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253 Comments
- Trekhawk, on 04/27/2009, -1/+252Probably the longest and most somber PhD comic ever.
- diggbury, on 04/27/2009, -1/+245how thoughtful , it's in form of a comic strip so that diggers pay attention.
- Whatasillyhat, on 04/27/2009, -3/+242***** you cancer...
- babyheadout, on 04/27/2009, -1/+173"I hope we find a cure for every major disease. I'm tired of walking 5k." Daniel Tosh
- Aero347, on 04/27/2009, -1/+133Saddest comic ever.
- gerrymac, on 04/27/2009, -1/+125Sad.
- Goshyouidiot, on 04/27/2009, -0/+84That is EXACTLY how I feel about cancer. Of course I try to think about it in an objective way but I get overwhelmed by anger and.....
***** you cancer! - Dromeciomimus, on 04/27/2009, -0/+67If you admittedly know very little about the disease, please do not try and belittle the people who have devoted their lifetimes trying to keep your relatives alive.
- cr12345, on 04/27/2009, -2/+61... but truest comic ever.
- brown2hm, on 04/27/2009, -0/+54I think you missed the point. It's not that cancer is incurable, it's that there are many many different forms of cancer that all require different treatment and different "cures".
I fail to see how a realistic view on the search for the cure can be considered "overly pessimistic". - sciencelovesyou, on 04/27/2009, -1/+43THANK YOU! I'm glad someone said it.
I've had people say to me that "you just don't care enough" after spending twenty-two hours in the lab. Yes, that's why this last experiment didn't work; I just didn't CARE enough, or I wasn't CREATIVE enough, or I didn't THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX enough.
On the plus side, after making such statements, these folks then roll up their sleeves, whip out their degrees, and start taking cracks at in the Lab.
Oh, wait. No they don't. - inactive, on 04/27/2009, -0/+38guilty as charged.
- jkleinfeld, on 04/27/2009, -0/+37I think another issue to do with "cure for cancer" fundraisers is the sheer plurality of them. The hundreds of charities, benevolent organizations, NGOs and non-profits that exist solely for the eradication of cancers is slightly worrying. If there was a greater level of central planning (do not read: bureaucracy) and co-operation between research facilities and charity income, you'd think the goal would be much more attainable.
Thoughts anyone? - frostbyt, on 04/27/2009, -1/+37On Digg pot cures everything.
- pintocat, on 04/27/2009, -0/+34The truth behind cancer fundraisers: they almost all focus on breast cancer.
- zjbird, on 04/27/2009, -0/+32but they don't have world of warcraft in their society, so ***** them
- digitalpencil, on 04/27/2009, -3/+34that was the least funny comic-strip i've ever read.. i kept waiting for a punchline and instead all i got was; ***** thing sucks, everything is futile.. give up now.
- tribowl, on 04/27/2009, -3/+28Cancer is just a community trying to survive... a lot smaller than ours, but doing the same thing to the environment.
- d2002, on 04/27/2009, -1/+26Mirror:
http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/7888/phd042009s ... - inactive, on 04/27/2009, -1/+23There is a solution to every problem.
Maybe nano tech will be the path to the "cure" to cancer. - Wag3Slav3, on 04/27/2009, -0/+22If health care and bio-sciences were non profit then they wouldn't crack some new knowledge and patent the ***** out of it so no one could run down that road except for them.
I think that any venture that accepts government funds should be forced to public domain all of their findings and results. - bruenig, on 04/27/2009, -0/+20@Urrelles
You really don't understand evolution at all. Either that or don't understand was it meant by a mutation with respect to cancer. - universalpants, on 04/28/2009, -0/+19I think this is the saddest comic ever:
http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/resources/2007/11/a ... - i38warhawk, on 04/28/2009, -3/+21Well breasts are pretty awesome.
- nepidae, on 04/27/2009, -6/+23I thought that here on digg we agreed that pot cures cancer?
- okgaz, on 04/27/2009, -0/+15My wife was a PhD student at a charity funded cancer research center. The supervisors really sucked at their job and spent more time arguing than working. $millions were being spent without even getting any papers published. The only paper that was published in the department while she was there was a literature review (wtf?). Her PhD was cancelled half way through because her supervisor left.
It made me sad to think of the people who worked hard to raise money - I hope they never learn about these idiots squandering it. - digggggggggg, on 04/27/2009, -3/+18The problem is that the pharmaceutical industry has the inherent problem of expecting "blockbuster" drugs. That is, they expect to be able to throw tens, or hundreds of millions of dollars into researching a particular drug, and then hoping to recoup their losses several-fold by selling a crapload of that drug. If that drug doesn't perform well in clinical studies, it's labeled a failure and it's back to the drawing board.
A good example of this is a drug to cure lung cancer by AstraZeneca, that never made it to the market because it had limited effectiveness. It worked well in some Asians, but not in people of other ethnicities. It was labeled a "failure".
Cancer is a tricky problem because like the comic says, it's not just one disease, but a lot of different diseases that vary from person to person and case to case. Does that mean that a "cure" is impossible? I would have to say 'no', but it will be different than any drug that's on the market today. It will have to be tailored to every individual, while still maintaining some semblance of affordability. That concept will require drug makers to change their very model of research and development, which is why this cure is still a long ways off. - dawnraid101, on 04/28/2009, -1/+16It's "Soviet" and btw congratulations on your epic fail.
- RyanCoke, on 04/27/2009, -0/+14Sad... but finally people can realize what we are up against!
We've been saying this for years! People say "Run/bike/walk for the cure!" and we keep asking which one?
Fighting cancer is like fighting yourself. Your cells don't realize that what they are doing is killing you. They just do what they need to do. How the hell do you fight that?
