Improvement or Deterioration In modern society many doctors and scientists have distinct thoughts about the many cancer treatments that they believe will defeat the disease. Some scientists and doctors question whether or not the new advanced treatments in the medical field actually benefit cancer patients. There are many new treatments being made in the cancer medical field which include infection, surgery, and new combinations of medicine. In Emily Eakin’s article, “Bacteria on the Brain”, she explores Paul Muizelaar’s treatment of infecting cancer causing brain tumors with Enterobacter Aerogenes to lessen the tumor. Terri Bradley and Patrick Egan were two of Muizelaar’s patients who went through the treatment. Terri Bradley, suffering from …show more content…
In Muizelaar’s case, he was sued by two of his clients; one of them, Janet Bradley daughter of Terri Bradley, claimed that the treatment only “prolonged her suffering”(Eakin 62). Some people go as far as saying that chemotherapy, the leading cancer treatment for many, kills patients instead of healing them. These people’s logic includes how “it attacks and kills not just cancer, but also all the living, healthy cells in the body and completely cripples the body 's immune system” (Luisa). This leads people to believe that all chemotherapy does is kill cells, whether this helps or damages a person. Although some treatments kill healthy cells and sometimes shorten a person’s life expectancy, experiencing new treatments becomes a great idea due to the fact that experimenting and finding new treatments can help make a person live longer than what was expected. In Bradley’s case, she was able to live for a year longer other than her diagnosed three months. In Michael Specter’s article, “The Gene Hackers”, he mentions that by making new treatments and experiments people are able to comprehend more about the cells and how they function. Even though “every cancer is a specific personal disease” (Specter 57), it is important to research and test new hypotheses or else it will stay unknown as to what can either help or ruin a person 's recovery. Eric Lander believes that “there will be an enormous chat... it will contain the therapeutic road map of every trick that cancer cells have - how they form and all the ways you can defeat them, and all the ways they can escape and defeat a treatment” (Specter 57). By having more and more treatments, whether risky, life shortening or prolonged pain, doctors and scientist will soon be able to find proper treatments that bring life back
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Show MoreEvery year doctors move forward in the chase to find cures for diseases, such as common colds, viruses, and more, thanks to the testing of cells from the infected. Henrietta Lacks’ stolen cancer cells have led to biological advances that have been crucial for several cures. In “A Family Consents to a Medical Gift, 62 Years later,” Carl Zimmer focuses on Henrietta Lacks’ cells, the tension between the National Institute of Health, and the battle to release the experiments to the public all while attempting to choose the side of the companies over the side of the family that was kept outside of the loop. Over 1,500 people die from cancer in a day, 500,000 in a year (Landis).
Though there have since become guidelines, for much of the first half century of cell research all projects were riddled with a lack of ethical treatment of the patients and the exploitation of them and their cells. Despite the gripes of the patients, especially those whom are mentioned by Skloot, they are largely ignored in favor of the money making giant that is the cell growing
Terminally ill patients lose control over so many aspects of their lives, in many ways physician-assisted death gives them back some of the control they lost. Illness is not discriminatory. Therefore, people of all ages and backgrounds are diagnosed with things like cancer, kidney failure, and heart disease every day. Also, for anyone who is unfortunate enough to be diagnosed with any terminal illness, it can feel like their disease controls every aspect of their lives and they have no choice in the matter. Authors for the Journal of the American Society on Aging Lee Combs and Grube describe how persistent pain took control of a young woman named Brittany Maynard’s life, “Even after undergoing a sophisticated surgery and numerous cancer treatments,
The author of the story introduces a young girl named Rachel who was diagnosed with Leukemia, a cancer of the blood. She immediately starts chemotherapy in hopes of surviving this deadly disease but is soon faced with the harsh reality that she will soon die. Rachel made the hard choice to stop treatment and let her body run its course. “By the way, when someone stops cancer treatment and you point out that this is a decision to die, everyone freaks out at you”(Andrews 244). Rachel’s choice to allow death is a choice that the audience can’t begin to understand.
