The Futures Market in Human Suffering
by JoyBecause I'm not very interested in the hype I've encountered ever since the 1970s on what the global climate is doing – whether we're all gonna die of another ice age or turn into Venus (neither) – thought I'd bring up another subject more pertinent to a serious issue we're facing that actually IS caused by the environment and the load of filth we've dumped into it. Cancer. Which now strikes 1/3 of us in our lifetimes and is quickly increasing to the point where more than 1/2 the population is expected to develop cancer before they die – of it or some other cause.
My friend Steve Wing, research epidemiologist at UNC-Chapel Hill (who also has some not very nice things to say about corporate control over researches undertaken as well as what conclusions may be reached and published, a subject for a different post) sent me this nifty alert awhile back…
The Cancer Market Outlook to 2013
"The Cancer Market Outlook to 2013" is a new report published by Business Insights that provides comprehensive coverage of the major markets in the global cancer area, incorporating a detailed epidemiological analysis of the nine major indications and key factors impacting their prevalence. Current leading brands of treatment within each cancer indication are analysed and eight of the market's leading players are profiled. With coverage of over 90% of the total market for cancer products, this report profiles the most promising areas of potential growth. Forecasts for currently marketed and key pipeline products over the 2007-13 period are also provided.
Your questions answered…
- Which indications will experience the greatest growth in the global cancer market over the period 2008-13?
- What is the forecast market size and growth rate over the period [] across the major cancer indications?
- How will generic competition influence the future of branded products and which defensive strategies provide the most effective protection?
- What will be the competitive landscape of lung, breast, colorectal, ovarian, prostate, lymphoma and pancreatic cancer in 2013?
This slick and sick little investment guide eagerly touts the huge futures market in human suffering to be taken advantage of as the rates keep skyrocketing, particularly now that mandatory insurance (with government subsidies!) has past hurdles in the U.S. Congress and is scheduled to start pouring Big Bucks straight into the PhRMA lobby's clients by 2013 (a backroom deal made in the White House before the debate ever started in the House). Get in on the ground floor NOW, you too can get rich off other people's suffering!!!
Which, while certainly a callous look at how the world economy got itself into its current utterly crooked mess, is at least honest about the growing impact of this environmental disease. Thus it is pertinent to wonder not just about high-growth treatments, but also about that ubiquitous and sternly-enforced "Scientific Consensus" about the nature of this disease in all its "indications" [types].
While there are of course as many causes and triggers of cancer as there are man-made carcinogens in our air, water, food and drugs, the consensus has long been that cancer is a genetic disease. This appears to be an extension of early research when the rate was not as ubiquitous as it is today, per the study of "familial cancers" that really are the result of defective genes. Unfortunately, these types of cancer are quite rare, accounting for less than 5% of cancers seen. So. What is the actual nature of the disease?
Way back in 1929 German biologist Theodor Boveri observed cell division [mitosis] in normal and cancerous cells. He noted that cancer mitosis showed imbalanced division of chromosomes with asymmetrical and multipolar unequal distributions and suggested that an aberrant mitosis process itself caused cancer. The modern "standard dogma" [Gibbs, 2003] that cancer is a genetic disease runs counter to the fact that individual tumors and even individual cancerous cells in tumors display a great deal of genetic variability due to aberrant mitosis. IOW, there simply is no way to isolate and identify which genes – or even which 'junk' DNA might be responsible for the assumed causation.
Interestingly, Orch-OR co-conspirator Stuart Hameroff published a new and different theory of the nature of the disease in the journal BioSystems [77, 2004] that examines the aberrant mitosis itself as causal. As a somewhat notable 'expert' on all things microtubule related, the mechanics of mitosis (which are observed but not well understood) seem right up his proverbial alley. Given that the division of nuclear chromosomes is stage managed by the MT constructs known as centrioles and assisted by dynamic MT-based "spindles."
A New Theory for the Origin of Cancer
From '9. Conclusions: quantum entanglement and cancer':
It is suggested here that normal mitosis is organized by quantum entanglement and quantum coherence among centrioles. In particular, quantum optical properties of centrioles enable entanglement in normal mitosis which ensures precise mirror-like activities of mitotic spindles and daughter chromatids, and proper differentiation, communication and boundary recognition between daughter cells.
Defects in the proposed mitotic quantum entanglement/coherence can explain all aspects of malignancy. Analysis and duplication of quantum optical properties of normal cell centrioles could possibly lead to laser-mediated therapeutic disruption and/or repro-programming of cancerous tumors as well as abundant, ethical production of stem cells.
Hameroff is a doctor, not a Big Pharma biochemical manipulator developing super-toxic drugs with which to torture cancer patients for Big Insurance Company Bucks for extended periods before they die. The better to glean every possible penny from the insurance pool or impoverish the patient and his/her family before the inevitable happens. Is it likely that after trillions of dollars poured into cancer research (held strictly to the "central dogma" imposed from on high) over many decades that a really effective treatment or cure for the disease that doesn't provide profits in the futures market on human suffering would ever be allowed?
If you are interested in what a telic design oriented theory of cancer and its treatment/cure might look like, check out the pdf of Hameroff's theory that incorporates aspects of Orch-OR and quantum consciousness.
December 23rd, 2009 at 2:08 pm
There have been instances when mutations, affecting the function of proteins coded for by specific identifiable genes, are correlated to an increased incidence of cancer.
Is the objection to futures markets or more generally to investment capital? Profits are the money that remains after expenses are deducted. It is the anticipation of this which motivates investors to lend money or buy part of an enterprise. The money pays for lab equipment, rent and salaries. What alternative source of capital is there?
