In response to a post by Megan McArdle on frustrations in the search for a cancer cure, someone replied right on cue:
Why should we expect a cure for cancer? It would hurt the profits of the drug companies. What would happen to the drug companies after the cure was found?
This is a stance that I have never found very credible (my stance has actually hardened since writing that). Fortunately, there was a swath of comments in response shooting the theory down before I could even comment myself. Even so, I couldn’t resist piling on, so I wrote:
Absolutely. It’s like vaccines. No drug company would ever come up with a vaccine because imagine how much more money they could make treating smallpox or rubella or whatever. They could charge desperate parents with sick kids thousands upon thousands of dollars for treatments. A vaccine would just cut into profits. That’s why drug companies don’t make vaccines.
Speaking of vaccines, there’s another article about whooping cough breakouts:
California is in the midst of its worst outbreak of whooping cough in a half-century. More than 2,700 cases have been reported so far this year — eight times last year’s number at this point. Seven of the victims, all infants, have died.
And here’s what really worries pediatricians like USC’s Harvey Karp: Doctors thought they wiped out whooping cough when they developed vaccines decades ago.
The disease hits young children hardest, especially ones who are not vaccinated or who have not yet built up full immunity. The prescribed vaccination regimen begins with a shot at two months and continues until children are 5 years old. For many children, it can take that long for complete immunity to develop — and until then, they’re vulnerable.
The California epidemic has raised plenty of questions about the role of vaccination and the increasing numbers of parents who decide not to vaccinate their children. California’s Department of Public Health cites three schools in the state where 80 percent of parents have signed a “personal belief exemption” to keep their children from being vaccinated.
I bolded the part about infants because it belies the notion that vaccination is a “personal choice” and that those who would condemn parents that don’t vaccinate are being judgmental when it’s none of their business. These parents are not just putting their own children at risk, but also infants that are too young to have the vaccine themselves. Infants that don’t already have fully developed immune systems. I am on the border as to a parent’s moral right to put their young child at such risk (always a complicated topic and usually dependent on the level of risk), but I have far less patience for those that use others’ children at risk.
Whether we should legally allow parents to take a pass on shots is a somewhat complicated topic. I do believe in religious freedom enough that I am disinclined not to have an exemption process of some sort. But 80%? That’s simply horrifying. And whether what these parents are doing should be legal or not, they are quite deserving of judgment and I have no fear of being considered judgmental on this topic. It’s not a personal health decision so much as a social health one and I am a member in the society in which these people live.
Why should we expect a cure for cancer? It would hurt the profits of the drug companies. What would happen to the drug companies after the cure was found?
I cosign this theory. I mentioned this on R’s blog and two seconds later I was shot down by a set if both regulars and trolls alike.
I once read somewhere that cancer rates rise once any country has Western style industrialization. I wonder what the cancer rates will look like in 20 years for China. Esp with the poor air quality in Beijing.
I’m curious if the traditional Chinese diet will help ward off sharp spikes in the number of people who develop cancer.
Comment by chic noir — August 16, 2010 @ 4:40 pm
Some parents are afraid to give their children vaccines because of the alleged Autism link. I’ve heard other parents say that they don’t want to give their children vaccines because of “ingredients” like “horse saliva”. There is also the argument that vaccines aren’t the real reason fewer children die of childhood diseases. The real reason is better sanitation.
Comment by chic noir — August 16, 2010 @ 4:47 pm
The science is on the connection between vaccinations and autism at best unproven (and I would argue disproven). Our experiences with polio, mumps, rubella, smallpox, measles, and whooping cough are not theoretical.
Sanitation deserves a lot of credit for our better mortality rates (and may render the need for a polio vaccine moot), but a lot of the diseases we’re vaccinating against are airborn or transmitted through human contact and not viruses one obtains through poor sanitation. I don’t think the sanitation is worse in Boulder, Colorado, than in other parts of the country. Nor has sanitation gotten worse in the last few years to explain the resurgence of outbreaks (focusing, naturally, on parts of the country that resist vaccination).
