David Agus: A new strategy in the war against cancer

[slickvguy]

Remarkable. Very pleased that people like this are doing what they do. We need more people like him and far more resources (used effectively).

[saturnianspire]

He's a gifted speaker, very enlightening!

[clevername333]

how about hemp oil? Anecdotal evidence is pointing towards a possible cure. I would love to get a skeptical opinion on this, and perhaps links to a study. Perhaps canibinoids have a high anti androgen component?

google rick Simpson phoenix tears

[roidroid]

I don't see how what this guy is doing is any different to reductionism. He's breaking down a system into individually measurable components. Isn't that what redictionism is all about?

He's counting proteins. He's doing reductionism.

[RosenzweigBenjamin2]

On a related note, why hasn't Edward O. Wilson been given an invitation to TED to discuss consilience? (Or perhaps he has but has been unable to do so.) Still, I must ask how many people even understand what consilience is? The "unification of knowledge" as he puts it (i.e. the unification of various fields of study into hybrid subdisciplines) is the future of all academia.

[ercvstr]

This guy is just brilliant. He raises invaluable questions of objective and best manner of pursuit to achieve objectives. What is the impact of treatments and what is the the measure of progress in treating cancers?

[thefetalbomber]

so i put a link up twice and youtube decided to take it down.... but if you search "Run from the Cure" the rick simpson story on youtube and "essiac" you'll see that there is a cure for cancer and that the establishment want people to buy chemotherapy...it's a business

[boutdempapers]

@thefetalbomber thank you, my father is dying of cancer and everybit of info helps, by the way pot counteracts the the nausea and pain that chemo brings to patients. please vote to legalize medicinal and recreational marijuana in your state.

[Aerosteon]

1) Don't wag your finger at pattern recognition cancer detection. New automated computer based recognition can find mutated cells years before they become cancerous.

2)Evolution does select for humans that can survive past child bearing years. Humans can only survive childhood if they are cared for by other humans, so parents can't drop dead after giving birth. Even grandparents can help their grandchildren survive.

[tankiawee]

His refusal to use a placebo shows that this person is advocating neither evidence based nor science based medicine. It is voodoo medicine. Treatments are routinely compared against the best current treatment, and if there is no current treatment, how does he know his treatment works better than nothing? How would you even do a statistical test without any comparison? The absurdity is that he's claiming this as a shortsightedness issue, when it's plain that his testing methodology is flawed.

[oneki]

@tankiawee you used a 23 min presentation to judge a research, dude that is what is flawed.

[tankiawee]

Several posters have already commented on his misleading presentation. He plainly stated that they refused to use a placebo, which I'll take at face value, but which also raises serious questions about how to even evaluate his treatment. He had 20mins to make a presentation, that does not excuse his factual inaccuracy about cancer diagnosis. He brought up the ER/PR/HER2, these receptors and their role in breast cancer would be unknown without indepth research into the basic mechanisms of cancer.

[oneki]

@tankiawee i am not saying that he is correct, you cannot judge the accuracy of his research objectively based on this 20mins presentation. it is the reason there is peer review. better still, you can request for his methodology and see if when you replicate the experiments you get the same result. TED talk is not giving you proof, it is just mind stimulation for those who might(not) be interested. Yes you might be right, however i think your proof cannot and should not be based on this talk

[tankiawee]

You are right that the final merit of his research is to be determined by peer review of his methodology. But then, what precisely was he trying to tell us? He told us the FDA rejected his request to not use a placebo. As his audience, what do we take away from this anecdote? That the FDA is blocking his drug? That his methods are incorrect? What *does* this anecdote contribute to this talk? He presents no new ideas, other than a few buzzwords. On top of that, he repeatedly contradicts himself.

[tankiawee]

First he tells us that cancer diagnosis is just examination under a microscope, which cannot be excused by the fact he was talking to a lay audience, because his entire point was that our diagnostics are crude. Which is untrue, as several poster have already pointed out.

