I’ll be blunt; I’m not a fan of the pharmaceutical industry and in fact I feel it represents everything that’s wrong with capitalism. I always get a chuckle when I hear about how diseases will be wiped out in the future and that everyone will have good health. In case you’re living under a rock, let me make it clear. The medical and pharmaceutical industries don’t want you to be healthy and they don’t want to cure anything.
What they want is for everyone to be sick and sick for a long time (your whole life if possible) because that way they can continue to sell you treatments. As usual it’s all about money and realistically consumers (we are all consumers to the pharmaceutical industry, not patients) have no alternatives. I guess you can opt for the ultimate rebellion and refuse treatment but then you’re dead if you have a serious illness.
Think about it for a second, what benefits would the drug companies receive if there was a cure for AIDS, malaria, or cancer? Heck that would ruin their entire business plan because a healthy person won’t pay through the nose for drugs they don’t need.
Case and point a recent study from the University of Alberta. It found that DCA (dichloroacetate) allowed the mitochondria organelles to regain function and kill their host cancer cell. DCA in fact attacks all types of cancers in clinical test in mice. Best of all DCA is not a new drug and has been used for years to treat metabolic disorders and its side effects are well known.
The problem, DCA is an old drug and cannot be patented so pharmaceutical have no interest in using it. Oh you can bet these companies are scrambling to find new DCA type drugs but it won’t use this one because there’s no money to be had. That’s single handedly the biggest thing that’s holding it back. Clinical trials with DCA used to treat cancer in people is the next step but I doubt any pharmaceutical will step up.
The University of Alberta is moving ahead but it needs money and a lot of it. Cancer affects everyone, directly and indirectly and you can make a donation here if you choose. Think about it, a cheap easily produced drug that can take on all types of cancer, isn’t that the wonder drug that the developed world is yearning for?
If you’d like to learn more about DCA and how it works, NewScientist has posted an excellent overview. Let’s show the pharmaceutical industry that it’s suppose to be about the lives, not money.
