Cancer - Billions of Dollars Raised - Decades of Research - No Cure - Why?

Billions and billions and billions of dollars have been raised around the world for cancer research to find a cure - and decades and decades and decades have been spent researching - yet . . . . there is no cure - did you ever wonder why?

The pat answer generally is that there are multiple strains of cancer and each one behaves differently. Then they say it's caused by environmental factors or genetic factors or a host of other factors - but there is no cure - no vaccine - nothing. And, of course, the patient is to blame - not eating right, not being detected early, not exercising, etc.

"Not being detected early" is the one that really bugs me.

A manager we had in our building hadn't been feeling good for a while. He visited the doctor often and had a lot of tests done. It took a year before they diagnosed that he had cancer!!! Well . . . hey, do you think the cancer grew in that year while they were - the medical community - trying to figure out what was wrong with him?

And a friend who died in January - she had been complaining to her doctor about a cough and low energy for a year and half - "by accident" she saw another doctor who thought it might be a good idea for her to have an xray of her lungs - do you think seeing an xray a year earlier might have helped?

Do they know how to detect cancer in the first place?

And then they say that they are seeing more and more success in curing some forms of cancer and patients are more comfortable dying. Holy hanna - after all these years and dollars, there should be something!

Really? Too simplistic - you mean the fact that I ask the questions that no one seems able to answer.

A number of diseases have come and gone since we've been trying to find a cure for cancer. For instance, not that long ago, they didn't even know what AIDS was. Now people are living a relatively normal life with AIDS - it's no longer the sure death sentence it was.

Is it to simplistic to ask why patients are put through certain therapies?

I had a friend die in January from cancer and the devastation on her system when she was convinced to go through chemotherapy was unbelievable. They said chemo helps with the pain - really?

All I saw was a person in more pain as a result of the side effects of the therapy - could it be something else that's driving the "suggestion" to have chemo therapy? The specialist she had seen told her to go home and enjoy the last few months she had left and not take chemo. But an agency told her otherwise. Chemo's side effects are incredible! Why would anyone subject a dying person to that kind of torture?

When I look around, what I see is:

• a huge adminstration in the "fight for cancer". Thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars spent on huge administrations sucking the dollars away from research. There are layers upon layers upon layers of administration and each one disconnected from the other.
• an enormous structure that if it were dismantled because a cure was found would result in a lot of people being out of jobs, without those huge salaries and incredible benefits.
• a multitude of high-priced drugs being prescribed to patients and, of course, if cancer had a cure, all that money paid to pharceutical companies would disappear.
• decades of research and still talking about curing cancer
• families who have had a family member die of cancer disgusted by the whole medical system
• little incentive to find cures

What I see is a lot of suffering by a lot of people for many decades - and I wonder why.

It's time to ask the tough questions before we go out and participate in a fundraising event and send our donations in

It's time to see where the dollars are really going and why.

It's time to expose who is benefiting from all this "supposed" research going on - is any money at all getting to the labs for the research? If so, how much of a percentage? How large are the labs compared the administrative apparatus surrounding it?

It's time to ask if possibly we should be looking for something other than a cure - could it be that cancer could be a managed disease?

It's time to ask how much money pharmeceutical companies are making from all this pain or better yet, how much of their profits would go out the window if a cure was ever found for all forms of cancer.

It's time to ask who the people are benefitting and how that is hindering the research - not on finding new drugs - but on a real cure - follow the dollars - it usually tells the story

It's time to ask the really tough questions which no one seems to want to answer!

 Caveat - I'm not part of a protest group nor am I associated with researchers or any other entity associated with cancer or anti-establishment group.  I'm merely a citizen who has seen so much suffering by so many people with this disease. 

I've seen the proliferation of fundraisers and huge administrations build up around this disease - and yet people still suffer.  My grandfather died of cancer around 1965 - a vibrant, healthy man struck down painfully with this disease.  A relative now is dying of the same disease, no less painfully - and the list grows every single day - children, mothers, fathers, grandfathers, grandmothers, aunts, uncles, friends, partners, husbands, wives, colleagues, neighbors - yes, we must all die because that's the nature of being human - but wouldn't it be nicer to die because our bodies just wore out! 

And, yes, lesser known diseases such as ALS have seen little to no advancement in finding a cure either after decades of research -

And I do not doubt that many in the 'industry' sincerely believe they are contributing in a positive way towards a cure . . . .but . . . the tough questions must be asked and answered.  It's the only way that we can see if what we're doing is contributing positively or not to the goal.  Must we re-group, re-structure and re-define our approach?  There are so many questions -