[tankiawee]

Then, he proceeds to put down reductionism. Which means nothing, because he fails to outline what precisely his 'dynamic systems' approach brings to the table. The example of the arthritic drug was irrelevant. Sure, we know that drugs can bind to unexpected targets, that's why we have side effects that are revealed in in-vivo testing. What did that have to do with dynamic systems? Nothing. You cannot model something until you have a mechanistic understanding, which comes from "reductionism".

[RosenzweigBenjamin2]

@tankiawee The man is offering a major paradigm shift in diagnostic medicine. He's not saying that the old diagnostic methods are "wrong", simply that new research and technologies are allowing for better methods. IMHO, however, where he may have went wrong is not emphasizing that one requires both reductionist and systems thinking to address ANY scientific issue, including cancer. Edward O. Wilson has been adamant about this for years.

[tankiawee]

Hell, his whole cancer genome atlas slide blows the rest of his speech out of the water.

In short, he makes no valid points, not about the background of the issue, not about the problem, and certainly not about whatever he's trying to solve. Proteomics is inherently reductionist, and there's nothing wrong about that.

[xWRCxPANDAx]

jookoko

[pabrigo]

0% rate of cancer in most 3rd world countries. US has the highest. You have to look into the processed food that we eat, our water, and chemical products. For example, the acid based additives and preservatives increase our chances of developing acidosis which leads to chronic illnesses and developing cancer cells. Cancer cells cannot live in a high alkaline body. They literally would die out. Right there is your cure.

[KeybdFlyer]

pabrigo

There's an old saying "You are what you eat." I've lived in the U.S. for 6 years and still can't believe the poor quality of foodstuffs & drinks. Additives, preservatives and the ever present sugars - no wonder there's such a high rate of diabetes! But, despite people like David Agus, drug companies are allowed to invent new diseases and release life-threatening drugs as they see fit, do you really think they'll find cures? Cure a disease and you lose profit, it's as simple as that.

[albinoman13bt]

Except that people in 3rd world countries die of malnutrition or other diseases before they are old enough to show it.

As far as you alkalinity cure, it cant work. You have an acidic body, and that's not by accident. A good example of why that won't work; the pacemaker in your heart measures acidity of your blood. Relatively high acidity means there is a lot of dissolved CO2, makes carbonic acid in water. It's the reason an ulcer can give you a heart attack.

[RexieV]

man the easy way is kill every1 with cancer and HIV or some other untreated disease. it will b sad for losing some1 but think of the future.

[roloman1987]

It would fix the problem if the gene is passed down from one generation to the other.

[MutantKush]

Maybe the governments dont want anyone to know the cure to cancer because the population would skyrocket.

[oneki]

@MutantKush Dude, in the grand scheme of things cancer does kill much people. Preventable diseases kill millins more daily worldwide than does cancer.:)) that is the real conspiracy:))

[MutantKush]

Yeah thats what I was implying?

[TheTruthPusher]

Gawd Damn Filth Family Media lie, just like 911,,

Cancer has sky rocketed due to the filth family twin serpent Cash Crop Pharmafia soon to die one eye pointy heap of shit souls, selling us every conceivable cancer causing agent there is, while. making the hemp cure illegal.

[BallinTrollin]

yea, you know why people became reductionists towards cancer??? PHARMACEUTICAL CORPORATIONS AND PROFIT....obviously large companies would rather HALF ASS solve the problem....to continue marketing their drugs.

Hemp oiil containing high amounts of THC can possibly cure cancer...Rick Simpson...google..youtube....

[IH8WRONGPPL]

lol, maybe, if you smoke enough of it, you can believe anything is possible.

[BallinTrollin]

no, you don't smoke the hemp oil. maybe if you can live with your ego anything is possible.

