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Cancer Medicine

Cure for cancer worth $50 trillion

Here’s an interesting tidbit that I came across: A new study, to be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Political Economy, calculates the prospective gains that could be obtained from further progress against major diseases. Kevin M. Murphy and Robert H. Topel, two University of Chicago researchers, estimate that even modest advancements […]

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Cancer Medicine

Reader mail: Can viruses cause tumor shrinkage?

I just have time for a short take today. (If you need more, fortunately, Bora has posted the 33rd Meeting of the Skeptics’ Circle for your edification. Yes, my preamble was just an excuse to plug the Skeptics’ Circle one more time.) In the comments of yesterday’s post about a medical student who is a […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine

By Seed prodded, or there’s less to these studies than meets the eye

OK, I’ve been prodded enough! Yes, I’ve been aware of the study purporting to present good anecdotal case reports showing that there might be something to the hypothesis that megadoses of vitamin C can cure cancer where other therapies fail. I’ve also been aware of an in vitro study that suggested selective toxicity of vitamin […]

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Cancer Medicine

Medicine and evolution, Part 2: Applying evolutionary principles to cancer

Last week, I inaugurated a new series on this blog entitled Medicine and Evolution. I even wrote what was to be the second post in the series, a post that (I hoped) would illustrate the utility of applying approaches used to study evolution to human disease. That post is essentially complete, other than requiring the […]

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Cancer Politics

Support cancer research by supporting the Spector-Harkin Amendment

Evolgen and I both wrote about this earlier, when the Genetics Society of America urged people to contact their Senators. Now the biggest organization dedicated to cancer research, the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), has weighed in. Received in my e-mail today: To: All AACR Members From: Dr. Margaret Foti, Chief Executive Officer; Dr. […]