
Cancer Hospital Ads Deceive Patients About Their Chances Of Survival - dsr12
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/stephaniemlee/cancer-treatment-center-misleading-ads
======
DanielleMolloy
Advertising prescription drugs to the general public is forbidden in the EU.
Any over-the-counter mood-alternating substances, including sleeping pills
must not be advertised, too (speaking of Germany, not sure whether this
applies everywhere). In TV ads you mostly see over-the-counter painkillers and
meds against digestion problems like flatulences. I have never seen an ad for
a clinic either.

Similar rules exist worldwide:
[http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/8/09-040809/en/](http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/8/09-040809/en/)
The US and New Zealand seem to be the only countries allowing this kind of
marketing.

I find medicine or health-related ads from the US utterly disturbing. While
such laws existed nationally since the beginning of the 20th century, the
newer EU laws here were made specifically to prevent a situation like in the
US (i.e. thanks for providing the useful bad example, guys).

~~~
nicktelford
Not sure if it's EU-wide, but it's certainly the case in the UK too.

Here, we predominantly see adverts for: basic over-the-counter painkillers,
cold/flu "remedies" (winter) and hayfever/allergy remedies (summer).

It's really quite jarring visiting the US and watching TV there. Not only
because of the seriousness of the drugs they advertise, but also the sheer
volume of pharmaceutical ads. I swear it often felt like 50% of the ads were
for prescription drugs. Really weird.

~~~
isostatic
The U.S. spends 3 times as much per person on healthcare than the UK. Where do
you think the money goes?

Of course this gives "free" TV, that you pay for through more expensive
medicine.

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trixie_
Anyone feel kinda guilty working in tech? There's thousands and thousands of
us trying to make the next app, putting forms on pages, making video games,
shopping carts, crypto apps, etc.. We're smart enough to learn biotech and
make advances, but the investment just isn't there.

You're not going to find plentiful jobs in biotech. And starting up a new
company is nowhere near as easy as it is in tech. I know almost no one from
school that got into it. The one person I do know is working on genomic
sequencing for race horses..

I hate to say it, but it really needs steady/consistent government funding -
both training students and supporting companies. We could be way further along
in biotech overall if there were actually a good number of us working on it.
No sane investor is going to put money into R&D that will end up failing 9/10
times. And even if you hit on something, the healthcare system is so jacked,
recouping your costs are just as hard as developing the product.

~~~
WalterBright
25% of people die from cancer. There's big money in finding an effective
treatment.

~~~
isostatic
If cancer were suddenly cured, those people would still die

What's the percentage of non-EOL people that die of cancer?

~~~
adrianN
They might die in a nicer way. Dying of cancer is not very pleasant compared
to falling off a horse when you're 143 and breaking your neck.

~~~
isostatic
I'm assuming 75% of people aren't dying in that way (or aged 98 while making
love to their fourteenth wife and losing control of the plane they're flying)

I'm personally more worried about things like dementia

~~~
adrianN
Sure, I'd also rather die from cancer than from Alzheimer's, but "they'll die
in a different way" is a poor argument against medical research.

~~~
isostatic
But it's an argument about where to target medical research. In the UK
dementia gets 6 times less funding than cancer (88m vs 540m), despite costing
over twice as much to treat [0]. Global statistics seem tricky to find.

[0]
[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11532982/Dement...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11532982/Dementia-
research-gets-13-times-less-funding-than-cancer-figures-show.html)

~~~
WalterBright
"Getting funding" from government sources is an entirely different game than
getting funding from private sources. The former is about politics, and the
latter is about making money, and what the funding is for can therefore be
entirely different.

~~~
isostatic
There's more money to be made from researching into baldness than curing
cancer or dementia. That funding is from government and charity sources
combined.

(Long term treatments of course is another thing - that's why we have
expensive daily tablets for malaria, but no vaccine. More profitable to charge
$1/day than charge $50 for a one-off vaccine)

Pfizer have pulled out of neuroscience research completely, Saracatinib (from
AstraZeneca) was a failed cancer drug before someone thought "hey lets try
this on dementia"

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toomanybeersies
Related to this is addiction treatment, which in the USA is unregulated. Many
treatment centers don't actually follow scientifically sound methods for
treatment and are little more than an expensive summer camp for adults.

John Oliver did a segment on the situation a couple of months ago, it's worth
a watch:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWQiXv0sn9Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWQiXv0sn9Y)

This kind of misleading advertising for privatized healthcare sickens me. It
happens for all kinds of healthcare, individual anecdotes used as advertising
for a treatment with a low chance or success, or for treatments with no proof
of success at all. I saw it just today in the newspaper for a depression
treatment service of some sort, which tried to disguise itself as a legitimate
article, and essentially tried to guilt trip the reader into thinking that the
best option for their friends and family who are at risk of suicide is to send
them to this treatment facility.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Given the role that social stuff plays in suicidal ideation, that's seriously
disturbing.

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sconklin
Not the only shady:
[https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/politics/2018/02/19/r...](https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/politics/2018/02/19/rounds-
surrenders-18-500-illegal-campaign-contributions/352251002/)

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teslabox
I'm thinking of compiling a list of conditions that modern medicine treats
well, and conditions where doctors try real hard to help their patients.

For example, my neighbor wrecked his bicycle a few months ago. His doctors
decided he needed a couple implants to help his leg bones grow back together
optimally. I went over to look for my supposedly-delivered package this
evening. He's recovering, slowly. Today he was hobbling around with a cane,
and told of going to all the rehabilitation he can get (physical therapy,
etc). I don't have formal medical training, but I think the rod in his leg was
a reasonable intervention.

Trauma surgeons do amazing work in keeping people alive who in prior centuries
rapidly expired from similar injuries.

I don't think modern medicine does well with multi-factorial conditions that
develop over long periods of time.

Cancer will be a much smaller business when someone figures out how to put it
in a more appropriate context, rather than treat it with the tired old war
metaphor.

~~~
killjoywashere
> Cancer will be a much smaller business when someone figures out how to put
> it in a more appropriate context, rather than treat it with the tired old
> war metaphor.

As a military officer who researches cancer and has lost a number of friends
and family to both war and cancer, I think you may misunderstand both the way
we live with and treat cancer, and what war is like. They are quite similar:
all the outcomes take time off your life, there is often a significant risk to
your life, there is liable to be a lot of blood at some point, and most of it
is waiting to die while experts who know precious little more than you mutter
and make pronouncements. (and I include myself in that definition of 'expert')

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milesokeefe
Non-amp link: [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/cancer-
tr...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/cancer-treatment-
center-misleading-ads)

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adamzk
Dead people don't give testimonies.

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hasa
TV-shop of medical treatments, LOL.

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YeGoblynQueenne
>> "There is a special place in hell for for-profit companies who provide
unrealistic or false messages to sick and vulnerable patients in an effort to
cajole their business."

That may just be pessimistic, anti-social, misanthropic old me, but what
incentive do people have nowadays, in a capitalist, free-market society, to
care about the health of strangers when they can maximise their profits by
exploiting their illness?

