11 ms·
We’re secretly winning the war on cancer
- leakycap 1y agoI was lucky enough to be seen by MD Anderson doctors for my rare type of cancer. Within hours of the first painless infusion, the large tumors I could feel and see from the outside were completely gone. Hours, truly. Now, the rest of the chemo wasn't as easy as the first. But the miracles of modern medicine, thanks to dedicated researchers and medical teams, truly blew my mind and that was a decade ago. I was told I was one of 42 people ever that MD Anderson had seen with this cancer, yet they were able to tailor a treatment. I think Vox is right about the progress being amazing, and I hope it continues.
- wileydragonfly 1y agoI’ve met people that have moved to Houston for cancer treatment there, were given 1-2 years to live, and they’re still here 15-20 years later. It is a really remarkable place.
- yellow_lead 1y agoMD Anderson is great. The greater Houston area has too much cancer, in part caused by the many refineries and chemical factories. At least there are good treatment options nearby. https://www.propublica.org/article/toxmap-poison-in-the-air https://www.propublica.org/article/toxmap-poison-in-the-air
- looofooo0 1y agoAny statistics on this claim?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- beerandt 1y ago'Cancer Alley' maps are generally just the same cherrypicked socioeconomic/ racial map you see everywhere- especially the refinery claims. Adjust for those factors and the increased incidence disappears.
- looofooo0 1y agoAll these things people claim in the comments section seem like not very rigorous. Also, any increase in cancer cases has to be corrected for overweight people in the US.
- Majromax 1y ago> Adjust for those factors and the increased incidence disappears. 'Adjusting' for those factors builds in the assumption that they're independent of the thing you're trying to measure. If living near a smokestack is undesirable, then poorer/marginalized people will live there even if it also causes cancer.
- timcobb 1y agoMaybe they meant race/socioeonomics, not pollution.
- EasyMark 1y agoI assume they meant if you look at roughly the same socioeconomic group that lives 500 miles from refineries as opposed to 500 meters you'll find similar numbers for cancer/other stuff. I'm not on either side of the fence because I don't know, just pointing out what was meant. I'd welcome statistics from either case.
- comte7092 1y agoThe challenge is that it’s very unlikely that race/socioeconomic factors are causal in and of themselves, the reason why you would adjust for those variables is because they are tightly correlated with other causal factors that aren’t being observed directly, e.g. poorer healthcare availability, poorer access to healthy foods, etc. Environmental pollution very reasonably can be hypothesized to be a causal mechanism behind cancer rates. Exposure to which is going to be heavily correlated with race and socioeconomics. I may be misinterpreting OP, but their statement came off as “cancer maps are just maps of where poor non white people live, so it’s not the pollution”, but you can’t just “control” for things that way. Given the fact that environmental pollution is a hazard, there’s a reason why that demographic lives there that makes the exposure to pollution not independent from the demographic characteristics of the population.
- magicalhippo 1y agoHere in Norway there had been increasing focus on the long-term consequences of working on oil rigs. There's been several studies[1] showing multiple different forms of cancer are over-represented among oil workers[2], and linked to benzene and crude oil exposure. Granted Norway's oil is exclusively offshore, so exposure might be different. But, contrary to what a former boss supposedly told his rig workers, just because oil is a natural product does imply it and its processing is harmless. [1]: https://www.fhi.no/en/cancer/studies/cancer-among-offshoreworkers/about-the-study/ https://www.fhi.no/en/cancer/studies/cancer-among-offshorewo... [2]: https://www.forskning.no/arbeidsvilkar-olje-og-gass/olje-pioneren-jan-erik-har-mistet-kolleger-til-kreft-og-ble-selv-syk-av-kjemikalier-na-oppdager-forskere-stadig-nye-kreftformer-knyttet-til-arbeid-med-olje/2413970 https://www.forskning.no/arbeidsvilkar-olje-og-gass/olje-pio...
- burnt-resistor 1y agoHouston has zillions of petrochem facilities around it that regularly blow up.
- apwell23 1y agofr 90% of cancer treatment just slash, burn or poison.
- xattt 1y agoYou mention rapid debulking following an infusion. That must have been a surreal experience. Congratulations! How does the treatment you received compare to the current standard of care? Would current therapies also result in rapid debulking as well?
