• Question: Is there a possibility that there is a cure for cancer, but the government is keeping us from it? it would be more beneficial to the government for them to treat people with cancer than to cure it, so with current scientific advancements, is it possible we have already found a cure?

    Asked by SubAtomicMidget to Arlene, Baljit, Jesus, MG, Michael on 9 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Jesus Calvo-Castro

      Jesus Calvo-Castro answered on 9 Nov 2015:

      Hi @SubAtomicMidget. Great question!I have heard/read quite a lot of news related to the discussion you open here, most of the time involving pharmaceutical companies. To be honest, I do not think that a government would think of financial benefit with something so important as curing cancer. I think in the following years, cures or more advanced treatments of cancer will start being available, there is a lot of research and effort in this field.

    • Photo: Maire Gorman

      Maire Gorman answered on 10 Nov 2015:

      Okay time for me to be very cynical.

      NHS is held to ransom by pharmaceutical companies who are businesses with shareholders. IE their main purpose is ultimately to make a profit to pay their shareholders.

      Once a pharmaceutical creates a drug it can then ‘patent it’-ie claim intellectual property rights to it. And whoosh! They can now set the price of it!

      They will argue that they need the money to offset the cost of research & development(it takes a lot of money & trials to create a drug, go through safety testing etc).

      The more rare/unusual the condition, the more the cost.

      In terms of cure-well lets not destroy the rainforests.

      A huge problem in medicine these days is antibiotic resistance(but that’s another topic….)

    • Photo: Baljit Ghatora

      Baljit Ghatora answered on 10 Nov 2015:

      This is a very interesting discussion and topic that always sparks debates….I will think about using this in one of my lectures with my students… So my opinion is that the pharmaceutical companies are not om;y in it for a profit- but they have also signed up to the job because they wish to make a difference. If they already had the cure- why would the government be investing their money and time into paying the researchers into finding a cure? Medical research takes years and even decades to develop. A bunch of scientists may come up with 10 different possible drugs they think will work- all 10 of those drugs do not get tested in clinical research…they go through a really tight rigorous testing procedure and even after that they may never be released into the market. Lets face it- would you really want a drug released that has not been tested fully?

    • Photo: Michael Kyriakides

      Michael Kyriakides answered on 10 Nov 2015:

      @SubAtomicMidget – As Jesus has said, i really doubt that we have found a cure for cancer already. As far as i understand, we are not close yet and the government wouldn’t gain much financially by not disclosing it!

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