NYT expose: Cancer research is a $105 billion scam - "Cancer researchers" spent $105 billion of taxpayer money to make sure there is NO cure
JCW
New York Times
June 28, 2009
Grant System Leads Cancer Researchers to Play It Safe
By GINA KOLATA
Among the recent research grants awarded by the National Cancer
Institute is one for a study asking whether people who are especially
responsive to good-tasting food have the most difficulty staying on a
diet. Another study will assess a Web-based program that encourages
families to choose more healthful foods.
Many other grants involve biological research unlikely to break new
ground. For example, one project asks whether a laboratory discovery
involving colon cancer also applies to breast cancer. But even if it
does apply, there is no treatment yet that exploits it.
The cancer institute has spent $105 billion since President Richard M.
Nixon declared war on the disease in 1971. The American Cancer
Society, the largest private financer of cancer research, has spent
about $3.4 billion on research grants since 1946.
Yet the fight against cancer is going slower than most had hoped, with
only small changes in the death rate in the almost 40 years since it
began.
One major impediment, scientists agree, is the grant system itself. It
has become a sort of jobs program, a way to keep research laboratories
going year after year with the understanding that the focus will be on
small projects unlikely to take significant steps toward curing
cancer.
“These grants are not silly, but they are only likely to produce
incremental progress,” said Dr. Robert C. Young, chancellor at Fox
Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia and chairman of the Board of
Scientific Advisors, an independent group that makes recommendations
to the cancer institute.
The institute’s reviewers choose such projects because, with too
little money to finance most proposals, they are timid about taking
chances on ones that might not succeed. The problem, Dr. Young and
others say, is that projects that could make a major difference in
cancer prevention and treatment are all too often crowded out because
they are too uncertain. In fact, it has become lore among cancer
researchers that some game-changing discoveries involved projects
deemed too unlikely to succeed and were therefore denied federal
grants, forcing researchers to struggle mightily to continue.
Take one transformative drug, for breast cancer. It was based on a
discovery by Dr. Dennis Slamon of the University of California, Los
Angeles, that very aggressive breast cancers often have multiple
copies of a particular protein, HER-2. That led to the development of
herceptin, which blocks HER-2.
Now women with excess HER-2 proteins, who once had the worst breast
cancer prognoses, have prognoses that are among the best. But when Dr.
Slamon wanted to start this research, his grant was turned down. He
succeeded only after the grateful wife of a patient helped him get
money from Revlon, the cosmetics company.
Yet studies like the one on tasty food are financed. That study, which
received a grant of $100,000 over two years, is based on the idea that
since obesity is associated with an increased risk of cancer,
understanding why people have trouble losing weight could lead to
better weight control methods, which could lead to less obesity, which
could lead to less cancer.
“It was the first grant I ever submitted, and it was funded on the
first try,” said the principal investigator, Bradley M. Appelhans, an
assistant professor of basic medical sciences and psychology at the
University of Arizona. Dr. Appelhans said he realized it would hardly
cure cancer, but hoped that “it will provide knowledge that will
incrementally contribute to more effective cancer prevention
strategies.”
Even top federal cancer officials say the system needs to be changed.
“We have a system that works over all pretty well, and is very good at
ruling out bad things — we don’t fund bad research,” said Dr. Raynard
S. Kington, acting director of the National Institutes of Health,
which includes the cancer institute. “But given that, we also
recognize that the system probably provides disincentives to funding
really transformative research.”
The private American Cancer Society follows a similarly cautious path.
Last year, it awarded $124 million in new research grants, with some
money coming from large donors but most from events like walkathons
and memorial donations.
Dr. Otis W. Brawley, chief medical officer at the cancer society, said
the whole cancer research effort remained too cautious.
“The problem in science is that the way you get ahead is by staying
within narrow parameters and doing what other people are doing,” Dr.
Brawley said. “No one wants to fund wild new ideas.”
He added that the problem of getting money for imaginative but chancy
proposals had worsened in recent years. There are more scientists
seeking grants — they surged into the field in the 1990s when the
National Institutes of Health budget doubled before plunging again.
That makes many researchers, who need grants not just to run their
labs but also sometimes to keep their faculty positions, even more
cautious in the grant proposals they submit. And grant review
committees become more wary about giving scarce money to speculative
proposals.
Philanthropies, which helped some researchers try outside-the-box
ideas, are now having financial problems. And advances in technology
have made research more expensive.
“Scientists don’t like talking about it publicly,” because they worry
that their remarks will be viewed as lashing out at the health
institutes, which supports them, said Dr. Richard D. Klausner, a
former director of the National Cancer Institute.
But, Dr. Klausner added: “There is no conversation that I have ever
had about the grant system that doesn’t have an incredible sense of
consensus that it is not working. That is a terrible wasted
opportunity for the scientists, patients, the nation and the world.”
A Big Idea Without a Backer
For 25 years, Eileen K. Jaffe received federal grants to run her lab.
As a senior scientist at the Fox Chase Cancer Center, with a long list
of published papers in prestigious journals, she is a respected,
established researcher.
Then Dr. Jaffe stumbled upon results that went against textbook
explanations, suggesting that it might be possible to find an entirely
new class of drugs that could disable proteins that fuel cancer cells.
Now she wants to find chemicals that might be developed into such
drugs.
But her grant proposal was rejected out of hand by the institutes of
health, not even discussed by a review panel. She had no preliminary
data showing that the idea was likely to work, something reviewers
always want to see, and the idea was just too unprecedented.
