Science blogger deflates sensationalism of "Scientists cure cancer, but no one takes notice" story - Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog Ovarian Cancer and Us OVARIAN CANCER and US Ovarian Cancer and Us

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Monday, May 23, 2011

Science blogger deflates sensationalism of "Scientists cure cancer, but no one takes notice" story - Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog





"....So we have one popular account that is badly written and makes exaggerated claims. There is also a university press release, the source for the sloppy popular account, that doesn't contain the egregious stupidities but does tend to inflate basic research studies into an unwarranted clinical significance. And then, of course, there are the actual peer reviewed papers that describe the research and rationale, and also the reservations, on DCA. It's like a game of telephone: you can actually trace the account from the sober science paper to the enthusiastic press release to the web account with its extravagant claims of a simple, cheap cure for cancer, and see how the story is gradually corrupted. It would be funny if the final result wasn't going to dupe a lot of desperate people.

But there is a germ of truth to the story, in that DCA does have potential.
...
We should be urging further investigation of this promising drug with the beginning of clinical trials, but it's far too early to be babbling about "cancer cures". There have been lots of drugs that look great in the lab and have excellent rationales for why they should work, but the reality of cancer is that it is complicated and diverse and there are many more pitfalls between a drug that poisons cancer cells in a petri dish and a drug that actually works well in the more complex environment of a human being."

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