Re: Curing cancer (just a couple of paragraphs)

[Guest guest]

It is an important point and easy enough to test. Simply look at the bones of

men who died in Africa. Go back as far as you can, and as near as you can.

The Scithian King you mention had evidence of osteoblastic disease and testing

showed the presence of PSA. This is a very rare occurrance. There is another one

from Wharram Percy. They are the only two I could find and I did a pretty

thorough search. I'd be glad if anyone can show me other instances of prostate

cancer in ancient populations.

i http://www.eng-h.gov.uk/ArchRev/rev95_6/enviro.htm Image and paragraph 3.

ii T, Wakely J, A. Medieval example of metastatic carcinoma: a

dry bone, radiological, and SEM study. Am J Phys Anthropol. 1992

Nov;89(3):309-23. PubMed:1485639

iii Aufderheide & -; The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human

Paleopathology. CUP, 1998; ISBN10 (hardback) 0521552036, pp388-390.

iv Int J Cancer. 2007 Oct 4; Oldest known case of metastasizing prostate

carcinoma diagnosed in the skeleton of a 2,700-year-old Scythian king from

Arzhan (Siberia, Russia). Schultz M, Parzinger H, Posdnjakov DV, Chikisheva TA,

Schmidt-Schultz TH.Department of Anatomy, University of Göttingen, Germany.

PubMed: 17918181

> >

> > I know that cancer patients and their families are frustrated by

> > the fact that we still have no cures for most cancers and

> > progress seems to be very slow.

> >

> > Various explanations are advanced for these facts such as:

> >

> > 1. Not enough money is going into research.

> >

> > That's undoubtedly true, but then everyone wants more money

> > for everything and at the same time want lower taxes and

> > smaller government. However, while there isn't as much money

> > in cancer research as I'd like, there is a fair amount.

> >

> > 2. The medical establishment is suppressing progress in order to

> > protect their incomes from treating cancer patients.

> >

> > Personally, I think this one is totally false. Doctors and

> > their families get cancer too. So do pharmaceutical company

> > executives. Big pharma does put more money into heartburn,

> > blood pressure, diabetes, and other chronic conditions than

> > cancer, but I don't think they or anyone else are suppressing

> > research.

> >

> > 3. Scientists are too dumb or too narrow minded to see the facts

> > and solve the problems.

> >

> > I think this one is totally false too. I've met a number of

> > scientists, including a few that I thought were narrow

> > minded, but none that I thought were dumb. It's pretty hard

> > for a dumb person to get a PhD in chemistry, biology, or

> > medicine.

> >

> > Genius is a wonderful thing. I wish we had more geniuses

> > working in cancer research. But we do have some, and we have

> > a lot of extremely bright people working too.

> >

> > And now I'd like to give what I think is the real reason that

> > progress has been so slow:

> >

> > 4. Curing cancer is a very, very, very hard problem.

> >

> > Human bodies are estimated to have on the order of

> > 100,000,000,000,000 cells in them. Nobody knows for sure.

> > Nobody knows how to count them. Those cells are composed of

> > many thousands of different kinds of molecules, organized

> > into hundreds of different kinds of structures, and produced

> > by the translation and interaction of perhaps 20,000 genes

> > with a vast array of chemical signals, promoters, repressors,

> > and post-transcriptional modifiers of many different types -

> > some of which have only been discovered in the last ten years

> > and many others, no doubt, have not yet been discovered at

> > all. The interactions stimulated by a single signalling

> > molecule, for example the arrival of molecule of testosterone

> > at a membrane protein on the surface of a cell, may involve

> > dozens of chemical reactions, all taking place at a

> > submicroscopic level, under conditions which are extremely

> > difficult or impossible to simulate in a laboratory, and

> > which are way too small and too surrounded by other chemicals

> > and reactions to possibly be directly observed in living

> > cells.

> >

> > Some of the most fundamental facts of this system, for

> > example, the structure of DNA, have only been understood in

> > the last 60 years. Many key facts have only been discovered

> > in the last ten years. A great many more have not yet been

> > discovered at all. We don't even know how much more there is

> > to learn.

> >

> > This is very difficult stuff to study and understand!

> >

> > Ordinary infectious diseases are difficult enough. But for

> > those, there is a single pathogen, a foreign invader -

> > bacterial or viral, that causes the damage. Cancer is

> > different. The body itself goes wrong. A lot of what goes

> > wrong appears to be bound up with aging, a process that is

> > still very poorly understood and something that no one has

> > ever yet been able to stop.

> >

> > In my view, there are no shortcuts to solving the cancer problem.

> > It's going to require thousands of highly educated and

> > intelligent people, working over many decades, doing the most

> > difficult, tedious, and brain bending work. , the

> > co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, has worked on the problem

> > of cancer for the last 40 years. He hasn't solved it. His well

> > funded laboratory hasn't solved it. Neither has anyone else.

> >

> > I believe if someone here thinks he can find the answer, the

> > first thing he should do is spend about ten years in intensive

> > study of chemistry, biology, and medicine. When he's done that,

> > I'd like to hear what he has to say about it. If he's not

> > willing to do that, if he thinks those studies aren't necessary,

> > if he thinks he can evaluate all the scientific literature

> > without that, if he thinks it isn't necessary to understand DNA

> > replication, mutation repair, mitosis, RNA transcription,

> > phosphorylation, protein folding, G-proteins, signaling cascades,

> > cross membrane transport, ubiquitination, apoptosis, and all the

> > rest of the molecular biology that's at the heart of modern

> > cancer research, then I think he's kidding himself. However well

> > intentioned he is, if he makes pseudo-authoritative

> > pronouncements about cancer cures, he's trying to kid others.

> >

> > You can't design a television set without a deep understanding of

> > electronics. You can't design a skyscraper without a deep

> > understanding of civil engineering. Curing cancer is a _lot_

> > harder than either of those endeavors.

> >

> > People who have never constructed a TV set from transistors,

> > capacitors, resistors, and other components know intuitively that

> > they aren't able to do it. However some people who have never

> > looked through a microscope at a cancerous cell and wouldn't know

> > how to recognize one if they saw it, never performed a single

> > chemical experiment, never read a textbook on cancer biology, and

> > never cured a patient, imagine they know the cause and cure of

> > cancer.

> >

> > When I was a small boy I sometimes made pronouncements about this

> > or that to my grandmother. She would respond with, " Don't you

> > believe yourself! " It was good advice.

> >

> > Alan

> >

>