Over the past several decades billions of dollars have gone into cancer research, yet very few improvements in treatments have resulted.  One would presume that with all of the technological improvements and the advances in science that a question that has been puzzling scientists since the eighteen hundreds would be solved.  Or maybe it has.  When looking at the amount of money going into cancer research and the profits that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and pharmaceutical companies make from current cancer treatments, it is absurd that the cure rates for cancer are not higher than they currently are.  The lack of effective treatments patented by the FDA helps support that possible cures may be hidden from the public.  The FDA and pharmaceutical companies are working hand in hand to protect their money.  Along with the help of the media, these companies have worked together to make a business that brings in more money than most new treatments would.  The corruptness of the government is placing more value on making profit rather than saving people’s lives. 

Cancer has been a problem in society ever since 3000BC, when the earliest account of the disease was made.  Upon observing mummies in ancient Egypt, scientists discovered bone tumors that are a form of cancer called osteoporosis.  While there were accounts of cancer recorded back then, cancer is much more prevalent now than it was then.  The number of cases have continued to grow exponentially due to the number of carcinogens people are exposed to every day.  Ever since the discovery of the microscope in the eighteen hundreds, scientists have been able to delve deeper into the mysteries behind cancer (“The History of Cancer” 1).  While there have been many breakthroughs, there is still a long way to go-- or so the FDA and top pharmaceutical companies say.  Researchers have conducted research on cancer since the nineteenth century, yet the only “effective” treatments readily used are surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, all of which are harmful and taxing on the rest of your body.  So where have the billions of dollars that people and organizations have donated gone?  While some of the money may in fact go directly to cancer research, most of the research will not be effective because of the profits made by the pharmaceutical companies from the current cancer treatments surpass any cure that could be discovered.  If the FDA were even to approve and patent a treatment that may cure a type of cancer, the profits from this new drug would pale in comparison to the current earnings.  With this being said, there is no motive for the FDA to even consider a new treatment if it does not bring in comparable profits to current treatments.  Sure, a person in their right mind would argue that the obvious reason to approve these new medicines or natural cures would be to save lives, to stop tearing families apart, and to stop having people watch their loved ones suffer.  But, do the big guys upstairs making all of the money really care? It means nothing to them that someone else died because of a horrible disease that could be cured.  The problem here is the money.

The cancer industry is a money-making factory. In order to produce a drug that could possibly be patented by the FDA, one would need millions, if not billions, of dollars to conduct their research and then begin their patenting process.  This process includes astronomical fees that have to be paid to the FDA, furthering their profit.  Congress created the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) in 1992 which allows the FDA to collect fees from companies that produce certain drugs.  In 2017, the application fee for drugs that required clinical data was $2,421,495.  The application fee for drugs that required no clinical data was $1,210,748. Finally, the program fee was $304,162 (Office of Commissioner 1).  Let alone, if the FDA knows that there is will be little profit from the treatments then the patenting process stops before they even start it.  So, all of the money donated to the research of this project would be for nothing because the FDA would never pass is to begin with.  In 2016, only 22 drugs were passed by the FDA in total (Drug Innovation 1). The FDA is looking for a profit, not the most effective treatment to save millions of lives (Mumford 1).

The current cancer treatments are extremely expensive to produce, and even more expensive to the patient paying for treatments, allowing not only the multibillion dollar pharmaceutical companies and FDA to profit, but also the doctors proscribing the treatments. If the doctors were able to cure your cancer then they would lose money in the long run because they would not be able to profit from your repeated trips to receive treatment once your cancer relapsed (University of California, San Diego 1).  People associate doctors with the term “life savers” or think of them as the ones that have all of the answers for anything and everything to do with medicine.  While most doctors are very credible, where do these ideas people have of doctors come from?  The simple answer is media.

