Unfortunately its hard to get through the amount of craziness out there. The number of uneducated and crazy claims about cancer that are out there is just about mind-boggling.
I'll make an attempt to debunk the two that I find the most annoying:
1) Although considerable progress has been made in some areas of cancer research, there is no secret cure that the government or pharmaceutical companies are hiding. This fails Carl Sagan's bologna detector at once. Creating a cancer drug takes teams of researchers. If only one of them wasn't in on the conspiracy, then the secret would be out. There is also a HUGE motivation to release cancer drugs. Ignoring the billions of dollars of revenue from such a drug, a scientist involved in the development who let the secret out would instantly become a world renowned celebrity.
2) Baking soda cures cancer. There are some ridiculous YouTube videos promoting this idea. It has something to do with your blood being too acidified and bringing down the pH will make the cancer go away. First of all, your body spends an enormous amount of energy maintaining homeostasis. One of these mechanisms is maintaining the pH of your body by dissolving more or less carbon dioxide in your blood. I forget the mechanism because it has been years since I routinely measured the pH and dissolved CO2 levels ins patients' blood, but ask any medical technologist and they can explain it to you.
Global conspiracies are a great premise for good movie, but in the real world they are almost always the work of a mind that is much more imaginative than informed.
I'll make an attempt to debunk the two that I find the most annoying:
1) Although considerable progress has been made in some areas of cancer research, there is no secret cure that the government or pharmaceutical companies are hiding. This fails Carl Sagan's bologna detector at once. Creating a cancer drug takes teams of researchers. If only one of them wasn't in on the conspiracy, then the secret would be out. There is also a HUGE motivation to release cancer drugs. Ignoring the billions of dollars of revenue from such a drug, a scientist involved in the development who let the secret out would instantly become a world renowned celebrity.
2) Baking soda cures cancer. There are some ridiculous YouTube videos promoting this idea. It has something to do with your blood being too acidified and bringing down the pH will make the cancer go away. First of all, your body spends an enormous amount of energy maintaining homeostasis. One of these mechanisms is maintaining the pH of your body by dissolving more or less carbon dioxide in your blood. I forget the mechanism because it has been years since I routinely measured the pH and dissolved CO2 levels ins patients' blood, but ask any medical technologist and they can explain it to you.
Global conspiracies are a great premise for good movie, but in the real world they are almost always the work of a mind that is much more imaginative than informed.