- leakycap 1y agoI remember the little clear IV looked like saline and the nurse said, "Your insurance is getting billed $75,000 for this, so lay back and enjoy" - that was one of many expensive treatments, I was very lucky to have good insurance. I was told the rapid debulking was because the first infusion I got was a targeted drug that specifically found and destroyed the cancer cells. The follow up chemo was R-CHOP (Rituximab, Cyclophosphamide, Doxorubicin, Vincristine, and Prednisone), and my understanding this regimen is still being used.
- Loughla 1y agoMy dad just went through lymphoma treatment using R-CHOP in 2024. It really is like a miracle. He felt like shit for a day after treatment (actually he felt like shit for one entire day, three days after treatment because he was pumped so full of steroids). Otherwise no real side effects.
- zevets 1y agoI take four pills a day and the primary side effect is weight gain. The earlier 1950s era treatment made me exhausted 24/7. There's a new trial that has a new target, and looks to solve the remaining symptoms of the disease, with effectively no side effects The big problem is that it's a chronic blood cancer, so the pills have a list price of $180k/yr. Who knows if my insurance will cough up for a second big-money prescription/
- Xenoamorphous 1y agoOut of curiosity, when some medication causes weight gain, how does it work? Does it increase appetite? Or does it slow metabolic rate?
- dghughes 1y agoNot OP but I'd guess fluid retention.
- Loughla 1y agoUsually it's just fluid.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- kolinko 1y agoUsually, aside from water retention, it’s the appetite, I would assume. Lower metabolic rate by itself would lower the appetite because the person would feel less hungry.
- OkayPhysicist 1y agoMetabolic rate and appetite are loosely correlated at best. Most stimulants simultaneously reduce appetite, and increase metabolic rate. (in fact, that's where a significant portion of their negative side effects come from. Habitual meth users tend to become malnourished, mostly because of the appetite suppression, which combined with teeth grinding jitters, causes the iconic "meth mouth")
- dumb1224 1y agoThe common cancer treatment modalities: surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, targeted drugs and their combinations are very effective first line treatments. I agree the statistics are much better. In the field of cancer research it has been focusing more on drug / treatment resistance, heterogeneous response to the same treatment and development of less invasive methods both in treatment and assessment (imaging and monitoring). We have made huge progress in terms of deeper understanding of cancer biology and human disease mechanism in general. However we have a very long way to understand when things progress outside of our control how to respond. E.g the key cancer drivers have been identified long ago but how biology and evolution modulate its response to external treatment has so much unknowns. That requires large effort to push the whole foundation of science to elucidate the details of these processes in my opinion.
- apwell23 1y agoThing with any cancer treatment is that it works miraculously for someone somewhere and makes it to the news all over. But it rarely translates to that level of success with masses of cancer patients.
- jghn 1y agoThat is overly reductive. Treatments are measured by metrics such as 5 year survival, 10 year survival, progression-free survival, overall survival, etc. Further, when evaluating a new treatment it will be compared against the current standard of care: does it provide better overall survival? if not, does it at least provide better progression-free survival?
- apwell23 1y agoright i wasn't talking about incremental improvements, Which there have been many. But there hasn't been a fundamental breakthrough to achieve what gp is describe for 99% of advanced cancers. > Within hours of the first painless infusion, the large tumors I could feel and see from the outside were completely gone.
- leakycap 1y agoThe breakthroughs have been happening right under your nose. For example, when they do a biopsy now you get incredible detail about the subtype of cancer/cells and details that help target treatment. I'm not the only person with this kind of story of rapid debulking, that's why someone else chimed in with the medical term. The miracle isn't my one story; the modern miracle of medicine and the fight against cancer is that my story IS one of thousands every month that leave MD Anderson (just one hospital) and have their lives literally extended. In my case, a decade so far with no more trouble, knock on wood. I think you cannot expect a blanket solution for cancer. Cancers are all extremely different. We will have thousands of breakthroughs for these myriad of cancer types.
- apwell23 1y ago
- gaoshan 1y ago>the progress being amazing, and I hope it continues. and that it does not require being lucky to receive, as you were.
- leakycap 1y agoAll things have to start somewhere. My insurance paid the extreme prices that this rare treatment required at the time, and my treatment meant they had more data (and now a decade of follow up) to verify if the treatment works. I didn't have a job with insurance because of luck, in fact I was aware enough of medical costs I chose which job I accepted based on the medical benefits. I was lucky to be alive at a time treatment was available and within reach of a modern working person, not lucky like the Queen's nephew being promoted. I think saying I was single and working my first job out of college should put it in perspective here. I didn't drive a Cadillac to my chemos. Stuff costs money, especially medical R&D, production, and care delivery.