For decades television has portrayed doctors as heroes.  TV shows have conditioned people to turn to their doctors and trust everything their doctors have to say when it comes to illnesses.  Television has been able to brainwash people with the help of funding from the pharmaceutical companies.  In a study done by the National Cancer Institute, it was discovered that the media publishes more on treatments for cancer rather than preventions, detection, and survivorship of cancer, all of which remained out of the spot light (Moriarty 45).  This is likely due to the pharmaceutical companies who give money to the media to promote the sincerity of doctors in return for the increase of patients that rush to physicians for treatments.  Most media companies have a close relationship with the pharmaceutical companies who spend millions of dollars advertising their products.  In 2003, pharmaceutical companies spent 3.2 billion dollars in advertising campaigns for their products.  This spike in advertising expenditures allowed the pharmaceutical companies to quickly rise to become the top tenth largest advertising company in the United States.  The increase in money spent on advertising also resulted in an additional 800 million dollars that needed to be made up by the pharmaceutical companies to foot this advertising bill.  Most of this money came from the increase in the cost to put new drugs on the market (Lansing 23).  Not only did the money from the upsurge in the cost to generate new medications help to pave the pharmaceutical company’s way, but also the close relationship they possess with the media helped create their rise to fame.  The media is owned by multibillion or multi-trillionaires who form a tight knit group and are very faithful to each other.  They prioritize loyalty to one another in this upper-class society over their loyalty to the common people (Mumford 1).  This aristocratic control even spills over into the political world.  In order to win an election, politicians need an exceptional amount of money and a considerable amount of publicity.  This is exactly why the politicians side with the wealthy people of the media and pharmaceutical companies because they control the thoughts of the American people and need the money of the rich to win the elections.  

Not only are there issues with the media and politics, but there is also corruption in the politics of some cancer foundations.  This exploitation dates all the way back to 1913 when John D. Rockefeller Jr., the son of the corrupt founder of the pharmaceutical company, founded the American Cancer Society.  The American Cancer Society makes more money every minute than the Independent Cancer Research Foundation does in a year (Renter 1).  The Independent Cancer Research Foundation works independently of the FDA and big pharmaceutical companies.  Upon researching the American Cancer Society, their main goal appears promising, to eliminate Cancer as a major health problem.  However, the way they are trying to do this is not to warn people about the carcinogens the public ingests everyday through food and other products that are passed by the FDA, but by telling people to get tested for cancer often, furthering their profits.  In fact, it is evident that through the relationship between the founder of the American Cancer Society and the founder of the pharmaceutical company there are ties within their businesses, not to mention the ties between the pharmaceutical company and the FDA.  There are hundreds of approved carcinogens that are allowed to be in our food, hygiene products, and so much more.  Why would they approve these products?  Money.  The more exposure that people have to these products the higher the likelihood that cancer will develop.  This will in turn bring in money for the pharmaceutical companies from the treatment that patients seek.  Another example of an infamous cancer foundation that seeks profit rather than the betterment of society is the Susan G. Komen foundation.  This foundation raises money to do mammogram clinics in low income areas.  These people who are diagnosed with cancer then go and receive treatment which results in large profits for the pharmaceutical companies.  The Susan G. Komen foundation has no desire to cure cancer like they claim (Mumford 4).  It is all a vicious circle that revolves around money.