Ultimately, though, these parents are putting their theories ahead of the public health. No group of people I have ever met is more fanatical about getting their own children immunized than doctors. I don’t think that those skeptical of vaccination are evil or ill-intentioned. I don’t believe that they don’t love their children. But I do believe that they are so misguided that the rest of us simply have to push back rather than saying “live and let live.” It’s not just their children’s health that is at stake.
Comment by trumwill — August 16, 2010 @ 5:51 pm
Nope, I think if they have religious objections, they should have to home-school. My children shouldn’t have to take on risk so they can worship Jenny McCarthy.
It’s not just babies who haven’t had the vaccine. Even kids who’ve had it are somewhat at risk, because the vaccine doesn’t always deliver perfect immunity.
Comment by stone — August 16, 2010 @ 8:09 pm
The whooping cough epidemic in CA is due to open borders with Mexico and Central America, not failure of Americans to vaccinate their kids. We also have quite a nice crop going of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB having been virtually wiped out in the 50s in Ca. also).
Comment by Maria — August 16, 2010 @ 8:10 pm
Penn & Teller had a great “Bullshit” recently about the anti-vaccine movement. I’m still fired up.
Jenny McCarthy is such an idiotic piece of shit. Makes me embarrassed to be a woman and a mother.
Comment by stone — August 16, 2010 @ 8:11 pm
Re whooping cough (pertussis): The vaccine is in the booster shot that we’re all supposed to get as adults every seven years or so. I just got mine.
It’s called DTaP (Diptheria, Tetanus, acellular Pertussis vaccine), and it’s administered at 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, 18 months, and 4-6 years. But the vaccine takes a while to take effect, and usually little babies don’t have the immunity yet.
Comment by stone — August 16, 2010 @ 8:22 pm
“I don’t think that those skeptical of vaccination are evil or ill-intentioned. ”
I disagree. They are doing this out of ego. Their little Internet rumors make these ignorant little housewives feel equal to intelligent, educated doctors. That’s the lure of the entire holistic medicine movement: You can be stupid and still feel right.
Comment by stone — August 16, 2010 @ 8:33 pm
If the men around these parts really gave a damn about society, they’d stop crucifying feminists — who work! who think! — and start focusing on housewife activists.
Comment by stone — August 16, 2010 @ 8:36 pm
But they won’t do that, because there’s a weird symbiosis between the Christian housewife activists and the guys with their tongues up Roissy44’s butthole.
Comment by stone — August 16, 2010 @ 8:39 pm
“I’ve heard other parents say that they don’t want to give their children vaccines because of “ingredients” like “horse saliva”. ”
So what’s wrong with horse saliva? What does it do? Do they have any idea? It’s not a reasoned medical decision if you JUST THINK IT SOUNDS GROSS.
Comment by stone — August 16, 2010 @ 9:16 pm
I think public health officials should have met the antivaxers part way on their most reasonable concerns. Don’t get me wrong, I think the antivaxers are nutjobs. But like stone says, they didn’t reason their way into it: they can’t be reasoned out. Dismissing the ignorant housewives as such won’t make them see reason. It only makes them more sure that Big Medicine is evil because they don’t care about moms’ feelings. Spreading out the MMR shot into several is not absurd on its face. Even delaying it so that autistic kids turned autistic first would have looked concerned.
Someone should do a documentary of mom’s of kids who died of pertusis. Good, tearjerking 5 minute clips of little kids in the process of dying might scare some people straight.
Re: Jenny McCarthy, it isn’t just dudes who’ll listen to tarded shit if a hot chick says it? I know why we do it. Ladeez, what’s your excuse?
Comment by rob — August 16, 2010 @ 9:57 pm
there’s a weird symbiosis between the Christian housewife activists and the guys with their tongues up Roissy44’s butthole.
