If we cured all forms of cancer with the ease of taking a pill, what would be the next thing medicine would put the biggest focus on?
It seems like cancer is the biggest thing we all think of when it comes to medicine and what we’d most like to eradicate from our species. So my question is phrased this way out of curiosity what the second worst thing medicine is currently trying to eradicate.
32 replies
Dementia, Alzheimer's, Atherosclerosis.
Aging in general.
Damn, imagine if politicians found the cure to aging. That's the only thing that gets rid of them now.
Alternatively they would at least have a vested interest in not having the planet turn into a fireball.
Dementia and Alzheimer’s. Yeah that is a nasty way to go
I hope neurodevelopmental disorders would also get more attention. Although less people suffer from it than from aging-related disorders, when a child is born with a severe disease it affects not only the child's life, but also that of parents and siblings. (I don't mean neurodivergence, I mean severe disorders that prevent a child from being able to walk, communicate, and/or live in health).
In comparison with aging-disorders, so many good years of life are lost.
dementia
Heart disease. Beats other death causes hands down.
Cancer is only the biggest thing because it can hit anyone, including rich people.
Not because it's actually what is the biggest threat.
The great equaliser.
In developed countries, it is the biggest killer by far, followed by heart disease. Do you mean to include starvation, war, and infectious diseases in underdeveloped countries?
I was thinking more about diseases in general, whether infectious, psychological, etc.
Curing the side effects of the anti-cancer pill.
Aging, maybe. Once cancer's gone, why not?
Came here to say that. Cell rejuvenation more specifically. Telomeres and such seemed all the rage 20 years ago, haven't heard much about it since. I wonder what the newer approaches are.
My wife used to work on that kind of research. Interesting stuff. She left that job to research cancer instead.
Smol pp
Honestly, that would probably help a lot with the state of the world.
Hiding the pills existence.
Along with the moon landing hoax, the globe earth hoax, and the jet fuel melting steel beams hoax, no doubt.
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/258:_Conspiracy_Theories
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/966:_Jet_Fuel
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/690:_Semicontrolled_Demolition
Hair loss.
They would focus on monetizing that pill and wringing every last dollar out of it.
I bet the next thing we'd be fighting for is the ability for an average person to afford that pill. I mean ... Insurance companies aren't in the business of healing people after all. Why can't you think about the shareholders!!!
The common cold
Get rid of tuberculosis once and for all. It’s still the world’s deadliest infectious disease.
Cardiovascular disease
We’d be focused on making sure that all of your assets get transferred to blackrock before you could access that pill
Along with all the other good answers I’ll add ALS. Really terrible disease that can accelerate quickly.
You don’t need to eradicate if you achieve super gene editing capabilities.
Some years ago, Dr. David Williams ( whose website is now gone ), had a paper-newsletter.
A friend of his had cancer, & was in an experimental-drug-trial.
He was the ONLY survivor of that trial.
In the closeout interview, he told them he'd also been taking fenbendazole.
Oh, well they already knew about that, so his surviving wasn't surprising, then.
Dr. David Williams was LIVID.
Oncologists KNEW a way to defeat cancer, & they SAT ON IT??
The only site with information on it, nowadays, seems to be:
https://www.fenbendazole.org/
I'm a brain-decimation survivor, & have been gaslit by doctors all my life ( dad was a medical-researcher & doctor: he taught me to think, but medical-culture's narcissistic, & I went no-contact with both parents, for years-at-a-time, to protect my life from their prejudice against their inferior's having any validity )
IF I had cancer, I'd be taking that, if I could.
The industry won't EVER tolerate diminishing of its establishment, profits, or authority.
The question is falsely-based, thereby.
Sorry to be cynical about it.
Go read the book "Doctored", or the book "Money-Driven Medicine", or 1 of many many other books on the conflict-of-interest between medical-industry & what it supposedly is for.
Conflict-of-interest is THE root of corruption.
Until the reward & the goal are congruent, corruption's inescapable.
_ /\ _ o
Okay, Ivermectin.
It appears it isn't complete nonsense https://ar.iiarjournals.org/content/44/9/3725