[ProffetBlueFoxcoon]

You are right! Big Pharma doesn't want cures, that would be bad for them, they would get no MONEY!

yes, that's what they really want, MONEY, not your health but your MONEY!

Treatments- things that cure the symptoms but not the cause are very very profitable for big pharma.

They probably have all the cures, but are too damn greedy. Don't trust them.

[blueberryandcacao]

the real problem is that you guys are still looking in the wrong place. you're still trying to create life from something dead. you're still killing patients with pharmaceutical drugs. for all the intelligence amoung well studied doctors, you are still lacking the fundamental intelligence it will take to understand the true solution to cancer. the solution is in diet and lifestyle changes.... its actually very simple.... and astoundingly cheaper

[FreemanGordon2009]

isn't cancer the result of carelessness of lifestyle developed countries? chemicals

[EliteDoomer]

This human gives me hope.

[GetMeThere1]

I was excited and eager to listen to this talk. I kept waiting to hear something. Finally....I heard NOTHING of substance. A waste of time.

[leanonme1]

THANK YOU!

i alwasy thought i must have been missing something when people i have brest/prostate/ext cancer ITS CANCER.

[PikachuAndNaruto]

Completely bullpoop.

[biantai888]

15:10 75% obesity rate?

[thegreenfairey]

Is that Dr. Andrew Weil in the audience at 3:12?

[Itslvle]

Wow, what a douche. This guy completely misinforms the audience about how we deal with cancer today, both in terms of diagnostics and treatment. There is no way that it isn't deliberate.

He speaks as if pathology was just about going "Oo, that a funny cell, I guess you have a cancer of the head lol". It's a hell of a lot more specific than that. He talks complete bs about how immunohistochemistry supposedly isn't in clinical use and even speaks about HER2 which we have specific drugs for.

[Itslvle]

And that isn't even half of it. My advice is be very sceptical about what this guy says.

No wonder there were hisses in the audience if this guy was talking at the American Association for Cancer Research conference.

[citanon]

@Itslvle

I work with cancer doctors and can tell you that what he says about diagnosis is true.  Mostly it's done via visual examination of morphology.

There are more sophisticated methods of course but they are not in wide clinical use. A more difficult and expensive diagnostic procedure might give you more info, but does it improve survival?

As we get better options for individualized therapy, we will see wider use of more sophisticated diagnostics, but not before.

[Itslvle]

He downplays the basic pathology a lot. He's claiming that the diagnosis just says breast cancer, that's it, and says that basic staining is the state of the art in clinical use. The grade and TMN make a difference.

He mentioned HER2. In Finland it's standard practice to do the immunohistochemistry to find out if the breast cancer expresses ER/PR/HER2 as it highly affects the treatment, and I doubt the situation is much different in the US.

[Itslvle]

Somehow I left the cell type out.

[citanon]

@Itslvle

The situation with HER2 is still unfortunately very much the exception to the rule and even that test is rather crude compared to the high complexity systems analysis that he's pushing for. Once again, people are testing for HER2 because it has validated treatment implications.

His presentation is not great. You can sort of see what he's pushing for but he hasn't organized his thoughts into a cogent thesis.

[Itslvle]

Oh trust me I'd have no problem with this presentation if he'd just be saying that we've taken some steps forward, but there's still a lot to be done.

But as it stands now, I can't help but see this as misinformation.

[citanon]

@Itslvle

It's a time constrained presentation to a general audience. His statement about cancer diagnosis is largely correct, with a few exceptions.

[eydos]

Cancer IS a genetic malformation. And it will never be curable, not until we have genetic treatments.

[aethir86]

Hi guys, I like watching the usual TED talks, but eh... I don't even have to watch it to say that the whole "war on cancer" is a pathetic joke.

Declaring "war" upon an idea or thing always is useless (so now it happens the western mainstream way of thought has a "war" against nearly everything, including nature and in this case, our own bodies).

