
Cancer World: The making of a modern disease (2010) - Hooke
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/11/08/cancer-world
======
M_Grey
_Chemotherapists have also faced the dilemma of whether their chief
responsibility is to minimize an individual patient’s suffering or to further
the search for an eventual cure. When risks to a given patient may mean
benefits to future sufferers, the boundary between experiment and care can
blur. Mukherjee, describing experimental chemo regimens of the early sixties,
recounts the controversial decisions made to concoct terrifyingly toxic
cocktails for child-leukemia patients, while the physicians in charge did what
pathetically little they could to make the kids more comfortable. Years
afterward, and with the clearer conscience of substantial success, one
oncologist recognized the dangers of what they had done: “We could have killed
all of those kids.” From its postwar origins to the present, the
chemotherapist’s predicament is the precarious balance between best-practice
care and the crying need to improve current practice. In the eighties, AIDS
patients started to insist on being “guinea pigs,” and terminal-cancer
sufferers soon followed their lead. In the current world of end-stage cancer,
care and experiment can often be much the same thing._

Remember that, if you're ever in the difficult position to make a decision for
yourself, or help another to make their own, regarding hospice care. Remember
that you might be the one who has to realize that hope has passed, and it's
time to look at palliative options. I'm not arguing against proper treatment,
but there comes a time (a time which many doctors and patients fail to
recognize) past which what's being done is just cruel.

~~~
killjoywashere
I submit many of those who insist on being guinea pigs take Steve Jobs'
position, "I'll be the first one to survive it or the last one to die of it",
and they are really equally determined on both of those fronts. "Take me" is
more powerful than "Let me go".

~~~
M_Grey
If that's the choice someone knowingly makes, then I can respect it. I worry
that sometimes however, people like that honestly expect outcomes which are
unrealistic, and suffer for it. Still, they should be free to choose.

------
melling
According to Craig Venter, early detection is what we need to eliminate
cancer:
[https://youtu.be/iUqgTYbkHP8?t=15m37s](https://youtu.be/iUqgTYbkHP8?t=15m37s)

I imagine sometime in this century, better early detection will become a
reality.

~~~
killjoywashere
According to Craig Venter, we should sequence everything. Preferably at his
institute.