- bbor 1y ago[flagged]
- db48x 1y agoEh, most research is done privately by corporations. The fraction that happens at universities is not critical. There are more postdocs than will ever become researchers or professors; most will have to get jobs outside the industry anyway. And huge swathes of the public research is tainted by irreproducibility and scandal. But most importantly there is no reason why that research has to be paid for by the government, out of taxpayer funds. The research will still be done, but more of the money will come from the corporations who benefit the most from it.
- tired_and_awake 1y agoSeriously are you trolling? Or do you just enjoy making things up?
- epistasis 1y agoI can not recall seeing a HN comment more wrong than this, every factual assertion is incorrect and the subjective judgements are completely out of line.
- db48x 1y ago> …and the subjective judgements are completely out of line. This is the dumbest thing you’ve ever said, that’s for sure. I can have any opinions I want. I’m not limited to thinking thoughts you approve of, or that toe some imaginary line that you think exists.
- knowaveragejoe 1y agoThis reads like post-hoc justification for what's going on, based on a tangled web of misconceptions about publicly funded medical research. The therapies in the article originated from government funded research that took decades to mature. "Huge swathes" of this kind of research are not plagued by reproducibility issues.
- epistasis 1y ago[flagged]
- appleaday1 1y agosource?
- epistasis 1y ago>> I won't forget who did this, and who backed them. Perhaps not the biggest words when they do not care about a soul outside their bubble, and consider all scientists to be pond scum to be swept away and destroyed. > source? Personal correspondence with my black, broken, heart.
- dennis_jeeves2 1y agoReplying to your previous message since it's grayed out and responding is not possible. >I have never been more pessimistic about the future of cancer treatment. >We had a great run over the past few decades. I doubt that - barring few cancers I hear that most of the so called progress is primarily because early detection - resulting in artificially bolstering the 'survival' rate. > IMHO, were customized therapeutic vaccines to target the unique mixture of mutations in a tumor I doubt that. Cancer is a _systemic_ disease akin to ageing ( infact one could argue that cancer is one of the symptoms of aging ). While some conventional techniques may show short term promise, I doubt if it will ever be a long term solution. Long term solutions may involve similar intervention that will also work in stopping ageing.
- epistasis 1y agoThe article and I agree that treatments have been improving. Certainly detection is improving results too, but that can't explain all the improvements we are seeing. As far as your "systemic" comment, sure there is greater risk of cancer with aging due to the accumulation of mutations and dysregulation. But that's why customized treatments show so much promise. What I described is not a "conventional" treatment, I was talking about custom treatments designed for each cancer.
- kla-s 1y agoAny serious ideas for a recently removed glioblastom?
- kulahan 1y agoThe treatment has been improving over the years, and the survival rate is going up. It’s definitely one of the most challenging forms, if our progress rate is anything to go by.
- missedthecue 1y agoI was short the stock of a company called Novocure, and my thesis was based on the science. Novocure developed a literal helmet you wear on your head. It's designed to generate alternating electric fields at specific frequencies and blast them into your brain. I was skeptical, because biotech frauds are a dime a dozen, and nothing I could read in their literature made sense to me as a mechanism of action against GBM. The randomized, double-blind phase 3 trials came out and it turns out the helmet almost triples 5 year survival rates. For "high compliance" patients (i.e. those that followed their directions and wore the helmet in accordance with the treatment plan), 5 year survival rates jumped 6x. They're selling $600mm of these helmets a year now. Progress is uneven but it's always coming!
- girvo 1y agoWhat in the world is the putative mechanism behind that? That's fascinating.
- kla-s 1y agoI guess bioelectricity. Michael Levin is the guy to look at afaik. Thanks @missedthecue, i wasn't aware this was productized and tested (though hoped it was)
- GoatInGrey 1y agoMichael Levin focuses on manipulation of intercellular bioelectric signaling. This research is in electric field generation. They both involve electricity, but only one is modulating bioelectric circuits. The other is essentially vibrating certain cells to death.