Jeffrey Kluger’s discusses in his article “Why Curing Cancer is Not a ‘Moonshot,’” his opinion on how, and why, the cure for cancer can not be compared to a moonshot. Many Presidents, including Barack Obama and Richard Nixon, have preached about the “war on cancer,”. Many have referred to curing cancer as a moonshot. According to Kluger, a moonshot is not nearly as difficult as curing cancer.
The daily killer of over twenty thousand people and over 7.3 million people a year has heavily affected families all over the world for centuries. Because this disease has over 100 types and has proven lethal for so many men, women, and children everywhere, cancer has earned the the title of being the number one cause of death in the United States and one of the top causes of death in the world as a whole. Many scientists and doctors have tried to solve the medical puzzle that is cancer, but no definite cure has been discovered. However, tons of progress has been made and treatments have changed drastically since before 1950 compared to today. (Paddock 2007)
In the 1920s, Griffith began an experiment that consisted of using two types of pneumonia causing bacteria, smooth and rough. The smooth bacteria that the experiment used had a capsule, while the rough lacked one. Griffith injected the types bacteria into the mice to determine the impact they had. When the mice were injected with live rough bacteria, they lived, and when the mice were injected with live smooth bacteria, they died. Griffith at this point had concluded that the capsule was the cause of death of these mice and he decided to conduct two more experiments.
Metaphors and myths about illnesses like cancer and tuberculosis constantly besiege people in society according to Susan Sontag in the book Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors. When someone becomes ill with cancer or TB, more often than not, they are negatively associated with the illness. Through Sontag’s medical research, opinions, observations, and viewpoint she dedicates her writing to end the myths that demoralize individuals. Cancer is a disease, not an evil condition that defines someone.
I argue that the techniques that Lopez used throughout the article created a strong argument that could very likely change the minds of many people in the world that support such an unethical act. Katherine Jean Lopez starts this article with an excerpt from a letter that a girl dying of cancer writes to another girl with cancer that wants to end her life with physicians-assisted
For every one hundred thousand men, approximately thirty-six thousand and nine hundred will be diagnosed with some form of cancer and two hundred and eight of those cases will be completely fatal (National Cancer Institute). The statistics of cancer to many are terrifying, especially those affected in some way. Reactions vary from person to person when presented with such a murderer 's disease, whether they themselves are suffering or someone they care about is suffering. Many ideas are shared about cancer and much research is done but in simplicity, cancer is “any evil condition or thing that spreads destructively” (Dictionary.com). Although it is not only the sufferers of the disease suffering horribly but the loved ones in their lives too,
Chemotherapy, for example, is believed to be a revolutionary tool in the medical world, which helps slow and/or halt the reproduction of cancerous cells in the body. Those who believe in the use of chemotherapy, accept that it is true, and that its positive effects truly do exist.
With some of these cases of breast cancer known, technology is advancing enough to one day deplete breast cancer completely because technology is making diagnosis easier and more efficient, breast cancer awareness helps prepare every coming generation for the outcome, and expectations are proceeding high enough to one day destroy breast cancer. Breast cancer has no limit, anyone can become diagnosed with breast cancer. No matter how rich, poor, healthy, or sick people are, breast cancer can still find a way to develop within someone and take over their lives forever. America is progressing everyday but with our progress comes our failures and withstands, the fact that some diseases are
It brought to my awareness both the limitation and the capacity of medicine. Although there was no medical intervention that could cure the diseases of those terminal patients, their quality of life was improved by an outstanding team of doctors, nurses and volunteers. This awareness helped reconcile myself to the fact that certain things, such as death and terminal illness, can not be avoided or changed. By viewing death as a natural part of life, I will be able to offer my dying patients the best care possible while also understanding my limitation as a physician and a human being.
In the 1940s, one in 16 developed cancer. • In the 1970s, it was one in 10. • Today, it is one in three!
This is a painless way for patients to die and this could be the ultimate way for patients to find