The Giant Cancer Cure Conspiracy

One of the unfortunate aspects of having a rare cancer is that tragedy after tragedy unfolds before your eyes. We have a wonderful support group of people who have this insidious disease and we all try desperately to help each other, and we all suffer the consequences of loosing the battle each time one of us dies. We are fighters and we are strong, but we are also vulnerable and simply human too. Some of my more human thoughts are provoked when I am confronted by self absorbed people who blithely sail through life with no concern what so ever for other people. If there was less "me" and more "what can I do", we'd already have cures for many diseases that are just waiting to be funded. The cures are simply waiting in the imagination of scientists who are by the nature of the funding cycle, drawn to bigger diseases which affect larger audiences. As proof of principle, I am going to post some stats (check them out for yourself here: http://www.lls.org/all_page?item_id=9346) from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, where survival rates have QUADRUPLED over the past 5 decades as a result of intensive scientific research!

Survival
The five-year relative survival rate has nearly quadrupled in the past 49 years for patients with leukemia. From 1960 to 1963, the five-year relative survival rate among whites with leukemia was 14 percent. From 1975 to 1977, the five-year relative survival rate for all persons with leukemia jumped to 35.6 percent, and from 1999 to 2006 the overall relative survival rate was 55.3 percent. The relative survival rates differ by the person's age at diagnosis, gender, race and the type of leukemia.

From 1999 to 2006, the five-year relative survival rates overall** were:

Acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL): 66.4 percent overall; 90.8 percent for children under 5
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL): 79.7 percent
Acute myelogenous leukemia (AML): 24.2 percent overall; 60.9 percent for children under 15
Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML): 54.6 percent

So for anyone who subscribes to the notion that there's already "a" cure, but big pharma won't release "it" because they wouldn't make as much money, put these stats in your pipe and smoke it (although smoking IS bad for your health from what I've heard...). Oh yeah and if big pharma wanted to really make money off of cancer, they wouldn't let us die in a couple years, where's the money in that? They'd find a drug that just kept us going for decades, now that's what I call profit!