Why Cancer ‘Cure’ Stories Are Mostly Nonsense
We probably won’t be annihilating all solid tumors any time soon
At least once a year, we get a series of media headlines proclaiming that scientists have hit the holy grail. That we’ve found the big one. That the cure for cancer is just around the corner, or potentially already here.
We’ve recently seen a perfect example of this hubbub. News sources across the globe have been touting new research as an almost universal treatment for cancer. According to the press release for the study, the new drug could “annihilate all solid tumors”, which sounds incredibly impressive for a single medication.
Unfortunately for all of us, the most likely outcome for this new drug is that it has no benefit in the treatment of cancer. This is a well-worn track of hyped results that often have little to no meaning for actual humans receiving cancer treatment at all.
The Cycle Of Cancer Hype
Let’s contextualize this story, because the new study is just another symptom of the same disease. When it comes to cancer research — and most pharmaceutical therapeutics — there are a number of steps that researchers and funders have to go through to get a drug on the market:
- Identify an interesting molecule