Who has tons of time to spend online? Stay at home moms and…men who get so much poon that they’re online all the time.
Comment by rob — August 16, 2010 @ 10:00 pm
@Stone and @Rob: ITAx2. The Iconoclastic Christian Libertarians of the VoxDay blog have every other post as a “The Dork Lord is so right about all things women” and apparently Roissy is one of their biggest referrers. The VoxDay crowd started the “let’s say nastyweasel shocking things about females, e.g. date rape is pretty much ok” thing a couple of years before Roissy45
By the way, its pretty disturbing to compare where these guys are at, relative to actual normal 40somethings one knows. If people think that the PUAs in the Lair of the White Worm are younger, it’s because it’s surprising for mid-40s people to still be stuck in that mindset/level of maturity.
Comment by Escapist — August 16, 2010 @ 11:14 pm
One of the interesting things about this debate is that it doesn’t always cut in the usual right-left lines. Sheila’s portrayal is kind of up there with the leche leaguer conservative or religious housewife sorts. My relatively few experiences with antivaxers (great term) actually comes more from an anti-corporate ideology and herb-waver sorts.
Comment by trumwill — August 17, 2010 @ 12:08 am
Re: Jenny McCarthy, it isn’t just dudes who’ll listen to tarded shit if a hot chick says it? I know why we do it. Ladeez, what’s your excuse?
If I could ask Jim Carrey one question, it would be whether he really bought in to all that or if it was just the ticket of admission to sleeping with Jenny McCarthy.
Comment by trumwill — August 17, 2010 @ 12:13 am
“Re: Jenny McCarthy, it isn’t just dudes who’ll listen to tarded shit if a hot chick says it? I know why we do it. Ladeez, what’s your excuse?”
Women respond to status just as men do. Housewife-moms wish to appear glamorous and important, just as everyone does. Jenny McCarthy casts an image that allows them to feel that way. She’s a GlamorMom With A Cause.
“If I could ask Jim Carrey one question, it would be whether he really bought in to all that or if it was just the ticket of admission to sleeping with Jenny McCarthy.”
Sadly, no. I’m satisfied Carrey is fucking insane in his own right.
Comment by stone — August 17, 2010 @ 12:24 am
You’d think autism rates would have dropped since so many parents started skipping vaccinations for their children … but it hasn’t happened, has it?
Comment by stone — August 17, 2010 @ 12:28 am
Oh,and let’s not forget the problems this hysteria caused me, when my doctor refused me a flu shot because I was pregnant.
Comment by stone — August 17, 2010 @ 12:33 am
“I’ve heard other parents say that they don’t want to give their children vaccines because of “ingredients” like “horse saliva”. ”
So what’s wrong with horse saliva? What does it do? Do they have any idea? It’s not a reasoned medical decision if you JUST THINK IT SOUNDS GROSS.
It could be worse than horse saliva. I’ve heard that the hormones which many older women take are derived from, ahem, Number One.
Comment by Peter — August 17, 2010 @ 4:40 am
“1.Why should we expect a cure for cancer? It would hurt the profits of the drug companies. What would happen to the drug companies after the cure was found?”
I cosign this theory. I mentioned this on R’s blog and two seconds later I was shot down by a set if both regulars and trolls alike.
Chic, there’s more than one drug company. Consider: company A is making 10 billion/year treating cancer. Poor little company B doesn’t have any decent chemo drugs on the market. Those plucky scientists at B discover the cure! But there’s a rub. The company will only make $1 billion/year off the cure. Total industry profits will drop 90%. What does B do? They don’t get a share of total industry profits: they get their profit. They market the drug. Not to mention, look at how much people pay for mediocre cancer treatments: a cure would have a bigger market than all existing treatments combined.
Comment by rob — August 17, 2010 @ 8:13 am
Sheila, that was pretty good, finding a way to connect Roissy44 to a post about vaccinations!
