For a while now I was wondering what would happen if I myself got cancer. And not until a couple of months ago I thought I'd much rather be euthanized than go through chemotherapy, radiation, even surgery. For many people around the world cancer is like a synonym for death and mostly incurable. However over the years our knowledge and understanding of cancer took drastic turns, a major one shown in this video.When Dr. Folkman first proposed his idea, it seemed a joke to many scientists. But from a vague, ridiculed concept, a difficult, almost interminable journey was started and as a result, Dr. Folkman might have really found a cure for cancer. It all started when he realized that tumors need blood vessels to grow, blood vessels basically feed the tumors and without them they wouldn't expand. He suggested that if a tumor would be placed where no blood vessels existed, it would secrete a substance that would make new blood vessels grow. He named it Angiogenesis. Dr. Folkman's idea was that there must be something to stop it, another substance that would make the blood vessels go around the tumor so it would stop its growth. He proved that the tumor does send out a substance than makes blood vessels grow. During the following years Folkman and his assistants found out not only what it secreted, but also what would stop it and in the end, after decades and millions of dollars spend, they formed Endostatin, a possible cure for cancer.
Pharmaceutical drugs are divided into categories after the way they have been prescribed. Because they are basically medicine their point is to make you feel better. Also they are affordable and accessible for everyone. There are however off-label use drugs that doctors prescribe, medicine that wasn't necessarily approved by the regulatory agency. That is a truly terrifying statement. A doctor shouldn't be allowed to give medicine that hasn't been tested enough, it should be considered illegal. You have to test a drug, to see whether it works on humans, you can't just hope it would work like it did for mice. It is scandalous, it could damage our health, it could as well kill us. Before it can be administered it has to be 100% approved and helpful.
When doctors should be allowed to prescribe experimental drugs is a debatable subject and surly a problem. In my opinion experimental drugs should given to people without any hope, in the last phase of cancer where they really have no chance. It means none of the methods they tried worked, therefore they can risk it all because they have nothing to loose. After the results, good or bad, the drug can be assessed again. The drugs values should be thought over after testing it on more than a couple of patients so you can be sure it either heals or kills.
Fully releasing the experimental drugs before all testing is complete would end up in a disaster. It should only be given to certain people. Releasing it, making it accessible to everyone would as well be considered murder. Because what if it doesn't work, what if it will result as a calamity and millions of people die? However, it might be a cure for one of the most dangerous diseases in the world. So not releasing it would be considered taking chances for another day from many people who had no clue their sickness had a cure.
Releasing the drug early can either save or kill. And that's the risk any patient has to assume. There is a thin line between life and death when it comes to it. An unimaginable risk. A person can continue with chemotherapy or radiation and hope it will work, just like it did to million others. The person can as well take a leap of faith, quit that and try a new drug, never proven to work. Although I doubt many would do that, and the ones trying must be really desperate, the results of taking a chance are the following: it can either make everything better or make everything worse.
In conclusion, trying out an experimental drug is like gambling, only with your life. Fully based on luck, hope and destiny. It's a risk you assume. But before you even have a growing tumor in your body you must be concerned that it's all because of you. Cancer isn't a diseases carried through genes, so you and your habits are the only one to blame. You have to change your life before cancer changes yours.
