Cancer is one of the most terrible and devastating medical conditions that just about everyone has experienced in some way. However, there are a number of misconceptions regarding cancer that people should certainly be made aware of. When discussing conditions as complex as cancer, it’s important to fact-check and to do research, since many things that people hear about the condition are just incorrect. People should definitely inform themselves on what cancer really involves, since we’re living in a day and age where just about everything is carcinogenic (“cancer-causing”).
Many people think that cancer is a singular disease, like the flu or diabetes. This just isn’t true. Cancer is a class of diseases that, simply put, involve cells uncontrollably dividing. As you can see, that’s an incredibly unspecific classification, and there’s a reason for this. The term cancer is meant to encompass all of these very different diseases. Cancers can affect the skin, the lungs, the stomach, the intestinal tract, and just about every other part of the body in very different ways. Ignoring location, there are still different classes of cancerous tumors, like carcinomas, sarcomas, blastomas, and adenocarcinomas. The only thing that all of these have in common are that they all involve cell division that’s out of control.
It’s easy to now understand why there cannot and will not ever be a “cure for cancer”. A medication or therapy that could cure each and every form of cancer would be equivalent to a medication that cured every single kind of illness involving a cough. It simply isn’t possible. These conditions have something in common, but they involve far more things that aren't in common. However, this isn’t the only reason why a cure like this could never exist. For a moment, let’s talk in a hypothetical realm. Pretend for a minute that some magical fruit was found somewhere that a single bite would cure whatever cancer was afflicting you. Sounds incredible, right? Even if a fruit like this was found, not a single person would ever be able to consume it. There’s one final entity standing in the way of a cure like this, and that entity is the current pharmaceutical industry.
How could an industry that exists solely to manage people’s health stand in the way of curing serious illnesses? It’s simple, really; it’s an industry, and just like with any industry, money trumps everything else. You’re sadly mistaken if you ever thought for a second that pharmaceutical companies were actually around to keep you in good health. As one of the many industries in America, the pharmaceutical industry exists solely to generate profit for its employees. But human lives should always come before profits, right? Wrong.
I’m sure at this point you just do not believe me. However, there are actual historical events to back this cynical fact up. One of the famous examples of profits coming before human lives is the Ford Pinto scandal of the 1970’s. Many people have a general idea of what happened, but the details truly are gruesome. The fuel system was faulty in this automobile model, and many people died in fiery infernos that directly resulted from this imperfection. The Ford Company calculated that it would cost about $137 million to repair all of the faulty vehicles, but it would cost about $50 million to just allow people to die and pay the resulting lawsuits. So, after turning a blind eye to morality, the company started paying lawsuits, and never issued a recall and repair on these vehicles. Unlike the “magic fruit” scenario, this isn’t hypothetical. Ford literally placed a price on human lives, and did what would make the most money instead of doing the right thing.
The healthcare industry is much larger than the automobile industry, so money certainly rules this industry as well (perhaps even more so). There are a countless number of examples of companies raising prices of medications (for example, Daraprim in 2015) to simply make more money, disregarding the fact that these increases make drugs less available to people. These increases sometimes will literally cost lives. However, corporations don’t have time to care about people’s lives and wellbeing, even when they market themselves as “for your health”. Employees need to be paid, so money needs to roll in. Treatment plans like chemotherapy and radiation therapy can last for years, and keep hundreds of thousands of dollars rolling into these corporations. There’s no reason for them to cut these profits off and turn to one-time cures. It just isn’t going to happen.
So yes, this article did just turn a little depressing. What’s the point of writing it then? I want anyone reading this to understand the underlying message. The status quo has to change. Money can’t always rule everything. Although businesses will be businesses and money needs to come in, there can be a balance between profits and morality. The best interests of the patients being treated need to be the focus of any medical business, and profits will still manage to roll in. There’s no doubt that many medical achievements are being held up simply due to monetary concerns. Hopefully, these concerns can be overcome. The future of medicine looks incredibly bright, with many amazing advances on the horizon. Although a “cure for cancer” cannot and will not ever be a reality, there is hope that there will be an influx of effective new treatments that can give life to those who desperately need help.