- mberning 1y agoMy brother in law just got diagnosed with Glioblastoma yesterday. He’s only 31. Sadly I don’t think we are winning fast enough for him or people in his situation.
- readthenotes1 1y agoLike this? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-69006713?utm_source=perplexity https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-69006713?utm_source...
- mcbain 1y agoSadly Richard has now had recurrence. There is still hope for this treatment for others, and it likely extended his life, but it isn't happily ever after this time.
- canucker2016 1y agoLink to a recurrence article, 2025 March 10: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-10/richard-scolyer-poor-prognosis-after-latest-operation/105034338 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-10/richard-scolyer-poor-... more recent update from 2025 June 11: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14800467/Professor-Richard-Scolyer-cancer-update.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14800467/Professor-...
- melling 1y agoTell us the ugly truth then paint a happy picture. “for one in six deaths around the world, killing nearly 10 million people a year globally and over 600,000 people a year in the US.” A lot of reduced deaths come from less smoking and early detection. We will eventually get there but we need a lot more research. Get a colonoscopy at 45. We are seeing a big increase in younger people. https://www.cancerresearch.org/blog/colorectal-cancer-awareness-month https://www.cancerresearch.org/blog/colorectal-cancer-awaren...
- bravesoul2 1y agoThanks for the reminder. My containers to shit in are waiting to be picked up from the doctor's office. Looks like colonoscopy is better from your link.
- hn_throwaway_99 1y agoThe issue with things like cologuard is they really only detect cancer. Colonoscopies can prevent cancer by having polyps removed before they turn into cancer. Colonoscopy is a more invasive procedure obviously, but complication rates are very low. It's worth it to find a great gastroenterologist to do the procedure.
- bravesoul2 1y agoYeah wish I had grabbed one last time I had an endoscopy.
- fnordpiglet 1y agoI know at least a dozen people in my family and friend network that are alive now after treatment from a cancer that was fatal in most cases 20 years ago. That’s not proof by any measure but I am certainly thankful it’s not 20 years ago.
- mkfs 1y ago[flagged]
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- dgfitz 1y agoIt’s pretty amazing. I’m a survivor, so far, and it’s amazing. As an aside, Godwins law apparently needs a corollary name for trump. Almost every thread on here anymore brings him up. I understand people are emotional about it, but it sure is getting old.
- hiddencost 1y agoI'm sorry you're tired of hearing people document the end of the American experiment.
- lazyasciiart 1y agoIt certainly is a shame that he’s fucked up so many things so badly. I can’t wait til he’s no longer relevant.
- vaylian 1y agoJD Vance has entered the signal chat The anti-science movement runs deeper than just Trump unfortunately.
- stevenbedrick 1y agoIn the case of this specific post, it is unfortunately very appropriate to bring him up: his administration is enthusiastically setting back the US’s ability to study, treat, and cure cancer by years and possibly decades; his cuts at the FDA are setting back the availability of new therapies and his cuts to AHRQ and are undermining our ability to study whether the ones we have work; and his proposed budget would strip access to healthcare (including cancer screening and relevant preventative care) from tens of millions of Americans. Oh and his administration’s attack on higher education, and his immigration policies relating thereto, are gutting our scientific and biomedical workforces. So while I am as sick as anybody about hearing about him, on a thread about advances in cancer treatments, it would be awfully weird to ignore the elephant in the room. Just sayin’.
- matwood 1y agoAnd don't forget the anti-vaccine attitude rampant in his administration. The HPV vaccine stops an infection that is known to lead to cancer. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6001440/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6001440/
- sidcool 1y ago[flagged]
- eCa 1y agoImagine how many people would have to stay 100% quiet for that to work.
- sidcool 1y agoYep. It's a theory I don't believe wholeheartedly, but there's an inkling.
- blargthorwars 1y agoI'm as greedy and horrible as it gets, and you couldn't get me to keep quiet if I were part of that conspiracy.
- klipt 1y agoThe fallacy is thinking just one vaccine could solve all the myriad types of cancer. Fighting cancer is literally fighting against evolution of single cell mutinies from our multicellular ship. There already are immunotherapies for some types that function similar to vaccines. But they have to be specific to subtypes of cancer or even the specific patient.
