MrVicchio said:
Here's the thing that I find most disturbing about this entire thread. Do people actually believe this tripe that if a cure for cancer were found, it would be hidden so "big pharma" could keep raking in $$ on less effective treatments? I mean really? Some of you would actually believe that?
I do, but I have seen direct evidence that this is probably the case. Specifically, I once worked for a medical market research firm. One of our clients screwed up and sent us briefs on actual agents that had been developed for female pelvic adenosquamous carcinoma (ovarian, uterine, cervical). The survey that accompanied it (to be administered to oncologists) asked a series of questions whose aim was to discover what the minimum level of effectiveness the agent would need to have before the doctor would consider prescribing it. I had always thought that these were hypothetical questions, but the materials accompanying that survey named different agents, discussed their processes of manufacture, molecular structure, and details of small clinical trials that had been run on each. About six hours after they arrived, we got a frantic call from our client stating that we weren't supposed to have those and to return them immediately. I had been reading through them because that's what I thought I was supposed to be doing. It was clear to me, from the reading, that they actually had six agents whose effectiveness and side effect profiles were well known, and the idea was simply to discover which one they wanted to release, based on which one met the minimum marketable effectiveness.
I quit shortly after that. I wish I had had the presence of mind to photocopy that material before putting it in a Fedex box and returning it.
Goshin said:
Maybe they haven't considered that hundreds of "Big Pharma" executives are themselves subject to getting cancer... and so are their wives, children, parents, siblings, friends, cousins... and if the "cure" was made available only for the big shots and their families, that would still be thousands of people.... you couldn't keep it quiet. If you give The Cure to your wife's favorite Auntie, what happens when Auntie wants the cure for her daughter? Give it to her?
The Machiavellian answer is that you give your Aunt the cure, and when she wants it for her daughter (your cousin) you do the same. When she (your cousin) wants it for her boyfriend, you give him a placebo, he dies, and you explain that it's not really a cure, it doesn't work in every case, etc. As relationships radiate out from you (the Big Exec), there is a point before which everyone is an insider, and after which, everyone is an outsider. Those who are inside know it and know how to behave, including to whom they can give their affection. A single leak or two here or there ends up as some post on the internet somewhere, and is easy to cast as the work of a crackpot. The hullabaloo dies down pretty quickly, especially since there are plenty of real crackpots to muddy the waters.
The slightly more realistic answer is that things are more fragmented than this. The top execs have little idea what their chemists are working on, beyond finished product, but they nevertheless hold the power to release or not release a drug. The middle managers, the guys who run the chemists, do have an idea what they have, but have no power to release the drugs. And in fact there is no outright cure, just a particularly effective agent (as DCA is supposed by some to be--it doesn't work in every case). The top execs will not release for anyone without various bureaucratic hurdles being overcome and the middle managers can't argue that the agent is 100% effective, ergo, the situation you describe never arises. In the rare event it does, see paragraph above.