And: Whatever research on cancer that is advertised in the public sector is nothing more than racing the hamster wheel. STILL no cures? Go figure...

[aethir86]

It used to be easy to denounce "alternative" cures when they entered mainstream media.

However, that is quite ridiculous, by now the internet is chock full with FREE info, about a) real, simple models for what causes cancer and b) simple approaches for curing it!

Go check it out yourself, you'll read some interesting stuff :)

Some of the stories I've read... People getting harrassed by the CIA or assassinated for curing cancer in the easiest ways imaginable, even as early as 1929!! What the f-?

[aethir86]

(continued)

Some people try to sell their info that you could otherwise read for free, just keep searching (that's the Internet for you, eh? ;-) ).

If you are distrusting nonetheless, go ahead, when its your time you can also KILL yourself with radiation and chemo therapy... what an effective way to cure cancer, HAHAHA (...not!)

[aethir86]

So why do we still have cancer, despite...?

My little theory that I made up just now (a little summary if you will) is that-- (Especially) Nowadays you will easily find the solutions to all of society's major problems by looking for who it is that profits from keeping them alive! ...

That includes:

diseases as cloaked genocide (Big Pharma), wars and energy despondency, i.e. OIL (the military-industrial-complex), and... err, stupidity (umm... royal family inbreeding?? LOL!)

Cheers!

[prayfortruejustice]

Either butchers who cut and chop or plumbers using drano. The industry receives BILLIONs in wasteful gov. funding with limited results.

Each treatment is like swapping car tires to see which is flat. 17:28 "I'm not sure..."

His thesis on the "system" is good. Look at our food chain and environment - full of products w/ carcinogens and toxins.

23:07 "over the last 59 years [and billions $] nothing has changed" -- true.

ZERO+1 about plant enzymes plus lifestyle that you can't patent.

[freshhug]

This is why I always laugh at people commenting on spelling errors, they are better off as parking officers then thinkers.

[dasgroovey]

how about grammar - parking officers 'than' thinkers

[freshhug]

Information and education is good for bringing up idaeas but the problem is that many of the people who is good for reading and memorizing knowledge does not have the creative thinking required to form new ideas. A person who is not very interested of sitting behind a book for the majority of his life might have a better talent to think different. So don't take grades or education as a sign of creative thinking or intelligens.

[freshhug]

His point that we should look for different views and search for ideas from other places then the doctors etc is a good one.

The notion that young or people without higher education can't come up with good ideas is really wrong. It's in fact also a opressive attitude. Is all my years in schools wasted?? I am not going to let somone with less education talk. Thats a rly bad attitude and is in fact holding us back.

[tetleydidley]

I don't think this guy really have any substance. He pretty much embellished his speech with a lot of buzzwords eg "move forward, thinking radically", and the need for a new "lexicon", as if changing terminologies will cure cancer. He carried on blabbering without really saying much about his work and research and how it can really help.

Worst TED speech ever, I think.

[Jerkix]

I was actually thinking that.. not too much substance. Although I think the general gist is that we should be looking outside of realm of trying to target specific gene targets, and think more broadly (he used the example of that osteoporosis drug). The question I pose is - how do we know to use such drugs, when it has no direct impact on the things that makes cells cancerous? Difficult.

[jamblinuk]

The truth is that it seems like the medical science does not know what CAUSES cancer -- if you know the CAUSE, you will avoid it.

cANCER is ANGER.

If you look at WHAT is cancer, you see that it is a bunch of cells that have gone MAD.

If within your THOUGHTS, WORDS and ACTIONS exists self-anger/anger, what do you expect it will happen to your body?

So, let go of all anger and you will not have cancer.

[Jerkix]

lol - don't know whether you're being serious or not!

[jamblinuk]

@Jerkix

Yes, I am being serious

[BuoGoaty]

And do you have anything to back your words? Guessing no otherwise you would have provided us with that information..