- Daz1 1y agoYes Trump and the capitalists are hiding the cure, you're right
- dogman123 1y agoMy dad was diagnosed with multiple myeloma 2 years ago. His bone marrow transplant failed (frequent first line of defense) and he just finished CAR-T therapy a couple months ago. The initial side effects from the treatment were _bad_, but everything is looking good right now. CAR-T is really mindbogglingly insane cyberpunk stuff.
- willismichael 1y agoI had a close relative diagnosed with multiple myeloma 25+ years ago (I don't remember the exact year) who only lived for a couple more years. It was rough back then. I'm really glad to hear that there is much better treatment these days.
- fnordpiglet 1y ago[flagged]
- fumeux_fume 1y ago"Secretly," but perhaps in the sense that most are not exclusive enough to have the coverage, disposable income and proximity to specialists. A close family member of mine was diagnosed with stomach cancer at a very young age. I looked into getting an endoscopy and it took more than a month to see my primary for the referral and about seven months out for the endoscopy. The hospital says there a chance insurance will cover nothing.
- bamboozled 1y agoThe difficulty is that we only care about healthcare for everyone when we're affected, not before. Realistically, every man woman and child in the USA should demand better by organizing massive peaceful protests.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- duffpkg 1y agoCAR-T and closely related immunotherapies are the definitive breakthrough. It will continue to get more and more effective against more and more types of cancers. The research issues surrounding them now are about cost and about how to manage the potentially fatal complications from using it against certain situations, especially developed solid tumors.
- elric 1y agoGreat that treatment options are improving. But there are still serious bottlenecks in medicine. It seems to be a universal truth that getting a CT/MRI comes with a long wait time. General Practitioners often wait too long to order imaging as a result, and they are often unwilling to even consider cancer in younger people. We need better (earlier) detection and faster access to it.
- oaththrowaway 1y agoJust went through the process recently... Luckily Urgent Care was able to go from ultrasound to CT scan in 1 day. The long wait time has come from the insurance honestly. Had to go to a different hospital because the original one I went to has to get an approval from United before getting it done (other hospital 2 blocks away doesn't have that same requirement??) I got referred to a dedicated cancer center and then guess what, I have to call United and ask them to approve it - but I can't get an appointment to do that for 2 weeks. Ended up doing all the legwork on my own and was able to get a consultation done within a week. Now I'm having to do biopsies, PET scan, ect. Depending on the result I might be able to get it removed next week! But the pain has become so severe I can't eat, sleep, even lay down without extreme discomfort. I can't imagine waiting around on the insurance to walk me through it. Funny enough, United sent us a letter in the mail asking if I really wanted to get that original CT scan! Like no, I'd rather not know I have a 7" tumor in my abdomen. Simply a joke of an industry
- hcurtiss 1y agoI had a knee injury. Called my local orthopedic clinic (seven doctors). The lady who answered the phone told me I’d need to schedule an appointment . . . to schedule the appointment. I was three weeks out from the call at which I would schedule the appointment that would likely be months after that. American medicine is totally broken.
- ChadNauseam 1y ago> It seems to be a universal truth that getting a CT/MRI comes with a long wait time. I wonder if this is regional. I was able to get an MRI scheduled within a couple weeks when I needed one for my non-urgent condition. This was in Chicago, so maybe we're just blessed with a surplus of MRI machines.
- agumonkey 1y agohttps://archive.is/ibUdx https://archive.is/ibUdx just in case also, recently ferroptosis made the news as general mechanism to kill metastases https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08974-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08974-4 seems like a new path too, the more the better :) ps: apparently cancer drug resistance is linked with tumor adaptability which relies on iron and copper, and these researchers leverage this as a weapon against itself, very clever
- crubier 1y agoAre you french by any chance? This article made big news in France recently, but I have not heard of it anywhere else. I'm wondering if that thing is really the revolution it's been touted and I just missed the international news talking about it, or if it's just another example of "Look, France is great!" propaganda by french media. Edit Note: I'm french.
- agumonkey 1y agoYeah I'm french and it seems that yeah it was promoted above average, that said, this is the first time I hear about the ferroptosis strategy (and it seems a fine tuned approach) so I guess it's not 100% self-flattering (r. rodriguez didn't seem the narcissistic kind either). And it was old news and I fell for the publicity then I apologize.
- fooblaster 1y agoMy father died last week of cancer. I'm glad for the progress, but winning seems a bit much.
- leakycap 1y agoI'm very sorry to hear this, and I hope with time you're surrounded by many good memories of better times with your father.
