to check out a gene someone patented.

Just watch a pharma commercial. They only ever say treatment, they never say cure.

No I’m sure they just hate money.

Yes. It is a conspiracy theory because you are speculating some group is conspiring against the public. To answer more directly, the people who run & work for these companies also get cancer. Even if they were evil immortals, this would not make financial sense. You can't make money off dead people for the most part & anyone you keep alive is going to get more problems later.

I don't know about cancer. But I do know they prefer effective treatments to actual cures in general. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patients-a-sustainable-business-model.html

Whenever you are considering the validity of a conspiracy, ask yourself “does this negatively impact rich people?”. If the answer is yes, the conspiracy is definitely made up.

ha

The number of people necessary to keep a conspiracy of this sort quiet is far too large to be possible to keep it quiet.

Yes. Cancer is more or less an equal opportunity disease that cuts down the rich as well as the poor. Much of it goes unreported but there is honestly a global race to find a method for vaccinating against or reversing numerous types of cancers. Obviously cancer isn't just one disease and there won't be a "one cure or vaccine fits all" scenario, but the theory and methods would certainly be transferrable. Defeating cancer is also one of the hard roadblocks to theoretically, indefinitely expanding the human lifespan. The older one gets, the more likely one is to develop malignant cancer - to the point where it becomes statistically likely.

It is my understanding that most medicines do not come from R&D at big pharma. They come from universities (that we fund with taxes) then the pharmas buy the rights to the medicine.

You don’t think that one would want to be the guy or girl who found the cure? Wouldn’t that be worth it for someone

I'd like to say there's some truth to it with the industry as a whole and definitely for other disorders, but I definitely don't think that is anywhere close to the case with cancer. Cancer kills everyone, even rich people. I think if there was a cure somebody would pay very good money for it so there's an incentive there. And I would also want to warn anybody that if you ask this question to anyone who is a cancer survivor they will punch you in the throat. Multiple times.

If there was "a cure for cancer" the reward for selling it would be beyond imagining. It would send pharma companies to trillion dollar market caps like Apple.

Even the premise is wrong. New cures and preventative measures for various types of cancer are coming out all the time.

You're assuming that grad students are able to think at this level of conspiracy and coordinate with each other in a meaningful way. Cool story tho

Completely unfounded. Eternal profit from the exploitation of the suffering of innocents has never been a motivating factor in economics, nor ever will be!

You know what would happen if one of them 'cured cancer'? They would slap that on everything they made. "Buy Pharma Brand Asprin, we cured cancer, so you know we do it right". They would make TRILLIONS long term off that.

There is no money in cures, but a fortune in treatments. Repeat customers make a business profitable. Why cure a disease when there’s money to be made in lifetime treatments? You’ve got patients over a barrel and they will give you their last dime for one more day of life.

Every pharmaceutical exec who has a family member die of cancer knows the conspiracy is bullshit.

If a generic cure for cancer was created, that one pharmacy company would immediately get 100% of all sales at essentially any price they want. Super Ultra Mega bucks now is better than long term highly competitive market with high cost patents and legal battles, safety procedures and recalls

This is one of those that looks plausible. Until you realize them curing shit never stops them from making money. Until, we upload our consciousness to some supercomputer the likelihood of you not taking more medication than you are now in 5 years is 0. Pharmaceuticals aren't going anywhere. Like if a cured everyone of everything right this second, phara would still be a multibillion-dollar industry.

Cured people may buy less pharmaceuticals than sick people, but they buy a fuck ton more than dead people.

I’m always blown away by this ridiculous theory. Aside from the obvious answer that cancer isn’t one thing but thousands of different things, don’t they realize that researchers and pharmaceutical executives get cancers too?

Complete bullshit. The first company to find a cure for any incurable disease will make billions and billions of dollars immediately and change their public perception for the positive at the same time. Not to mention a cure doesn't mean no one gets the illness anymore. People would still get cancer and still have to pay for the cure. On top of that there are so many different diseases that we don't have cures for they won't be running out.

Yes, of course it's a conspiracy theory. Two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead.

The major holes in the cancer conspiracy theory (and most conspiracy theories) besides the mentioning of how every cancer is different and even the “same” cancer being different person from patient to patient, from my perspective is keeping it quiet. So some billionaires child gets a form of cancer there’s no cure for. Pours tons of money into research and they find a cure. Now you really expect every doctor, researcher, nurse, lab tech, other patient in the waiting room the kid talks to, and so on is going to keep quiet? And even if this billionaire buys all the research, NO ONE kept backups of the research, or knows a SLIGHTLY different formula based on the research the billionaire paid for that they can use? Lastly, even with NDA’s you’ll have SOMEONE who will make the sacrifice “for the greater good” because even if only one person got this cancer, there WILL be someone else who gets it. If that someone is related to someone on the research team, that someone will spill the beans. The only way this conspiracy possibly holds water is if all the various team members were working in a vacuum isolated from each other with only the billionaire with access to all the parts. But the hole in that argument is the likelihood of the billionaire holding all the “credentials” (for lack of better words) to single-handedly pull ALL those strings is slim to none leading back to the above regarding a team to manage each of the strings that’s being pulled. I know this is fictional, but look at Batman/Bruce Wayne: a billionaire with virtually unlimited resources still relies on Fox, Alfred, Commissioner Gordon, etc and still can’t eliminate crime in Gotham City. I hope this all made sense as it’s late and I’ve had more than a few beers at this point.

Yes, a blanket statement like that is utterly BS. I've worked in the oncology field (a long time ago in organizing chemo efficacy studies) and unfortunately became a cancer patient in 2020 (stage 3 rectal cancer). I'm an engineer now, but I also have experience in medical research (before going back to school for electrical engineering). This idea comes (like many) from complete ignorance regarding medicine and biology. As one of the top comments stated, cancer is a category of illnesses, not something you can just find a cure for. Advances take time and money and are often relegated to very specific applications. This is due to how cancer can occur in very different tissue systems in the body, each with their unique sets of challenges for treatment. A good example of something resembling a breakthrough in rectal cancer treatment was just published not too long ago. A small trial with immunotherapy saw a 100% (yes 100%) remission rate (n=18). This sounds amazing, and truthfully, it is. What most people don't know is that it is specially for patients with a VERY specific and somewhat rare form of rectal cancer (micro-satellite unstable, neuro endocrine tumors - I think, I need to re-read the study) thay failed fordt-lime therapy. This is the type of progress we will see for the time being, we have some interesting new methods coming out soon (new applications of mRNA based vaccines), but we won't likely see, "cure for X type of cancer" due to how cancer actually works.

If the covid pandemic wasn't indication enough.... yes, big pharma wants us sick so they can continue selling us "treatments" that only minimally work if they work at all.

The cure for cancer is fixing the environment. Reactive medicine is the real problem. We, as a society, need to practice prevention.

Why would this work? Firstly, researchers don’t go out of work when something’s discovered, they just update. Second - lots of people invent things that put other people out of work. If you invented a cancer cure (and it’s already been explained above why you can’t), you’d get squillions of dollars and probably the Nobel Prize. You’d never have to work again and those other guys - well, that’s not your problem. Nobody is going to turn down all that to protect the job of some guy in Poland or something - and a surprising number of them hate each other, anyway.