[jamblinuk]

@BuoGoaty

500 characters is not enough - not even 5000 - therefore I kept it short and strait to the point.

Your guess is wrong.

I am not here to prove or provide anything to anyone - I am simply sharing.

The information you can provide to yourself if you do some genetics research and consciousness research - how MATTER (body) and MIND (consciousness) interact.

The prove is all of those that die of cancer (or almost died)

500 characters are gone and I havent even started

[jamblinuk]

@BuoGoaty

See for yourself - google "What causes cancer", and you will see that "they" do not have the answer - they know HOW it develops, but what MAKES a cell go "mad", they dont know.

The western medical science is constantly forgeting that the MIND is the BIGGEST part of the equation in ALL diseases - in all aspects.

Do the research, see for yourself - and dont expect that a couple of hours will be enough.

I have been studing consciousness and biology for years.

[Jerkix]

We know HOW cancer develops.

We DO know what MAKES a cell go mad.

So accurate we've become with molecular biology techniques, that we can narrow it down to a single peptide change.

Google: p53, RAS, Akt, EGF, BRCA, MTOR, SRC, MYC.. mutations to these are what causes cells to go "mad".

[jamblinuk]

@Jerkix

The mutation is the CONsequence of the cause.

What causes the mutation?

What causes the peptide change?

That is the cause of cancer.

take it or leave it

[Jerkix]

@Jamblinuk

CAUSE is:

Radiation (Sun, plutonium)

Reactive molecules (oxidative stress)

Replication (missense mutations)

Viruses (HIV, HPV)

Toxins (Asbestos)

etc

These things cause damage to DNA, damage to the DNA cause peptide change, peptide changes cause cancer.

The cause of cancer is very well established. Irradiate mice under intense UV, and you can cause cancer. Grab a virus, infect a mouse, cause cancer. There's a lot of information out there directly showing the causes of cancer!

[BuoGoaty]

Thanks for informing. It feels like I really have nothing to add now tho.. Do'h!

[idiallin]

lmfao we got a retard watching ted talks videos

[jamblinuk]

And who is the retard exactly?

[freshhug]

It's not true what he says in begining that we havent in general done any inpact in the war on cancer, We have and the percentage that we today can cure of cancer is like 50% better then 20 years ago. If the number of deaths he show where true then the only explanation is that the amont of cancer patients have increased. The environment has thus become more toxic etc.

[Jerkix]

The flip side is also high life expectancy - it's increased about 5 years in the same period. Cancer is a disease of the aged.

[ForestRangerFletcher]

There is something strange about his vocabulary in this talk. His choice of words seems unusual.

[12pimpinez]

yeah i saw that as well lol

[anamasteos]

@HigherPlanes Nobody deserves cancer. There are some things you are not considering about the American diet, such as, the poisons allowed by the FDA in our food supply which includes artificial ingredients, genetically modified, chemically modified and hormone filled food.

Many wealthy can afford to buy foods that are natural and shop organic markets. Many eat unhealthy foods since they are cheap and it's all they can afford. Nobody deserves cancer.

[Faergen]

This is SO win! Finally someone on Ted who is a dynamic systems advocate! I have tried to get people to understand, that this paradigm is much better than a reductionist one for months now! Thank you ted! <3

[Waranoa]

Complex systems, I believe.

[HigherPlanes]

Let me be blunt here- America is losing the war against cancer, not the rest of the world, just American, because our cultural eating and health habits promote and condition cancer. We have unhealthy habits, period. We Americans are the laziest most pathetic bunch on the planet, we deserve cancer.

The other thing about cancer is the it develops after about 6 mutations to the DNA strands. When the DNA repair mechanism isn't functioning properly, there is a mutation.......

[HigherPlanes]

If that happens 6 times, cancer develops. The reason the repair mechanism isn't working properly and our cells mutate is mostly due to our culture.

Also. young children DO get cancer, but it's a different kind of cancer that develops after one mutation to DNA, like Leukemia.