- charamis 1y agoI'm sad to read this, as my father too is not in the best possible situation currently, cause of cancer. Wish you feel better soon and keep fond memories of him.
- phrotoma 1y agoHere's to your dad, may he rest easy and be remembered well.
- devmor 1y agoI’m sorry for your loss, stranger. I lost my father to cancer last year as well - the medical system failed him, his pain treated as exaggerated and his symptoms ignored until it was far too late. There’s no win for our dads, but I hope the progress prevents future people like them from facing what they did.
- Spooky23 1y agoI'm sorry for your loss. I lost my wife to cancer two years ago. Obviously it didn't work out as we wanted, but she had real hope and prospects. A decade ago, her diagnosis was a guaranteed death sentence. It a nasty business, but at some level, oncology is a field where we stand on the shoulders of those before us. The hope that these tragedies we experience will help future victims brings some comfort personally.
- AlwaysRock 1y agoI lost one parent to cancer but the other has been cancer free for over ten years now. I'm devastated by the lose of one parent but incredibly grateful for the one who beat their cancer. Is that winning? I dont know. But the likelihood that my other parent would still be around if they got their same cancer now is already higher than it was when they passed. Nothing can bring my other parent back but we can prevent others from losing their loved ones.
- Elaris 1y ago[flagged]
- crubier 1y agoThis user seems like an AI Bot. All his comments are similarly substance-free. His first 2 comments included 3 instances of the typical AI emdash character, but it seems like they corrected this telltale.
- slowhadoken 1y agoAnd yet it’s still legal to smoke in your apartment.
- timbit42 1y agoMaybe in your country.
- slowhadoken 1y agoIn the US it’s not a criminal offense, it’s a civil matter. Even if a building is smoke-free (which includes incense and cheap scented candles) property management usually won’t evict unless they have ironclad evidence but that’s nearly impossible to get. Strong circumstantial, i.e. smoke coming out of an apartment, isn’t enough for them to act.
- prog_1 1y agonot "war on cancer" and not "we" winning. It's pharma finding ways how to profit from rare treatment successes of few rare disease types. Majority, and by majority i mean over 80%, of patients and cancer types are still treated with bogstandard chemo+radio+surgery. Individualized treatment plans using checkpoint inhibitor combinations, biotech therapies, etc are for few select individuals with A LOT of money. how do i know? i work in precision oncology for a decade plus
- rlpb 1y ago> Individualized treatment plans using checkpoint inhibitor combinations, biotech therapies, etc are for few select individuals with A LOT of money. This is the first step in the commoditization of any new treatment, no? Initially expensive but that creates competition to bring the price down. [Maybe not in the US though because the customer cannot select their supplier]
- leakycap 1y agoI think perspective is important here. I'm alive because pharma developed an expensive drug that, at the time I got it, was only administered to 42 others before me. I was a single person working my first job out of college with Blue Cross Blue Shield and got the best I think was available. You might be jaded after working so long in a difficult industry; the medical research/pharma work done matters to the patients who receive it and get another decade+ of good life.
- prog_1 1y agoim glad for you and every single patient that benefits from something i work on. From the public health angle of most eu countries investment into novel cancer treatments makes a lot less sense that improving prevention.
- missedthecue 1y agoI don't know... Advancements like Keytruda are huge. And it will be off patent soon. And there are over 1500 active CAR-T clinical trials going on as we speak.
- cladopa 1y agoNo, we are not. The death rate goes down but the number of cancers increases. Cancer is extremely painful even if you survive. Cancer treatment should be like taking antibiotics, a week of pain and it is over. We should activate the natural inmune defences instead of extremely invasive chemotherapy. We are far from that.
- timbit42 1y agoIs there a pattern to these increases? Is it because so many other diseases have been prevented or cured that it causes more people to live long enough to get some form of cancer?
- elmolino89 1y agoYep. And for the smashed to pulp extremities I would suggest a fast regrowth of an arm or a leg, preferably in a week or so. More seriously: cancer is no joke and so are the treatments.
- meepmorp 1y ago> We should activate the natural inmune defences instead of extremely invasive chemotherapy. Yeah, it's a shame researchers don't work on immunotherapies for cancer, I bet they could do some nifty shit with engineered t-cells.
