October 6, 2024

BY JOANNA DITMER

There is a question that we have no answer for, but it needs to be asked; why do we not have a cure for any of the hundreds of cancers?

If we can send people to the moon and to live in space for up to six months, why hasn’t even one cure been found?

Doctors can now cure a two-year-old girl of HIV, but not from cancer.

In layman’s terms, cancer is an abnormal, uncontrolled growth of the bodies’ own cells. Our bodies’ cells have a regular cycle they follow, however, cancer cells do not obey the normal cycle; they are always “on” and unregulated. This is unhealthy because instead of your cells living and dying as they should, they are just accumulating rapidly.

Some people believe that scientists have found a single cure for all cancers, but because cancer is a multibillion-dollar industry and a cure would destroy that industry, it remains a secret.

Let’s set one thing straight: chemotherapy is not a cure for cancer, it is a treatment. It can be used to attempt to cure the disease, prolong life or to palliate symptoms but it is not a cure.

There have been many times in history where people thought that they had found a cure. For example, during the 1950s when American biochemist Dr. Ernst T. Krebs Jr. isolated a new vitamin which he numbered B17 and called “Laetrile,” thousands of people were convinced that this completely controlled all cancers. It didn’t. It seems every time scientists have people believing that we’ve taken one step toward a cure, we end up taking three steps back which leaves everyone disappointed.

Another thought is that, if all researchers got together and shared their knowledge, they could come up with a cure. However, no one wants to share what they have found because they want all of the credit. If this is the case, do you not think that ridding the world of a deadly disease, by yourself or with partners, would make you extremely famous and wealthy? To top it off you would save millions of lives.

Governments need to conduct reviews of the cancer research industry, to see if donors’ dollars are being spent wisely, and if the progress that has been made is significant enough.

The world can literally move mountains. It should be able to find a cure for cancer.

The views herein represent the position of the newspaper, not necessarily the author.