this post was submitted on 06 May 2024
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politics

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[–] [email protected] 158 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Sounds philosophically consistent. What could be more pro-life, pro-business and pro-freedom than being in favour of endless cell growth unchecked by cell apoptosis? Come to think of it, not only does curing cancer sound like a socialist anti-prosperity regulatory agenda, killing off cells that would naturally grow is a little too close to abortion.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 6 months ago

Curing Cancer is anti-Capitalist! Unlimited Growth Always and Forever!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago

And elitist!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

They refuse to even let us abort cancer cells.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

The body has a way of shutting it down.

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[–] [email protected] 133 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Conservatives are generally opposed to any healthcare they personally do not need at the moment. They distrust science, education and medicine. Given a choice, most conservatives would dissolve all scientific research in the U.S.

Conservatism is a plague of idiocy, sickness and death. This has been true throughout all recorded history.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago

But think of the shareholders /s

[–] [email protected] 91 points 6 months ago (3 children)

We should keep a record of the nay votes so we can remind them should any of them be diagnosed with cancer.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 6 months ago (2 children)

They get free government healthcare, so they don't care.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Doesn't matter how good your healthcare is if your cancer (or other disease) can't be treated.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago

Those voting records could come in handy any old time…

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

They will still do mental gymnastic to blame democrat

[–] [email protected] 73 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I don't know how accurate this is, but I know that it fits with Repubs voting against the migrant bill that they had formerly wanted because it would help Trump on the campaign. Whether this is true or not doesn't change that they openly want to stall government, therefore this could be true.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I don’t know how accurate this is

Biden made a rather cavalier claim that he was going to fund investments in medical science that would lead to a final cure for all forms of cancer within the next decade. And I think we can safely say that's bullshit.

However, ramping up blue sky medical research and public sector spending on the adoption of new medical technology would be helpful in treating a host of cancerous maladies and potentially curing or inoculating against others.

Consider that the US isn't even on the front line of cancer research anymore. Cuba's cancer research has outpaced research in the states for over a decade. That, alone, should tell you what kind of progress is possible with a little strategic public investment.

Whether this is true or not doesn’t change that they openly want to stall government, therefore this could be true.

Conservatives hate public investment, particularly when it threatens private profits. Liberals do too, abet not as fervently (see: our bipartisan obsession with the health of the domestic automotive, financial, real estate, insurance, and commercial export agricultural industries).

But this is more an issue of scoring political points. Republicans were happy enough to finance Operation Warp Speed under Trump, in order to fast track the vaccine they thought they'd get to take credit for in 2020. And they loved nothing more than giant state sponsored give-aways to Majority Leader Bill Frist's family owned Hospital Corporation of America.

So they're not strictly against government spending. They simply don't want another Liberal Democrat like Kennedy taking credit for putting a man on the moon.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago (5 children)

While I get the point you’re trying to make, it’s just incredibly wrong about cuba. Carry on for the rest.

Source: I do lots of cancer related research.

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[–] [email protected] 64 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Fun fact! Cuba has a vaccine for lung cancer - ~~yes, it works and has been independently verified. No, you can't have it because embargo.~~

EDIT: vaccine here isn't actually what I thought. In this case it is a treatment to be used for certain kinds of lung cancer, not a preventative measure as we are used to thinking of Vaccine. Thanks to the comment below for going through it and pushing me to do proper research.

While my initial take was a glib link to a wikipedia page and not thoroughly researched, I do sill believe that the embargo has directly caused this treatment to come to market in the west as the levels of cooperation are non-existent. It has been used for 7 years in Cuba but is only now entering Stage 3 trials in the US.

Cuba have also became the first country to have 0 mother-child transmissions of HIV.

But the US has decided that working with Cuba to prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths each year (in the States alone) is less important than causing "economic dissatisfaction and hardship" to the Cuban people.

[–] [email protected] 122 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (7 children)

Slight correction on that vaccine, the FDA doesn't authorize any drug for sale in the US that hasn't passed it's rigorous trials and gone through its approval process. It's currently being tested and has more trials ongoing right now. FDA will be able to approve it for sale if it passes its trials.

https://ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/JCO.2023.41.16_suppl.9135

Also the word cancer vaccine kind of implies cure to some, but it's not by any means:

"MST was 10.83 months for vaccinated vs. 8.86 months for non-vaccinated. In the Phase III trial, the 5-year survival rate was 14.4% for vaccinated subjects vs. 7.9% for controls."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5346887/

So it might be a useful tool but just don't want to get hopes up unnecessarily. People who's immune system reacted to the vaccine the strongest did best, so current trials are focused on combining it with an immune checkpoint inhibitor drug to increase the immune response even more hopefully (and those drugs are already being used by themselves in cancer). These drugs block "checkpoints" in the immune system that would normally stop it from attacking things like yourself, which we kind of want it to do in cancer.