- Noelia- 1y agoI’ve always felt like cancer is one big war, but in reality, it’s more like countless small battles happening all at once. I have a friend who went through this — he had a very rare form of cancer and had to do multiple rounds of chemo, and each round felt like starting over again because what worked once didn’t always work again. Now, seeing that cancers once thought to be nearly hopeless have five-year survival rates going up, it’s really impressive. I just hope we’ll keep seeing more good news like this in the future.
- JohnBooty 1y agoit’s more like countless small battles happening all at once That's also how wars work. World wars, anyway! (May there never be another) I hope your friend is doing okay.
- edm0nd 1y ago>World wars, anyway! (May there never be another) there without a doubt will be another one at some point in time imo
- gus_massa 1y agoI agree. Relevant PhD Comics: https://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1162 https://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1162
- Marciplan 1y agoOne of the few instances where I think GenAI will lead to a cure. So much research done, yet not enough people in the world to fully focus on finding the needles in the haystacks
- Cthulhu_ 1y agoI dunno about generative AI, but machine learning has already shown promising results in for example spotting early cancers on X-rays and scans that doctors missed.
- dghughes 1y agoThat graph! It's like in 1991 someone flipped a switch and the line just drops.
- BiteCode_dev 1y agoLooks like they did flip a switch, but not a medical one, according to my AI friend: Around 1990, several key shifts occurred in U.S around cancer: - Federal Advertising Restrictions (1980s → 1990s trend) - Cigarette ads were already banned from TV and radio since 1971, but by the late '80s and early '90s, there was increasing pressure to further restrict tobacco marketing, especially to youth. - Synar Amendment (1992) Required states to prohibit the sale of tobacco to individuals under 18. States risked losing federal funding if noncompliant. - Local and State Laws Late 1980s to early 1990s: many cities and states began passing clean indoor air laws restricting smoking in workplaces, restaurants, and public areas. Examples: San Luis Obispo, CA (1990) banned smoking in all indoor public places. - Surge in Litigation States began exploring lawsuits against tobacco companies for Medicaid costs related to smoking-related illnesses. - Rise of Public Health Advocacy CDC established the Office on Smoking and Health as a national anti-smoking effort. American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation and other groups pushed for local ordinances. - Increased Tobacco Taxes Several states raised cigarette taxes as a deterrent and revenue tool. - EPA Classification and Risk Assessments EPA expanded its Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), classifying substances based on carcinogenic risk. Substances like benzene, formaldehyde, dioxins, and asbestos were formally assessed and increasingly restricted. - Clean Air Act Amendments (1990) Major overhaul targeting hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), including 189 known or suspected carcinogens. Mandated technology-based emissions standards for industries emitting these substances (Maximum Achievable Control Technology - MACT). Examples: emissions from chemical plants, refineries, dry cleaners. - OSHA Activity Occupational Safety and Health Administration tightened exposure limits for carcinogens (e.g., formaldehyde, cadmium). Enforcement of hazard communication (HazCom) standards requiring MSDS labeling for toxic/carcinogenic workplace chemicals. - Right-to-Know Laws Expansion of EPCRA (Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act), empowering communities to track local industrial emissions via the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). Helped spotlight local exposure to carcinogens. - Superfund and Toxic Cleanup CERCLA (Superfund) activity peaked; sites with carcinogenic contamination (e.g., PCBs, VOCs) were targeted for cleanup. Public concern about cancer clusters near toxic waste sites gained visibility. - California Prop 65 (1986 → active in 1990s) Required businesses to label products or areas with chemicals “known to the state to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity.” Influential beyond CA due to market pressure on manufacturers. Not to remove credit from doctors, but the best treatment for cancers is to not create them from the start. One of the best wins for longevity historically has been hygiene, safety design for products/places/processes, avoiding wars, and using fossil fuel to replace slavery. Medicine helped (particularly vaccines, antibiotics, and emergency surgery), but you can't offset society-level problems with it, especially since it's more expensive to scale. So when I see such a graph, I always look for more general reasons first. We'll see a similar drop once we tackle sugar, weight gain, and various legal and illegal addictive substances.
- cynicalsecurity 1y agoGreat news. Meanwhile, diabetes type 1 remains an incurable disease. I feel like humanity failed people with diabetes type 1. You could argue it's easier to destroy cells (while curing cancer) than create them (as it would be required in curing diabetes type 1), but it nonetheless feels surreal we still don't have a cure despite all of the technological progress. While it's getting worse and the number of affected people grows every year.
