The Cure for Cancer

              One thing that always blows my mind is the medical conspiracy theories.  There are multiple theories, but one of the most insane is the cure for cancer.  It goes something like this:  there is a cure for cancer, and it is being kept secret by everybody in the medical establishment, because we make so much money waiting until people get cancer,and then treating it.

              This theory has so many massive flaws I don’t even know where to begin.  Let’s start with this- look at the people who believe this theory.  In my experience,they are people with little or no medical knowledge.  It isn’t an opinion held by oncologists, or surgeons, or PhD cancer researchers. Why?  Because physicians and medical researchers have some kind of understanding of cancer.  Cancer is not a single entity.  It is an enormous spectrum of diseases,affecting any part of the body, and resulting from innumerable insults and genetic malformations, some of which are known by us, many of which are not known.  So, the idea of a single cure for“cancer” is simply not possible.  There are too many mechanisms by which malignancy arises for one miracle drug or treatment to be effective.  The only thing that I know of which stops all cancers is death.

              The second point I want to make is that nearly all of us in the medical field truly care about our patients.  That’s why we’re here.  Every doctor I’ve ever met is very smart and very hard working. There is zero doubt that any of us could have made more money on Wall Street, or in law, or, pretty much any other field.  Other than teaching.  Teachers don’t make squat.  Hell, I could probably be much richer if every hour I’ve spent studying and practicing medicine was instead spent mowing yards.  I am here because I want to find the diseases and cure them.  If you tell me you think I have information that would help my patients and I’m not helping because I’m greedy, you have given me the deadliest insult anyone ever could.  It’s just hateful. 

              Here’s another critical flaw in the cure for cancer conspiracy theory:  a cure for cancer would be worth trillions.  What wouldn’t you pay if you had brain cancer and could cure it? Answer:  you would pay everything.  You would borrow money.  If you had a billion dollars, and that’s what the cure cost, you would write a check for a billion dollars and happily hand it over.  And, 38.5% of us will develop some form of cancer in our lives. Multiply it out.  So, if you accept the financial value of some magical cancer cure, then you understand that ANYONE who knew this secret would patent it and sell it.  Period.

              Another major problem with the cure conspiracy is that of the ether.  There is this concept, that ideas “come out of the ether” when it is their time. When I was a standup comic in the late nineties, everyone was writing jokes about stalking and kidnapping girlfriends.  I’m not saying it was funny, I’m just using it to illustrate the concept that ideas can’t be squashed.  Multiple people invented the telephone at the same time.  People will discover ideas.  If one person could discover a cure for cancer, somebody else would also discover it.  And another person.  These researchers are all very intelligent,very motivated, and very well-educated. There is no way this idea could remain hidden.  Even with the paranoid imagining of atop-secret cabal holding this cure secret, somebody else would find it.  Then she would patent it, and sell it, and make a trillion dollars.

              So, I’ll become open to this conspiracy if you can find someone who is educated in medicine who believes it, and you can convince me that people don’t like money,and also that doctors don’t care about their patients.  I won’t hold my breath.