Last week David Gorski wrote a excellent post about why we have not yet cured cancer. It turns out, cancer is a category of many individual diseases that are very challenging to treat. We have made steady progress, and many people with cancer can now be cured – but we have not discovered the one cure for all cancer. I personally am not convinced that we will discover a single cure for all cancer, at least not with any extrapolation of current technology. But if we continue to make progress as we are cancer will become an increasingly treatable and even curable type of disease.
This topic also brings up a meme that has been around for a long time – the notion that scientists have already cured cancer but the cure is being suppressed by the powers that be, to protect cancer as a source of income. In the comments to David’s article, Zuvrick writes:
So we can find a cure. It has probably happened multiple times. But nobody wants to cure cancer. Too many researchers earn a living seeking a cure by remaining inside a narrow, restricted channel of dogma. Their institutions get grant money and survive from the funding. Big Pharma makes big bucks selling chemotherapy drugs, surgeons remove tumors and various radiation devices employ radiologists and firms making these machines. MRI and CT scans would not be needed for cancer if Rife technology were available today.
I have heard or read some version of this claim since before I entered medical school. Superficially it may sound like profound wisdom (cynicism is a cheap way to sound wise) – but the idea collapses under the slightest bit of logical scrutiny.
First, as David thoroughly pointed out, the claim is implausible. Cancer is a complex set of diseases that defy sincere attempts at a cure. Those who promote the notion of the hidden cure often simultaneously promote wacky pseudoscientific treatments that they claim work – and Zuvrick is no exception. He believes that Royal Rife cured cancer 70 years ago. Rife was essentially a copycat of Albert Abrams who promoted his radio frequency devices. The concept is to use radio waves to alter the vibrations of cells in the body. This is pure nonsense. Here is a quick summary from Stephen Barret:
One of Abrams’s many imitators was Royal Raymond Rife (1888-1971), an American who claimed that cancer was caused by bacteria. During the 1920s, he claimed to have developed a powerful microscope that could detect living microbes by the color of auras emitted by their vibratory rates. His Rife Frequency Generator allegedly generates radio waves with precisely the same frequency, causing the offending bacteria to shatter in the same manner as a crystal glass breaks in response to the voice of an opera singer. The American Cancer Society has pointed out that although sound waves can produce vibrations that break glass, radio waves at the power level emitted a Rife generator do not have sufficient energy to destroy bacteria.
But let’s explore the logic of the hidden cure a bit further. Given that cancer is such a complex set of diseases, there is a vast and evolving science exploring the causes and behavior of cancers. This research takes place in numerous labs around the world. A cure for cancer would likely emerge from a collaboration among many researchers, in different labs and institutions, and even in different countries. Even if one lab made a significant breakthrough, it would be the capstone on top of a large body of research that was available to the entire community (and in fact the public). It would be impossible to keep other researchers from replicating the final steps that lead to a cure.
