“What Would You Do”? The Ethics behind the Final Months of a Cancer patient's life

The world, I would hope, is built upon the notion of love and kindness. We are taught to be unselfish and do what’s right in times of need. Therefore, when someone we love is diagnosed with cancer, we do whatever is necessary to attempt to give them the best medical care possible. Whether it be blood tests, screening, surgery, chemotherapy, clinical trials of drugs, we do whatever we can in order to take away any guilty feeling we may contain at our core. With that said I would like to state a fact: Approximately Twenty-five per cent of all Medicare spending is for the five per cent of patients who are in their final year of life. Most of that money goes for care in their last couple of months which is of little apparent benefit.  Therefore, as can be seen, insurance companies spend tons of money at the end stages of a cancer patients’ life, while at the same time causing a huge financial burden on the families as well as the insurance companies who have to deal with these costs. Don’t get me wrong, when your mom, dad, or loved one is obviously suffering, you need to fight for their life just like they would for you. However, when someone we love is already suffering immensely, do we really want to put them through more forms of treatment without inconclusive evidence that the treatment is affective?  Maybe it’s time for us to adapt a health care system in which we listen to what the cancer patient wants at the end of their life, rather than focusing on the family who feels guilty making any wishes against prolonging the life of their loved ones. Maybe, instead of focusing our efforts on risky experimental procedures focused we should put more effort ensuring that patients are comfortable and happy at the end of their lives.

Great TED talk by Cancer Doctor

Just watched this inspiring Ted talk by cancer doctor David Agus. I highly recommend everyone to take a look at Ted.com and view their excellent video resources on many topics of study. In this video, oncologist David Agus goes over the importance of being screened and identifying cancer at an early stage before it has metastasized(spread throughout the body). Agus also goes over the outdated technology that has continued to be present when treating cancer and states the hardships facing researchers trying to figure out how to treat cancer due to its heterogeneity. I agree with Agus's approach on looking more into cancer itself as a disease rather than continuing to be narrow minded trying to find a specific drug cure. Also, Agus states the shocking discovery that CHEMOTHERAPY HAS NOT BEEN SHOWN TO TARGET CANCER CELLS. Therefore, we are basically giving people radiation that kills both cancerous and normal cells with the hope that more cancerous cells will be killed.  I also concur with Agus in that more research should go towards finding pathways specific to certain kinds of cancers in order to stop growth of the cancer. I'm very glad Agus and Danny Hillis will be studying proteomics with the grant they received and hopefully they can help find the way to control cancer through the use of technology. Ted Video- David Agus Cancer Doctor

My mentality on Drugs

Drugs are at the cornerstone of all thinking in today's modern world. Pharmaceutical companies spend on the order of billions per year attempting to find drugs to cure any ailment. Don't get me wrong, DRUGS ARE IMPORTANT! Last year, I suffered from a horrible bacterial infection. I know that without the antibiotics I took I may have gotten worse or even died. The beauty of society today is that we have been able to calibrate many drugs to be sufficient for the most common physical pain to society. However, I do believe it is time for doctors to take a more holistic approach on the matter. It's time for doctors to stop giving drug after drug to help people with their ailments. For example, if my shoulder is in immense pain, I go see the doctor. Two days later, after taking the drugs he perscribed to help my shoulder, my stomach begins to hurt and he gives another drug to help my stomach and the cycle continues. It's time for doctors to stop thinking about the incentives that come with giving drugs and instead alter their mentality and begin trying other approaches to helping people. Maybe all it takes is to give people certain types of foods or to do certain types of activities in order to see a fundamental change in well being. With this in mind, I believe it is time for a new revolution to take place, testing different perturbations in an attempt to figure out what can help people the most in their war on cancer. The drug based approach hasn't been making much headway for the past 30 years anyway and we have devoted trillions to making this happen to no avail. With that in mind I'm going to continue researching what other holistic doctors are thinking and to constantly preach the importance on prevention when it comes to cancer.

Why is Cancer So Hard to Cure?

Cancer, unfortunately, is heterogeneous, simply meaning it can be controlled by many cells and has the potential to spread to many regions of the body. As we get older more and more mutations begin to occur and our repair systems begin to break down. Now, for some terminology I'd like to share with everyone. In our bodies, we have oncogenes which are normal genes that have been mutated into cancerous genes, as well as tumor suppressors which, as shown through the name, are physically genes that protect a the body from forming more oncogenes. I'm going to leave off here for now, at a very basic level and hope to give you more  insight in the near future.

What is Cancer, Really?

The way I would define cancer is the abnormal growth of cells in our body. See, our bodies run with a system of checks and balances in which we have many systems of repair controlling our bodies just in case anything goes wrong. With over a trillion cells in each human, errors and mutations are going to take place no matter what. However, at a younger age we are better able to fight these off because our repair systems are strong. However, as we get older these repair systems start to break down and without the proper care(i.e. eating right, exercising, staying out of the sun for long periods) we are unable to stop these mutations from accumulating and eventually these lead to a cancer tumor which can eventually metastasize and move to different areas of the body making it much harder to cure.

Miracle Cure for Cancer?

Just watched an amazing documentary called "Burzynski" which highlights a miracle drug made up of angioplastons that could possibly be the future in cancer research. The drug contains high dosages of phenyl acetate and can be manufactured on a large scale. The angioplastons have already treated countless patients with localized tumors who were told to get their affairs in order because they were going to die. However, Burzynski has been unable to get funding for his work due to legal issues and other matters. It's sad that with the continued use of outdated methods of treatment such as chemotherapy and surgery, we aren't giving this man the recognition and opportunity to chase after his goal in finding the cure. You can check out Burzynski website and learn more about seeing this extraordinary documentary at http://www.burzynskimovie.com/