So, what about the people and organizations that are working independently of the pharmaceutical company?  Are there actually cures that have been studied and proven to work?  The answer to this is yes.  Dr. William D. Kelley found an example of one of these possible cures.  Dr. Kelley treated cancer using enzymes found in nature that allowed the immune system to detect that there were cancerous cells in the body.  After working with 30,000 patients he had a 93% cure rate.  However, the FDA was quick to shut his operations down because they could not patent natural enzymes which would have resulted in billions of dollars lost each year.  The government threw Dr. Kelley in jail and banned him from using his treatment in the United States.  Another example of a doctor who had a successful treatment option was Dr. Philip Binzel.  Dr. Binzel’s had an 81% cure rate using laetrile liquid extracted from apricot seeds which he got from Mexico.  Again, since this is a natural product it could not be patented.  The FDA even tried to ban the import of liquid laetrile from Mexico, but failed to do so in court.  Dr. Binzel’s work was shut down and he was prohibited to practice this cure in the United States.  Finally, Dr. Royal Rife discovered a third successful treatment which had a 100% cure rate.  Dr. Rife was a microbiologist that used electro medicine to kill microbes inside the cancer cells.  When the FDA and the American Medical Association (AMA) heard of his 100% cure rate they were worried that other people would hear of this treatment and their incomes would go down the drain.  The AMA tried to buy him out, but upon his refusal the FDA destroyed his lab and inventory (University of California, San Diego 1).  So now your next question may be why has no one heard about these possible cures?  It is because they have been hidden from the public, not passed by the FDA, and in most cases destroyed by either physical means or through court trials.  The FDA and the big pharmaceutical companies are terrified that people will be informed of these simpler and less profiting treatments.  The FDA and the pharmaceutical companies are working hand in hand especially in this situation.  By the FDA not being able to patent these products they are not making money on any cure that is natural.  On top of that, the pharmaceutical companies would not be making money either because people would not be going to them for the medicine needed to cure their cancer.  If natural medicines were created to treat cancer, some state insurance departments ban health insurance companies from paying the same amount for natural medicine treatments as they do for normal cancer treatments (University of California, San Diego 1).  So, the FDA diminishes the project that will hurt both the profits of the FDA and the pharmaceutical companies.  

The opposition to this argument is that the cure for cancer is still being diligently researched and not enough information to “cure” cancer has been found.  That the FDA and pharmaceutical companies may be money hungry, but they are not hiding anything valuable pertaining to the health and wellbeing of the common man.  Cancer is truly a tricky disease.  Within one form of cancer in one person’s body there can be thousands of different diseases.  Another person may have the same type of cancer, but the cells that make up the cancer may be thousands of completely different diseases than the first persons.  Within these different diseased cells there are different DNA sequences and different micro RNA, or miRNA, which regulate gene expression.  As the cancer progresses, the cells become more and more heterogeneous, meaning that the variation between all of the cells continues to grow. Additionally, if the cancer is malignant, meaning it is able to spread to other parts of the body, this new location of the cancer could have a whole new species of thousands of different diseases and make-up of the cell’s DNA and miRNA.  This makes it very difficult for any treatment to battle any form of cancer.  Even targeted treatments of cancer are not always effective because it is hard to target a group of cells that is so vast in composition (Gorski 2).  Although there have been technological improvements in the last several decades, there still is not enough information to cure a disease as complex as cancer. 

Unfortunately, many people in this world place their earnings higher on their list of priorities over the lives of other people.  For this very reason, the FDA and pharmaceutical companies will never release the cure for cancer.  But instead, these companies will do everything in their power to ensure that no one is aware of the possible cure floating around.  The FDA is intimidated by anything that can be cured with things from nature because they cannot be patented.  If people were to begin using these natural products to cure cancer, the FDA and pharmaceutical companies would lose billions of dollars.  Also, the lack of effective patents by the FDA raise major red flags.  There are billions and billions of dollars going into cancer research, yet no effective treatments have passed the FDAs protocols.  There are cancer treatments out there, but none that will bring in the same amount of revenue currently being made, so it is in the FDA and pharmaceutical companies best financial interest that these treatments do not pass.    Not only does the pharmaceutical companies have the support of the FDA, they also have tight knit groups with the media.  The media helps promote business for the pharmaceutical companies by encouraging people to go get tested for cancer rather than teaching them how to help prevent cancer.  This circle of events creating billions of dollars for each of these companies is exactly why the cure for cancer is being hidden from the public and will never be released.  With more publicity on this topic maybe the cure for cancer will one day be released and people will be able to stop suffering from this horrible disease.
