Recently there has been lots of hoohah about a vaccine for breast cancer. Um, this has proven to work on mice. Not people, but mice as in the things my cat likes to find in the middle of the night and bring them up to show us. Yes it is significant. Yes it may constitute a breakthrough but it is only proven to work on specifically bred mice. And no it does not mean that it will be tested on humans anytime soon. And if it makes it through the testing, it does not mean that we can expect to see it available for another decade. So in the meantime, we get cured mice and we can feel happy that generations of mice being healthy.
An additional note to consider is who wrote the article and why. Are they a professional who can cut through the medicalese and translate it into something that cuts to the chase and concisely recaps what is being announced? Or are they just out of school without a lot of experience? Are they working for the publication and impartial or are they being paid by the drug developer to help put spin on their research? It doesn't really matter as long as you understand where they are coming from. Go read this article about bad medical writing by Otis Brawley to further my point.
I will keep my little inner optimistic side that some day when I go to the doctor they will tell me about a cure for all that ails me. In the meantime, I'll let the cat chase the cured mice.
3 comments:
Breast cancer is something that we have to constantly be on the lookout for. It afflicts over a million people a year and there are different forms of cancer that come up. Every year we are familiar with breast cancer awareness month, but there are ways to help fight the cause of breast cancer all year ‘round.
I'm a little more interested in drugs (treatments, not cures) that have gone through sufficient clinical trial (on humans) and are shown to show more significant results that previous drugs. Maybe someday....
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