Chic, there isn’t just one kind of cancer. Each one will have a different “cure.” That said there are a lot more treatments for various types of cancer than there were when I was a kid. In those days almost all cancer diagnoses were death sentences.
Comment by Maria — August 17, 2010 @ 9:44 am
Chic, there isn’t just one kind of cancer…
It’s worse than that. Cancer cells fit all the criteria for Darwinian evolution. They reproduce, they vary in ways that are inherited, they’re subject to selection pressure on those traits…When someone has cancer, there’s huge variation within that tumor. It is entirely possible for 1/million cancer cells to be immune or resistant to a treatment. Those cells reproduce, and they’ll eventually kill. Unlike bacteria or fungi, there aren’t huge differences between cancer cells and normal cells for drugs to target: they don’t have cell walls. When they have mitochondria, they’re yours, no targets there. Most chemo drugs interfere with cell division to kill rapidly dividing cells, so people go bald, are sick all the time because they don’t regenerate the GI lining.
That paints a very bleak view, but to a good first approximation, it’s reality. Cancers lose tons of genes: like 25-75% of their DNA for anueploid ones. The microsatellite tumors don’t lose and gain chromosome peices, but they probably have buttloads of genes that don’t work cuz of Mullers ratchet. Cancers are r-selected populations, so chances are they’re worse at dealing with common environmental insults. So far as I know, genotyped tumors have either aneuploidy or microsattelite mutations, never both. So they can maybe be pushed to mutate past a survival threshold. Whatever makes them mutate too fast to survive might cause more cancers though.
Better cancer treatments will need the subtlety and evolvability of the immune system, and even those go wrong from time to time. We’re reaching the point where we can reliably evolve things: aptamers, viruses, maybe bacteria. But new drugs take time and money to develop, lots of things have worked in model animals and cell cultures that go on to be worthless in people. As treatments multiply, the ways to use them grow faster: should we use a kitchen sink approach, throw several drugs at once? Maybe every cell will be vulnerable to at least one. Should we hold back cancers with one drug, then switch when the disease evolves around it, like we do with HIV?
Anti-metastasis treatments would kick ass. I don’t think the research tools are there yet. Even when they are, it’ll be a while before we know how biology translates to outcomes. Cancer is an amazingly hard problem.
Comment by rob — August 17, 2010 @ 10:50 am
I am not a doctor, do not take medical advice from me.
Comment by rob — August 17, 2010 @ 10:51 am
I like the distinction between personal health and social health. When a decision you make regarding you or your child’s health affects others as well, your rights are altered. It’s the same reason schools don’t want kids in school that are demonstrably ill, it’s to protect the other kids from getting sick. When your actions to not seek out treatment for a child, whether in the form of immunizations or any other medication, and the child is exposed to other children a social health problem is created. And in such case, your child’s rights to be around other kids should be curtailed.
I think a similar argument can be and has been made regarding second-hand smoke - your “right” to smoke in public has been severely curtailed because of its affect on non-smokers around you.
Comment by Barry — August 17, 2010 @ 12:20 pm
The science is on the connection between vaccinations and autism at best unproven (and I would argue disproven).
You would argue correctly. A study in Denmark including almost every child born in Denmark from 1991 to 1998 found no link whatsoever. Given that Wakefield (the author who initially “demonstrated” a link) has been utterly disgraced, I don’t know what else provaxers have to prove.
Comment by Meadowlark — August 17, 2010 @ 4:09 pm
I never thought Jenny McCarthy was all that pretty. Something about her face is kind of skewed IMHO.
Comment by Maria — August 17, 2010 @ 11:17 pm
truman Nor has sanitation gotten worse in the last few years to explain the resurgence of outbreaks (focusing, naturally, on parts of the country that resist vaccination).
Oh no I wouldn’t say sanitation is the reason for this. I’ve read where it’s argued that the flooding of new immigrants into the country is largely the reason for resurgence of outbreaks.
Comment by chic noir — August 22, 2010 @ 8:10 pm