[Hewhosmokeswomen]

You realize that the United states has the highest cancer survival rates, right?

[HigherPlanes]

Cancer survival rate is high in America because we're one of the richest nations on the face of the Earth. How about cancer incidence rate?

[POLlyy23]

You evil bastard. No one deserves cancer. Dispite what you think you know about cancer your about the most ignorant and evil person ive seen on a youtube commentary. right up there with westboro baptist church. maybe even more so because you seem like youve had an education. didn't stick though...

[HigherPlanes]

Evil bastard? My point is that we have to take responsibility for the things that happen to us in life. But, fair enough, saying that certain people deserve cancer is harsh. But then again, if you're a cigarette smoker knowing that cigarette smoking is linked to lung cancer, in some philosophical way, if you get it, you asked for it. But I think you're taking what I said too literally, I wouldn't wish cancer on anyone. Some people just wish it upon themselves.

[wreckerpecker]

Cancer is natural.

Curing cancer is not what you are after, curing a horrible lifestyle and excuses most likely is.

[rick4318]

fuck you. what a waste of time.

free rick simpson.

chemo and radiation kill people. hemp oil has never killed anyone.

[piotrezzz]

no, here's the cure: phoenixtearsmovie.

to bad there's a war on that

[earlyAMbirds]

TED makes Youtube worth it.Who sponsors TED?

[DamienZshadow]

Yea, I love this stuff. Such innovative outside of the box thinking in every talk.

Also, I can't tell if I remember correctly but older TED videos had ads at the end of them that talked about engineering or something. The name eludes me though...

[earlyAMbirds]

it was IBM pushing their innovative traffic-management system with a case-in-point example from Denmark...

[DamienZshadow]

Ah! That's it! Haha, gotta love when you remember well directed commercials so vividly but forget the product they were endorsing!

[earlyAMbirds]

yeah well, I think they were just trying to show off to us so as to add prestige to their name... because I don't think most of us are in the capacity of contracting IBM for congestion prices in some big city. Nevertheless, it was nice seeing that there are people out there who are trying to capitalize on making people's lives better, instead of on greediness or making people's lives terrible...

[TucoBenedictoRex]

Google is one of their biggest sponsors.

I'm not sure about other names.

[briansmobile1]

I love the both the passion and humility that David Agus approaches his study. I feel both are necessary to progress and learning. Five stars.

[BlacksAreBeautiful]

No money in prevention, therefore, very little emphasis is placed there. Take care of yourself from a child, and you won't have to worry about being vulnerable after your "child bearing years" MD's are the biggest obstacles to cancer cure!

[garvess]

It doesn't matter how well you take care of yourself you can't eliminate cancer. Just like the doctor said, natural selection didn't care much about our health after our children were grown and independant. Thats why our bodies continually break down until we die, natural selection didn't need us anymore.

[vechio80]

But it causes very high costs not just for the individual but for society. So i think take care worth it. How doctor said, cancer is the result of certain conditions, maybe we cant control cancer, but we can control conditions.

[BlacksAreBeautiful]

See, I think this is the misconception being promoted by the medical community. When I hear a term cell damage,  that sounds about as unnatural as a cloned human being. Doesn't "damage" suggests something self inflicted to me. If you maintain a strong and healthy immune system, Cancer can't exist. Are you telling me its impossible to keep your immune system strong? If cancer can't be eliminated, how come everyone isn't afflicted with it at some point in their life?

[Jerkix]

No, damage occurs all the time.. especially from oxidative stress. It doesn't matter how "strong" your immune system, the manner in which it detect antigens will mean that certain types of cancer simply cannot be defeated by your immune system. Finally, if you live long enough you will develop cancer - it just so happens most people die of other causes first. I can explain in more detail if you so want.

[sugarkang]

love the new tedmed lectures. so glad to be out of india.

