To Profit Or Explore, Full story at http://www.physorg.com/news69507878.html

[E. L. Earnhardt]

http://www.physorg.com/news69507878.html

The best example of these choices is the 100 year search for a cancer cure. 100 years of searching for a drug that is patentable has yielded little. A "treatment" option gets little time or funding for its lack of return. The funding for this fruitless search is largely by the suffering public!

E. L. Earnhardt

[CactusCritter]

On 14-Jun-2006 by E. L. Earnhardt stated:

"The best example of these choices is the 100 year search for a cancer cure. 100 years of searching for a drug that is patentable has yielded little. A "treatment" option gets little time or funding for its lack of return. The funding for this fruitless search is largely by the suffering public!"

I believe that either E. L. Earnhardt is not tracking the reduced death rates for a fair number of cancers in the last ten years or so or else he has little or no understanding of the nature of cancer.

Most childhood leukemias used to be death sentences, but now few leukemias result in death of the child victims. Substantial improvements in survival times and remissions have been established for a number of other cancers.

I think that E. L. Earnhardt feels that should be a drug which cures all cancers. Why it has to be patentable to be acceptable is for E. L. Earnhardt to answer.

Unfortunately, the reality is that every tissue which can become malignant (a majority, BTW) has fundamental difference in it's mechanisms that there is neglibable, perhaps no, chance that a universal cure will ever be developed.

I'm sure that thundreds, if not thousands of of cancer survivors take a much more positive view of progress than E. L. Earnhardt . They couldn't care less whether it is a patentable drug or improved surgical technnniques that save their lives.

[StevenA]

I agree that such a cure wouldn't need to be patentable for people to both search for it and profit as well. Dang, I bet if such a cure was discovered people would literally offer billions to have the information publicly available and this would likely even make such a cure more accessible ... not to mention bypassing the entire system of government controls over it which would likely delay a real cure or even deny its use.

Yes, I have a personal peeve with most forms of intellectual "property" - ask for whatever compensation you want in exchange for your knowledge but don't try to claim a monopoly on everyone elses thoughts in the process.

This post has been edited by StevenA on Jul 7 2006, 11:07 AM