WEBVTT - No, There's No 'Secret' Cure for Cancer 0:00:02.040 --> 0:00:07.040 Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, brain stuff, 0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:11.200 Lauren Vogelbaum here, you've probably heard this fringe theory before, 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:15.160 perhaps even from a generally reliable source. A cure for 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:19.079 cancer exists, but pharmaceutical companies and perhaps even government health 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:22.599 agencies and cancer charities are suppressing it because they make 0:00:22.640 --> 0:00:25.720 so much money from treating the disease or fundraising for it. 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:29.480 In other words, there's a secret cabal of pharma exects, 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:33.120 scientific researchers and cancer nonprofits that are letting more than 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:36.680 eight million people die every year worldwide so they can 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:39.920 line their own pockets with cancer money. Such a plot, 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:44.239 if true, would be nothing short of medical genocide. We 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:47.600 spoke via email with Ted Ganceler, the Strategic director for 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:51.200 Pathology Research with the American Cancer Society, where he serves 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:55.240 as the editor of c A, a cancer journal for clinicians. 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:58.920 Canceler had heard the hitting cure story so many times 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:01.080 that he went out in conducted a survey in two 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:05.480 thousand two about the most common misconceptions about cancer. In it, 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:08.360 he asked nearly a thousand Americans if they believed that 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:13.319 there was a conspiracy to hide a cancer cure of 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:17.200 respondents believed the myths, and another fourteen percent were uncertain. 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:21.360 Canceler said the result was even more shocking than I expected. 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:25.399 The secret cancer cure is a typical conspiracy theory, although 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:29.400 its popularity is caused partly by ignorance, misunderstanding, and mistrust 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:34.200 of science. Psychological research indicates that inventing and spreading conspiracy 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:36.319 theories is a way for some people to cope with 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:40.600 feelings of vulnerability. Cancer is scary, and few of our 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:43.840 lives have been untouched by its devastating reach. But just 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:47.440 because the medical establishment hasn't yet found a blockbuster cure 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:50.320 for all cancer doesn't mean that they're hiding it from us. 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:54.200 As Cancer Research UK wrote in a post addressing ten 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:58.040 persistent cancer myths, if Big Pharma indeed had its hands 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:00.440 on a cure, even one based on generic drugs or 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:02.960 cheap alternatives, it could figure out a way to package 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:05.720 the molecules into a patentable therapy that would still make 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:08.600 them loads of money. People pay thousands of dollars for 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:12.080 cancer treatments currently, wouldn't they pay even more for cure 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:15.520 if it did exist. Then there's the raw fact that 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:20.120 pharmaceutical executives researchers and government officials and their families are 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:24.760 not themselves immune to cancer, Againstler said, can any conspiracy 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:28.120 be so complete that oncologists and even world leaders would 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:30.600 be willing to die of cancer in order to protect 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:35.120 this alleged secret. But perhaps the most compelling reason why 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:37.960 the hidden cure theory is false is that there simply 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:41.960 could never be one single cure for cancer, because cancer 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:45.280 is not one single thing. Under the umbrella of cancer 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:48.720 are hundreds of related diseases that vary substantially in their 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:52.280 causes and underlying mechanisms, and even the same type of 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:56.320 cancer can evolve in unique ways among individuals, requiring different 0:02:56.360 --> 0:03:00.040 treatment regimens for different patients. The reality is that there 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.000 are some cancers, when caught early, that now have long 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:06.280 term survival rates of seventy percent er higher, notes Canceler. 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:10.360 These include breast cancer, prostate cancer, urinary bladder cancer, and 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:15.200 melanoma of the skin, though Ganceler added, unfortunately, some kinds 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:17.639 of cancer are very resistant to all of the treatments 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:21.360 that have been studied so far. While the hidden care 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:25.160 conspiracy is absolutely false, it's worth asking if the current 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:28.520 approaches for funding cancer research and drug development are the 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:31.720 best ways to find effective and affordable cures for both 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:36.000 common and rare forms of cancer. The budget of the 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:39.680 National Cancer Institute, for example, a leading funder of scientific 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:42.520 and medical research in the United States, was five point 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:46.440 six nine billion dollars. Even though the dollar amount earmarked 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:48.839 for the n c I goes up slightly each year, 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:53.040 its true value with inflation has gone down consistently since 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:56.040 two thousand three. The n c I usually partners with 0:03:56.080 --> 0:04:00.720 pharmaceutical companies or universities to conduct clinical trials. The U 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:03.720 s National Institutes of Health also set aside nearly six 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.760 billion dollars in its twenty seventeen budget for cancer research, 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:10.520 with additional funds invested in specific categories like cancer genomics, 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:15.000 breast cancer, cervical cancer, and childhood leukemia. But those public 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:19.080 investments are chump change compared to private pharmacutical companies, which 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:22.520 are funneling and estimated fifty billion dollars annually in two 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:27.040 cancer drug research and development. The imbalance between private and 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:30.160 public funding of cancer research has led some critics to 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:33.240 argue that big pharma is actually slowing the search for 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:36.280 a cancer cure by focusing so much money on developing 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:40.760 patentable single drug treatments rather than testing combination therapies or 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:45.920 exploring the repurposing of existing, cheaper generic drugs, like, for example, aspirin, 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:48.840 a one hundred year old medication that sells for pennies 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:51.279 a pill, is now the subject of clinical trials to 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:55.080 confirm observational data that breast cancer survivors who take daily 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:58.560 aspirin are fifty percent less likely to relapse and die 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:02.680 from the disease. We also spoke with Eugene Brown, a 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:06.800 scientific advisor for Global Cures, a nonprofit organization that helps 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:10.200 cancer patients find evidence based therapies that are outside of 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:13.320 the typical standard of care. Those include the use of 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:17.200 supplements or generic medications that have shown promise in speeding, recovering, 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:22.320 or alleviating side effects of chemotherapy and radiation. Global Cures 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:26.360 also advocates for research that repurposes existing drugs and FDA 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:30.560 approved compounds not originally created for cancer treatment, an approach 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:34.560 that's often ignored by for profit pharmaceutical companies and underfunded 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:38.800 by government agencies. Brown disagrees that big pharma is the 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:42.440 biggest problem preventing us from finding cancer cures, and says 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:46.400 that expecting pharmaceutical companies to invest in drug repurposing is 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:50.359 equivalent to forcing a square peg through around whole. He 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:53.760 said there should be more collaboration where government and public 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:57.880 institutions and charitable organizations see this as an important goal, 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:00.960 and in fact big pharma can be incorporated into the 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:04.640 whole scheme. He notes that a repurpose drug would need 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:07.480 a clinical trial in order to be prescribed for cancer, 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:10.360 and a pharmaceutical company could provide that either free of 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:18.359 charge or a cost as a gesture of goodwill. Today's 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:21.240 episode was written by Dave Ruse and produced by Tyler Clang. 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:23.440 For more on this and lots of other topics on 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:38.080 the fringe, visit our home planet, how stuff Works dot com.