Just got devastating news - UPDATE

[Patiod]

178. not really.

First, sorry about your parents. I lost my dad this month, so I know where you're coming from.

Second, I earn my money from Big Pharma, and have worked with top management at a whole lot off different companies, and they NOT sitting on cure for all the many cancers out there. Think of it this way: people in "Big Oil" could sit on alternate energy, and no one they know would be affected, because they can afford expensive gas, and they won't be around by the time climate change starts ruining lives.

But people in Big Pharma have kids, spouses and parents that are impacted by cancer - many have cancer themselves. Believe me, if the were "refusing" to find a cure, Big Pharma folks with cancer or with cancer in their families would be screaming to high heaven. You can't buy your way out of cancer the way you can buy your way out of expensive oil. They aren't refusing to find a cure - they desperately want to cure themselves and their kids, spouses and parents every bit as much as we do.

A disproportionate percentage of people who work for companies like Endo (which makes diabetic treatments) and Becton Dickenson (which makes diabetic supplies) are diabetics themselves. These are not people who would refuse to find a cure for diabetes. It's the same way in cancer treatment - lots of people go into cancer research because they lost a loved one to cancer.

The real problem is that we're probably going to have to look in new directions for cures, and we need to look to some of the causes - in the case of liver cancer, treating and eliminating hepatitis to lower rates of liver cancer - to even start lowering mortality from the end cancer.

And here is where you're partially right - the "system" - the funding - tends to be skewed to pharmaceutical treatments, when we need to spend more time and money looking at gene therapy, surgical/invasive treatments, and other therapies that aren't delivered by pill, injection or infusion.

But I think it's more a case of "that's how we've always done it" and it needs to be shaken-up, the way Lee Ioccoca is shaking up diabetic research.