- hermannj314 1y agoLife expectancy for T1D diagnosis in 1980 is 15 years longer than those diagnosed in the 1960s. Life expectancy seems to continue to trend upwards. My wife is alive and healthy with T1D, which doesn't matter at all for your claim, but the aggregate evidence for all T1D seems far removed from humanity failing diabetics.
- bitwize 1y agoA woman in China received a transplant of pancreatic beta cells derived from her own, induced pluripotent stem cells. She was able to go off insulin, even a year out. A cure for T1D is coming. https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)01022-5 https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)01022-5
- GoatInGrey 1y agoThis sounds like a very meaningful first step in the field of regenerative medicine! Incredibly exciting news.
- nextn 1y agoIn case it saves a life, some papers report Fenbendazol cures some cancers. https://x.com/MakisMD/status/1845353670407233817 https://x.com/MakisMD/status/1845353670407233817 https://x.com/skymeds_store/status/1919695848222687548 https://x.com/skymeds_store/status/1919695848222687548 https://vigilantnews.com/post/the-overlooked-miracle-drug-for-cancer-why-big-pharma-fears-fenbendazole/?s=04 https://vigilantnews.com/post/the-overlooked-miracle-drug-fo...
- zarzavat 1y agoThat first tweet sounds utterly deranged.
- throawayonthe 1y agolargely a rant about "contaminated mrna covid-19 vaccines" that ends tagging Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan lmao
- nextn 1y agoLink three is largely a list of scientific papers that show the effectiveness of Ivermectin and Fenbendazol in curing cancer. You laughing your ass off triggers alarms.
- ChocolateGod 1y agoMy mate Gary from down the pub said ivermectin cured his grandmas cancer and that the medical elite doctors are just hiding it because ivermectin is cheap and doesn't make much money. All the proof I need. Although she died 3 weeks ago, but he swears it wasn't from the cancer but old age. /s
- nextn 1y agoIt isn't.
- GoatInGrey 1y ago
- anovikov 1y agoThe chart understates it. Since 1990 when the death rate started falling, median age in the US rose from 32.9 to 38.5 years and vast majority of cancers are age-correlated. So we are speaking of at least 2x age-corrected decline, if not more.
- msla 1y agoFour years ago today, I was diagnosed with primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma, a form of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, a form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Three years ago on May 26, I was declared in complete remission at MD Anderson, a month after a CAR T-cell infusion. I am still in complete remission after multiple PET scans and CT scans. The specific therapy I received (Yescarta) was approved by the FDA for refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma on October 2017. It was the second such therapy approved by the FDA, and the second that year, after Kymriah in August. Feels a bit odd to be saved by a class of therapy more than three decades younger than I am. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axicabtagene_ciloleucel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axicabtagene_ciloleucel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAR_T_cell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAR_T_cell
- Kalanos 1y agoDespite an aging population
- bitwize 1y agoI wish my cousin (triple-negative breast) and mother-in-law (ovarian) knew we were "winning the war". I'm excited about new immunotherapy and genetic treatments, and I think the tide might be turning, but winning the war is a ways off.
- erickf1 1y agoHumans are certainly not winning the war on cancer. Not even close. Now, even children perish from cancer in America. Things are getting worse, not better. When you get cancer, you'll better understand the hopelessness.
- lab14 1y ago> Now, even children perish from cancer in America Is this a recent phenomenon? I never thought that children were immune to cancer.
- Nopoint2 1y agoThis is misleading. A rise or fall in one kind disease doesn't mean anything out of context. Most people die of something so a fall in one disease may just as well mean that people die from something else instead. In this case, the drop in cancer seems to be the inverse of the rise in "neuropsychiatric conditions and drug use disorders". You can't die of cancer, when you are already dead from fentanyl overdose. I'm sorry.
- nextn 1y agoIn case it saves a life, some papers report Fenbendazol cures some cancers. https://vigilantnews.com/post/the-overlooked-miracle-drug-for-cancer-why-big-pharma-fears-fenbendazole/?s=04 https://vigilantnews.com/post/the-overlooked-miracle-drug-fo...
- nektro 1y agoif only kamala had won and we didnt just cancel a bunch of research like this
- chasil 1y agohttps://archive.ph/nsJe5 https://archive.ph/nsJe5