[TheInvinciblePixel]

15:75 more than 75% of the population are obese! BAM!

once more: more than 75% of the population are obese.

integrate THIS into your mindset of how people live today. (if these figures are true, of course ;)

[TheInvinciblePixel]

@TheInvinciblePixel

btw, take the upper illustration - the other one is a projection.

[NaltaLife]

IS obese

your subject cant be found in a preposition! 75% is a single quantity in your sentence, and therefore the correct verb would be IS, not ARE.

.....BAM!

[n1bigdaddy]

It's *can't*.

[Zetimenvec]

if you look at the graph, it's a graph of obesity in women in 2008 at the top, and projected obesity in women in 2015

[shiftybabymmm]

just amazed of the way he got thinking out side the box

[xjih78]

They gave 16 million dollars to the guy so we need new and better pharmaceutical drugs?! Get drug up everyone and live a couple of months longer!

[frenzyfol]

I learned about all these ideas 10 years ago in university and they still haven't been as integrated into medicine as much as they should of been.

[Psalm23YHVH]

I read that Edward Griffin in the 80s carried out research and concluded that this problem is due to the lack off VitiminB17, And this can be found in apple seed and Apricot seeds, This is what he stated

[awesomeSkins]

@Psalm23YHVH So... i should eat apple seeds from now on? o.O I'm buying some apples, BRB

[kevinscales]

All this money given to all these research groups and all we had to do was eat apple seeds, doh!

It seems that someone who majored in speech and communications figured it out in the 80's.

Please be a little more skeptical

[LemonLimeLaughter]

@kevinscales

you see, you can't patent apple seeds since it comes from nature. Doctors can't perscribe it since it isn't FDA approved, it isn't FDA approved because no company wants to invest on the testing since they wouldn't be able to get any profits from it.

[AutodidacticPhd]

"...no company wants to invest on the testing since they wouldn't be able to get any profits from it. "

Which is exactly why running medicine as a free market enterprise is wasteful, inefficient and just plain stupid. You get a medical culture that produces 6 different ways to give rich old men erections and no research into common disease and health.

[ciliaspippi]

Amen!

[Mishkafofer]

@AutodidacticPhd Thats why Soviet Medicine was so advanced, oohhh boy.

Listen Pal, i was born in USSR, and don't for a second think that Russians like their hospitals. Today they use Western Technology and drugs and don't look back.

[AutodidacticPhd]

@Mishkafofer Ok PAL, now you can take a listen. Just because you grew up in a system so backwards that the progress (made BEFORE private investment made academic medical progress nearly impossible) was a vast improvement, doesn't say squat about what is or isn't a good research model. Open ended research in independent, academic labs for a wide variety of medications or biological mechanisms gets shut down all the time now thanks to big pharma's paranoid obsession with money.

[Mishkafofer]

@AutodidacticPhd Academic labs and Commercially labs are not mutually exclusive terms. In mad man eyes maybe, but in general we should be grateful for commercial development of drugs and their mass manufacturing (Mass manufacturing is strictly commercial so Academia is not to blame for the success in this field).

I think you are a bit paranoid about the pharmaceutical industry. If we try to model this conspiracy in Game theory, each player got an incentive to develop new drugs.

[AutodidacticPhd]

@Mishkafofer I'm not paranoid. I'm at a university and I see it all the time. Someone I met who was using a drug in basic research, trying to find out what its actual mechanism is with small cell cultures (ie no medical application at all) got shut down just last month because the owner of the patent on the drug finally got it approved for sale... they shut him down because they were worried he might show that its effects are not what they assumed.

[AutodidacticPhd]

...basically, any academic researcher working on or with a chemical, technology or process that has medical significance is usually working under a private grant, and more often than not, the results they publish don't just effect renewal or loss of the grant, but whether or not they are still allowed to use the chemical or process. Saying academic and commercial labs aren't mutually exclusive is an understatement, and that is the problem.