Comment by Bradford — December 23, 2009 @ 2:08 pm
December 23rd, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Well, I personally see the entire Big Pharma enterprise in this (and many other) areas of sciento-medical enterprise as highly corrupt. Of course, lots of enterprises these days are highly corrupt, and certainly not scheduled to get any more honest in the future so long as profitability remains high. In this particular enterprise I think your magnanimous sensibilities are off-point. The market isn't there to finance the development and marketing of these chemo-treatments (on prime time TV! Ask your doctor! Side effects may include inhumane suffering and increased risk of death by cancer…). That is all paid for by the multinational gigacorps themselves – R&D costs from income garnered via the sale of their product line – and most often amount to single peripheral, non-functional alterations in chemical structure so as to maintain patent protection for the high price protection.
We are often informed about this gene or that gene involved in this cancer or that one. What they neglect to say up front is that genes in somatic cells are often mutants in that cell but not in the primary genome. Like the aberrant cancer and pre-cancerous cells assayed, which have trashed genomes due to the altered mitosis process. So while it's true that if you have a certain version of a certain gene you may statistically be more prone to develop a certain cancer, fact is that this is merely statistical correlation – no one has demonstrated apart from direct familial subtypes among the less than 5% that everyone with version X of a gene will develop that certain cancer. Thus it seems quite evident that it isn't the gene version that causes the cancer. It just means people with version X are less able to defend against the environmental trigger that actually sets the aberrant mitosis in motion.
The market appeal is purely profit, in well-established for-profit multinational, trust-protected, bought-and-paid-for sciencey enterprises that make such obscene profits every year that they have no real need of a single penny of investment from you, Bradford. You too can buy in to these chemo-treatments and enjoy a good return on your investment. Because the cancer rates will keep right on exploding as far into the future as these cartels can manage to enforce orthodoxy! Of course, if your conscience were to give you some moral pause about buying in to the profits of a futures market in human suffering they still have no need to worry. They'll most likely end up getting all your money (and everything you ever hoped to leave to your children) when you too are stricken with one or more of these high growth cancers!!!
Comment by Joy — December 23, 2009 @ 3:37 pm
December 23rd, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Oh… and you may or may not find it interesting that those touting the cancer futures market who are so sure the rates will keep on exploding are often branches of the same gigacorps who produce and promote the cancer triggers themselves that are poured so voluminously in ever increasing amounts into our air, water and food supply (not to mention drugs/treatments said to 'cure' cancer that cause cancer all by themselves!). Watta racket.
Comment by Joy — December 23, 2009 @ 3:42 pm
December 23rd, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Hi Bradford,
You asked…
The same source which capitalizes defense, utilities, transportation infrastructure and other things for the common good.
Some things are inappropriate to entrust to corporate greed, even in a capitalistic environment.
Comment by Thought Provoker — December 23, 2009 @ 3:45 pm
December 23rd, 2009 at 4:39 pm
What alternative source of capital is there?
They get their capital from businesses and the individual employees of business enterprises. Big gov does not produce wealth.
Virtually nobody advocates that anyone other than gov own air force jets or interstate highways but for greed it is hard to top Harry Reid. He bribes the Senators from Louisiana and Nebraska to get their health bill votes… No. Let me correct myself. He uses other people's money to bribe them. Lacks the thief honor of a gangsta who at least bribes others with his own money.
Comment by Bradford — December 23, 2009 @ 4:39 pm
December 23rd, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Breast cancer has been of greater interest to me since my wife came down with it. Broken genomes behind breast cancers states that:
and with respect to funding:
Comment by Bradford — December 23, 2009 @ 5:55 pm
December 24th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Bradford, your link basically confirms the description of cancer as a malfunction of mitosis. Of course the odd combinations and rearrangements that result will demonstrate involvement of oncogenes, DNA repair sequences/mechanisms, end caps all out of whack, etc. The very fact that different cancer cells sequenced from the same tumor can demonstrate such chaotic genomes does tend to make cancer appear to be a disease of cell replication gone wrong.
But it doesn't look to me like damage to the *repair* functions cause so much chaos (mitosis is normally precisely guided, and repair mechanisms don't kick in until after that has occurred). If it were, we would observe chaos in normal mitosis. We do not.
Comment by Joy — December 24, 2009 @ 3:54 pm
December 26th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
You guys have inspired me to do a little research, trying to figure out how much medical research is funded by the government and how much by private sources.
So far NIH pays for 28% of research overall. It will provide $6 billion in 2010 for cancer research.
Comment by Bilbo — December 26, 2009 @ 12:43 pm
December 26th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
And this article says 36% of medical research is government funded. So would that mean 64% isn't?
Comment by Bilbo — December 26, 2009 @ 12:53 pm
December 26th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Bilbo:
I believe that's correct. Funding percentages can vary with the time frame chosen. As a rule of thumb I thought the one third two thirds breakdown was roughly accurate.
Was East Anglia privately or publicly funded?
Comment by Bradford — December 26, 2009 @ 1:01 pm
December 26th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
My computer won't copy anything right now, but if you scroll down that last article you'll see that both governments and private corporations can exert influence on scientists' results.
Comment by Bilbo — December 26, 2009 @ 1:07 pm
December 26th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Here's an article saying that pharmaceutical companies spend about 21% of their budgets on R&D.
OK, I just added that up in my head, and we're missing about 43% of the funding.
Scrolling down, we find out that about 22% is from NGOs. That still leaves 21% unaccounted for.
No wait. I'm adding the 21% of the pharma budgets, but that 21% might account for 42% of the total R&D budget.
Comment by Bilbo — December 26, 2009 @ 1:35 pm