Preventative Medicine Research Cancelled
The National Cancer Institute decided not to proceed with research into drugs that could prevent breast cancer. The benefits of the research for women at high risk of the disease were outweighed by the potential and uncertain dangers. Too many unknowns at this point to move forward. (Read the story in the Washington Post here.)
I wasn’t at high risk before I was diagnosed (heck, I was barely at risk at all). Would I have taken a preventative drug? No way, no how. But if I were at high risk … well, I’d most likely have wanted to do everything and anything to prevent even one little cancer cell from growing in my body.
Many women at high risk of breast cancer get voluntary mastectomies … can you really blame them?
I think it was a mistake to cancel the effort. I mean, how many mistakes resulted in wondrous medicines and cures? Seriously! Can you spell PENICILLIN?
Maybe in their work to research preventative medicines they’d have come across a cure.



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