[Mishkafofer]

@AutodidacticPhd only 5% of all registered patents became commercial. I don't think that basic research is different from patents in terms of success. About your friends case: I don't like hypothesize on fears of the patent holder, and with all due respect to your friend i don't think he is on the same level as FDA safety testing (basic research as you said) it's different methods and different statistics.

In Summery: You raise interesting point but it demand more powerful proof.

[Mishkafofer]

@AutodidacticPhd By the way one interesting lady from Italy did a presentation on TED about Economics of Terror, so maybe your point was scrutinized and checked by serious people.

From what i remember from Game Theory, there is a basic rule: A player will always do a move if its rewards him. Let's presume that All pharmaceuticals companies agreed to stop certain research and drugs, this de-facto cartel agreement that demands strong supervision without visible legal enforcement.

[AutodidacticPhd]

@Mishkafofer And Game Theory does a brilliant job of explaining all the problems in current medical research. It is most rewarding to research drugs that treat problems that are common in populations rich enough to pay for them. It is not beneficial to tackle problems that are rare, or that are more common amongst the poor. It is also preferable to make sure there is as little independent oversight and research as possible.

[Mishkafofer]

@AutodidacticPhd I personally believe that the consequence of under-development in certain medical fields is a personal decision on micro level but on macro level you start to wonder, is there any connection or central coordination? I believe and i think that you agree that the basic desire to make money by making the most profitable drugs (hair loss, libido encroachment) probably purses better the official goal of any commercial firm and that making money.

[Mishkafofer]

@AutodidacticPhd I can even take this argument to the next level. Imagine the board of directors decides to save human kind from AIDS and throw all companies resources on that research. I as a stock owner can sue the company board for violating company's official and agreeable goals of maximizing stock owner wealth and spending it on some vague or over ambitious goals and any court will agree with me.

[Mishkafofer]

@AutodidacticPhd OPEC which is Oil cartel does enforce quotas but its fails to do it efficiently and there is a dark trade of Oil. Another more powerful point is the Indian Pharmaceutical industry that violates US drug patents openly. So Indian Drug companies are openly challenging US Drug companies and presumably that secret agreement that they created, but there's an interesting point, Indian companies copy only existing drugs and not releasing new ones. The question is why?

[Itslvle]

Yeah, "vitamin B17" aka amygdalin. Take enough of it and you won't have to worry about cancer.

This isn't because it can do anything about the cancer, but it sure does break down in the body to produce cyanide. All your troubles will soon be a thing of the past.

[LemonLimeLaughter]

Actually, it is not straight up cyanide. I know what you are talking about though. It is a molecule that is composed partly of cyanide, so it is non toxic. But due to a chemical reaction, I forgot exactly how the whole process goes, the the cyanide becomes toxic when they absorb cancer cells. Therefore, acting as an anti-cancer molecule.

[Itslvle]

It goes from amygdalin to prunasin to mandelonitrile to cyanide. Obviously other products emerge, but are unnecessary to mention here. If taken orally, it will be broken down into cyanide in the small intestine and in rather unpredictable amounts as it depends how much the other foods you've ingested contain beta-glucosidase. So it "fires" way too early.

In addition to that, it's efficacy in cancer treatment hasn't really been shown in clinical trials.

[AutodidacticPhd]

"due to a chemical reaction, I forgot exactly how the whole process goes, the the cyanide becomes toxic when they absorb cancer cells."

Yeah, not really. The chemistry is such that, as Itslvle pointed out, the enzymatic reaction that produces the cyanide happens in the gut. So oral delivery would be toxic, untargeted, and unpredictable... it also doesn't look like it would absorb well dermally or sublingually, so the only option left is injection... but most cancer cells can't catalyze it.

[veronicadredd22]

wow that was informative

[TheDepreso]

Brilliant!

[Iced1992]

Excellent.

[ALPHAdog29]

Lul Wut