Great comic(?). - MrPlatypus, on 04/28/2009, -0/+13Urrelles,
Stick to whatever non-biology related field you specialize in... - inactive, on 04/27/2009, -0/+13It would be comparable to every single person in the nation quitting their jobs in favor of just sitting on the couch drinking beer all day at the same time.
- SneakyNinja, on 04/27/2009, -13/+25Seems overly pessimistic. Sure the odds are stacked against us, and conventional ways attacking a health issue fail us. However, it's not impossible...
I think what makes this so sad is that the people we're counting on to develop a cure are negative nancies... - greenroom628, on 04/28/2009, -1/+13@ kelpee and Sneakyninja
if you look at the progress we've made in the last 20 years, improving not only the survival rate, but quality of life of cancer survivors -- its pretty impressive. my father-in-law was diagnosed with prostate cancer and he's a survivor. a few years ago, it would have been a different story.
though treatments aren't exactly cures, they're always a first step in identifying the functioning mechanism of the disease and who knows...maybe the cure has to be preventative treatment, rather than a reactive treatment.
and by the way, i'm one of those people "working on a cure". we're not negative nannies. - eawgoalie, on 04/28/2009, -0/+11http://www.explosm.net/comics/731/
http://www.explosm.net/comics/732/
http://www.explosm.net/comics/727/
http://www.explosm.net/comics/728/ - grug27, on 04/28/2009, -0/+10Which one?
- Disgod, on 04/27/2009, -1/+11The idiots who claim that there is some magic bullet for cancer that the pharmaceutical companies are holding back need to read this comic. It is the tragic reality that there are as many variants of cancer as there are people who have cancer. The names we give cancers, like lung cancer, liver cancer, leukaemia, etc. are just a description of where and how the cancer is presenting itself, not what the specific mutation that caused it is. Cancer isn't like viruses or bacteria.
- desertDenizen, on 04/28/2009, -0/+10Because it was too long for a caption under a funny looking cat.
- NUMBER4940, on 04/28/2009, -1/+10Instead of trying to cure it, we only intend to treat it. There is not much money to be made in a cure for something so profitable to treat.
- Greengoo, on 04/28/2009, -1/+10The Beautiful Truth follows a young boy who was expelled from school for building a bomb. Throughout the film (which is full of crap btw) he is exploited and fed lines about how he wants to find a cure for cancer, which the film claims is easy: just eat natural foods. It goes on to claim that all chemo drugs are actually created to give people "more cancer" and make them sicker so companies can profit. The film has no redeeming quality other than to remind you how lucky we are to have modern medicine.
As the boyfriend of a cancer patient this film made me want to punch the film maker, then a koala. - stockjones, on 04/28/2009, -0/+8You made me spit up my coffee.
- OptionalPirate, on 04/27/2009, -0/+8Then go back to 4chan, you mouth-breather.
- str3ama, on 04/27/2009, -6/+14Good comic, but I think the real truth about cancer research has little to do with finding a cure, and more with treating it. The old addage is that the real money is in treating the disease, not curing it. Obviously as the comic suggests there isn't a one-stop fix cure, but there are large organizations taking cancer research money that are squatting on extremely critical and important research information.
But really I don't donate to cancer fundraisers (actually any medical research) or charities, most are for-profit organizations whose sole job is to run various fundraiser, then slice off commissions ("administrative costs") and give a percentage of the profits towards private research groups. A good deal of the big cancer fundraisers are organized by these organizations, and they have extremely bloated costs and have CEOs with wallstreet-esque salaries.
Asides from that the research groups are bottom-line companies, they're not in it to come up with the cure. If they find out any breakthroughs, they immediately patent it and sit on it - if the breakthrough can generate money without hurting the future of the project they ship it out as a product or license it to others. We're mostly talking about discoveries that can be turned into medication or treatment rather than vaccines and cures. This isn't just cancer, it's just about every ailment - if some research company finds a cure for say 'swine flu' they'll add up the costs of curing it vs. treating it, and if they determine that a cure/vaccine won't cause the infection rate to decline drastically they'll very likely release it, otherwise they'll probably just sit on it and patent any information they have so that in the future if anyone finds out what they know or builds on their work, they'll be able to take control and take a commission + licensing fee.
The Medical research industry is really really dirty, in the past it was more about coming up with a cure and to be quicker than competitors at curing the problem so that you could profit by selling the drug at an inflated cost. But now it's about creating a base of longtime customers who depend on your treatment while constantly preventing cures by squatting on research with patents to the detriment of those suffering. - grabadores, on 04/27/2009, -1/+9I like phdcomics but when I first saw it I thought it said pbf and my heart skipped a beat.
- Wag3Slav3, on 04/27/2009, -1/+8Diggs been up for about 5 years. 52* 5 is 260 types of cancer cured.
Millions to go. - Funkleft, on 04/27/2009, -1/+8The REAL problem with the fund raising is focusing on things like Breast cancer, which is one of the more easily cured and most likely to be survived. If I remember the statistic correctly. The problem is that the most difficult to cure, get the least attention, and the least money.
- greenpushpins, on 04/27/2009, -0/+7Haha, thats a great comparison.
- iEATcatFOOD, on 04/27/2009, -0/+7nope. dead.
- kingmanic, on 04/27/2009, -1/+8SneakyNinja: The similarity is that it is mostly like you but grows faster. Chemo is sort of a treatment built on this similarity.
- daronicus, on 04/27/2009, -0/+7Actually, interestingly enough, there is work being done on a certifiable cure for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. It already has pretty promising results, is easy to personalize for the patient, and works by getting the immune system to fight it off, so there's very little in the way of nasty chemicals. It's only one form of cancer, but the idea is that the same process can be used for other cancers; one just needs to find a marker protein specific to that cancer.
- maxennator, on 04/27/2009, -1/+7good comment
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