Not saying I support an embargo in Cuba, I don't, just don't want this comment to be inadvertently read as "Cuba has had the cure to lung cancer this whole time and you're not allowed to have it!" which isn't true.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (26 children)

Wow this comment really unwinds the one you replied to, so much so that the original seems in bad faith

Edit op edited, and improved their comment. You don't need to defend them, they are fine on their own

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It’s almost as if people just go on lemmy and tell lies.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago

I mean, it's still true that Cuba has likely made significant advances in the cancer medicine, but it hasn't passed the standards of the FDA yet. And it's still true that the embargo between Cuba and the US is upheld to this day by politicians despite the potential good that could come from opening up trade again.

The first comment to me reads as more just overly enthusiastic, more than explicitly bad faith to me.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

Thank for you adding some incredibly well summarized context.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Cigarette industry would be all over a lung cancer vaccine

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

It's also not a vaccine in the sense it's preventing cancer, it's for the treatment of cancer that is already there, specifically non small cell lung cancers (though it's being tested in other cancers that use the signaling mechanism being targeted). Not saying it's impossible that it could prevent cancer, just that it hasn't been tested in that way to the best of my knowledge.

There is some precedence for a vaccine like that though. The HPV vaccine for instance prevents HPV (and therefore hpv related cancers), but is also used as a treatment if an HPV related cancer develops.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Another clear example why both sides are NOT the same.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 months ago (1 children)

They aren't. But if one side could grow a pair instead of pretending that the other side is still willing to debate and act rationally like it's still the 90s, that would be great.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (7 children)

Tbh, a cure for cancer is a little like finding a cure for all respiratory infections. You're talking about a pathology that encompasses hundreds of distinct diseases. Sure, maybe it is doable, but calling it a moonshot is a little generous; landing on the moon would be several orders of magnitude easier by comparison, imo.

Just so I'm clear, it's still shitty that they blocked this.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Read the article. It’s pretty clear that cancer is hundreds of different diseases and extremely unlikely to have a single silver bullet, but this description reads more like a coordination project

the program has made strides in expanding access to cancer detection screenings, especially to veterans, increased support for programs aimed at preventing cancer in the first place and provided funding to groundbreaking cancer cure research

Its goal is to cut cancer deaths in half by making diagnostics cheaper and more available, funding prevention, and funding research into treatments. No magical silver bullets here

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (1 children)

When you type out the words "read the article", it forms a verbal missile of hate aimed right at my heart

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Ouch. Not intended as that but I do think your concern was answered in the article, and we’re all sometimes guilty of skimming the article or reacting to inflammatory headlines

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I was being dramatic, no need for alarm. I read several articles a day, typically, but I'm usually pretty selective about it and this one didn't make the cut, though I still wanted to discuss the topic. So, here we are.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

I find it interesting that for many serious diseases, the biggest determinant of outcome can be how early you detect it. It’s not something I ever really appreciated before the advent of so many inexpensive tests, and seeing all sorts of stats on just how much difference early detection can make!

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 28 points 6 months ago

ALL cells matter!

[–] [email protected] 33 points 6 months ago

You can blame Newt Gingrich for that one, he installed in the R's hyper partisanship and the idea that they can never let the D's get a "win". It carried them to a majority back in the 80's, and much like voodoo economics, they haven't changed the playbook since, since it still works.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 months ago

To me it seems, a rich minority is gaming the system (political theatre, Fox news, CNN... --> public opinion), hoping to secure wealth and power against "the will of the people", up to a point where the system will eventually break and be replaced by dictatorship.

Ironically it is much more dangerous to be a billionaire in Russia or China than in the US or Europe.

Maybe that should be our message: it seems easier to exploit us without checks and balances, but having none can be very dangerous for you and your family.

However, the leader who will eventually emerge, the one using AI to check this comment, will be best for all of us, I'm sure!

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago

Yay! Go Republicans! /s

You fucking idiots.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago

Yes we all know that they fail at their jobs and fail to uphold anything that their office is supposed to stand for thereby failing the American people. Republicans are failures. That is an absolute fact.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago

> claims to be pro-life

> isn't

GOP.jpg

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

I seriously hope they all get cancer themselves, just for the irony and to watch them claim they are still standing by their decision to die a gruesome death

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago

As someone who works in oncology data science, this is fucking infuriating. But also, politically, it’s 100% expected.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

Can someone call an adult?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

Killing us all to own the libs.

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