So? That's a state of our knowledge. When we learn more about cancer and find a way to treat the underlying causes, we will have actual cures: treatments which result in complete remission in >95% of cases.
This will happen. It may take the tools provided by molecular nanotechnology, and a generation of oncological research, but it will. To accept that cancer is special is irrational deathism.
When we learn more about cancer and find a way to treat the underlying causes, we will have actual cures: treatments which result in complete remission in >95% of cases.
You clearly haven't decided what position you're taking. A cure is not remission in 95% of cases. A cure is a cure, with no chance of a recurrence if there is no further exposure to the responsible pathogen. Take malaria, for example -- do you think malaria victims experience spontaneous recurrences, far from the anopheles mosquito and its hitchhiker, plasmodium falciparum?
To accept that cancer is special is irrational deathism.
In modern scientific medicine, anything we don't understand is special and deserves our attention. We don't understand cancer and it's deadly. Therefore it's special for perfectly scientific reasons.
To call cancer just another disease is simply irrational -- and dangerous thinking.
And you clearly don't know how medical statistics work. Take the simple flu shot: chance of developing Guillain-Barre syndrome from the vaccination is about 1 in a million, and about 1 in 20 of those die from complications (odds are better if you seek prompt treatment). Does the flu shot provide benefit 100% of the time? No: in some cases it's killed people.
So it goes with even the most advanced, futuristic cancer treatments. There will always be cases where the treatment kills the patient, or fails to affect the disease in any way. It will be the job of medical research to make those rare cases rarer.
And by the way, if cancer is not a disease, then what the heck is it?
Comments
So? That's a state of our knowledge. When we learn more about cancer and find a way to treat the underlying causes, we will have actual cures: treatments which result in complete remission in >95% of cases.
This will happen. It may take the tools provided by molecular nanotechnology, and a generation of oncological research, but it will. To accept that cancer is special is irrational deathism.
You clearly haven't decided what position you're taking. A cure is not remission in 95% of cases. A cure is a cure, with no chance of a recurrence if there is no further exposure to the responsible pathogen. Take malaria, for example -- do you think malaria victims experience spontaneous recurrences, far from the anopheles mosquito and its hitchhiker, plasmodium falciparum?
In modern scientific medicine, anything we don't understand is special and deserves our attention. We don't understand cancer and it's deadly. Therefore it's special for perfectly scientific reasons.
To call cancer just another disease is simply irrational -- and dangerous thinking.
And you clearly don't know how medical statistics work. Take the simple flu shot: chance of developing Guillain-Barre syndrome from the vaccination is about 1 in a million, and about 1 in 20 of those die from complications (odds are better if you seek prompt treatment). Does the flu shot provide benefit 100% of the time? No: in some cases it's killed people.
So it goes with even the most advanced, futuristic cancer treatments. There will always be cases where the treatment kills the patient, or fails to affect the disease in any way. It will be the job of medical research to make those rare cases rarer.
And by the way, if cancer is not a disease, then what the heck is it?
Both false and unrelated to the present topic.
And cure still means cure.
And none of them offers a cure.
You must first locate where I claimed that cancer is not a disease.