No Conspiracy

"What are you doing home?" I said.

"Well the doctor said the chemo drug wasn't working so why give it to me?" She replied.

"Makes sense. So what is he going to do."

"He's looking at a couple of other ones but the office needs to get authorization which can take a week or more. I knew it wasn't working."

"So why didn't you tell him." I knew instantly I had stepped in it.

"I never get to see him and he doesn't do scans. I mean its been six weeks since I saw him so who was I going to tell?" I sensed a bit of agitation in her voice so i felt it was worth walking away. "Anyway the new one he wants to try needs to be approved by the insurance company and they are so slow. Their office doesn't move to fast either. I'm going to have to call them next week to see if they even filed the paperwork," She walked away in frustration.

That conversation is the essence of cancer treatment right there. Some things work but only for a while then you have to move to a different drug. You don't know if it will work until you are weeks into treatment. By that time the patient. No wait, by that time my wife has suffered six weeks of poisoning only to find it has not poisoned the proper thing, just everything else. Then the experimentation begins. Cancer patients are guinea pigs, plain and simple.

The experimentation is extremely frustrating to watch and worse to experience. There are regimens that work for some but not for others. There are dosages that are great for some and not for others. There seems to be no logical path to follow like a decision tree from BF Skinner. Nothing that says option A does not work so we go to option B. It seems to be in part based on the expertise and experience of the doctor which the doctor matches with the specific patient. Each new attempt and drug is costly and must be approved by the insurance company which pays for only a part of the drug. The remainder is supposed to be picked up by the secondary insurance or the patient. Now while it is against the law and ethics to deny a patient treatment because they can not afford it, a case can be made for that. I mean, we owe way more than we can pay in this lifetime. It is money driven.

That makes me think that no cure for cancer will be found. Now hear me out, I am not a conspiracy buff although I love the History Channel for that very reason. However, if there were a cure for cancer, the business of cancer would be eliminated. The money for treatment wold disappear, oncologists would largely be put out of business, radiotherapy would cease to exist, chemotherapy drugs and their manufacture wold no longer exist. The entire industry would be crippled and it is no small industry. There is a vested interest on the part of manufacturers, drug companies, oncologists and all there associates in keeping this business up and going. A cure would end that.

I'm sure it is no conspiracy but, I'm just saying, just throwing it out there..............