Dr. Jaffe epitomizes the scientist who realizes that if she were to
single-mindedly pursue her unorthodox idea, her “career may be ruined
in the process,” in the words of Dr. Brawley of the American Cancer
Society.
Dr. Jaffe is just conceiving her project; it is much to soon to know
whether it will result in a revolutionary drug. And even if she does
find potential new drugs, it is not clear that they will be effective.
Most new ideas are difficult to prove, and most potential new drugs
fail.
So Dr. Jaffe was not entirely surprised when her grant application to
look for such cancer drugs was summarily rejected.
“They said I don’t have preliminary results,” she said. “Of course I
don’t. I need the grant money to get them.”
Dr. Young, chancellor at Fox Chase, said Dr. Jaffe’s situation showed
why people with bold new ideas often just give up.
“You can’t prove it will work in advance,” he said. “If you could, it
wouldn’t be a high-risk idea.”
It is a long haul, Dr. Jaffe knows. And she has already had to
downsize her lab. But, she said, she will persist.
Angels Outside Government
At the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Dr. Ewa T. Sicinska
knew she would have a similar problem with her research. She wanted to
grow human cancers in mice. Unlike Dr. Jaffe, though, Dr. Sicinska did
not even apply for government money.
It is not that the project was unimportant.
“Rather than have to start a human clinical trial to test new drugs,
we want to test them first in mice with real human tumors,” said Dr.
George D. Demetri, who leads the research group supporting Dr.
Sicinska.
Researchers have studied mouse cancers but, they acknowledge, they are
just not the same as human cancers — they are much easier to treat,
and drugs that cure mice often do nothing in people. So, over the
years, scientists have tried to implant human cancer cells in mice,
but with little success.
“Everyone told us that if you take tumors out of patients and put them
in mice, they don’t grow,” Dr. Demetri said. The tumor cells usually
were put in a plastic dish before being implanted in mice. “We said —
wait a minute. The cells are not growing in the plastic dish. They
probably are dying. What if we bypass the dish?’”
With that idea in mind, Dr. Demetri, convinced it was too speculative
to get federal money, tapped an unusual source, the Ludwig Fund.
Endowed by Daniel K. Ludwig, one of the world’s richest men in the
1960s and 1970s, the fund supports unfettered cancer research at six
medical centers in the United States, including Dana-Farber, to be
used at the institutes’ discretion. That put Dr. Sicinska in a very
different position from that of Dr. Jaffe. She could try something
chancy without a grant.
Dr. Sicinska used a quarter of a million dollars of Ludwig money for
this project, buying mice without immune systems, which meant they
could not reject human tumors, and housing them in a germ-free
basement lab. She spent months learning to implant tumors in the mice
and enlisted geneticists to study the implanted tumors, making sure
they did not mutate beyond recognition.
She spends her days in the lab, using a miniature ultrasound machine
to scan the mice, hairless creatures with prominent ears. Four types
of sarcomas — cancers of fat, muscle or bone — are growing in them and
look genetically identical to the tumors removed from patients.
Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, former director of the National Institutes of
Health, said he was not sure that a grant for the project would have
been turned down. The N.I.H., he said, does finance research on mouse
models for human cancer.
But Dr. Demetri said he did not apply “because we have lots of
experience in what’s fundable.” His mouse work, he said, is
exploratory, and he cannot predict what he will find or when. He
certainly could not lay out a road map of what he would do and promise
results in a few years.
Studies With a Different Goal
Researchers like Dr. Appelhans, who is studying weight control and
tasty foods, do not expect to change the outlook for cancer patients
anytime soon. But, they say, that does not mean their work is
unimportant.
Dr. Appelhans will study 85 overweight or obese women, measuring how
much the tastes and textures of food drive their eating. Then they
will be given a weight loss diet and nutritional counseling. Dr.
Appelhans will ask whether those who are most tempted by the tastes
and textures also have the most trouble following the diet.
As for the grant to assess a Web-based program to improve food
choices, it is predicated on studies indicating that what people eat
in childhood and adolescence may have an impact on cancer risk in
middle and old age, said the grant recipient, Karen Weber Cullen,
associate professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine. Some
studies have found that people who reported having eaten fruits and
vegetables when they were younger and maintaining a healthy weight
were less likely to have cancer.
Of course, it would not be feasible to follow participants for 30 or
40 years to see if their cancer risk was altered, Dr. Cullen noted.
But, she added, “we try to achieve improvements in diet and physical
activity behaviors that become permanent and will make a difference in
later years.”
In the study asking whether a molecular pathway that spurs the growth
of colon cancer cells also encourages the growth of breast cancer
cells, the principal investigator ultimately wants to find a safe drug
to prevent breast cancer. She received a typical-size grant of a
little more than $1 million for the five-year study.
The plan, said the investigator, Louise R. Howe, an associate research
professor at Weill Cornell Medical College, is first to confirm her
hypothesis about the pathway in breast cancer cells. But even if it is
correct, the much harder research would lie ahead because no drugs
exist to block the pathway, and even if they did, there are no
assurances that they would be safe.
Dr. Howe said she hoped that she would find such drugs, or that
companies would. Then she wants to develop a way to selectively
deliver the drugs to precancerous breast cells. If it all works and
the treatment is safe, women with precancerous conditions could avoid
developing cancer.
Dr. Howe has reviewed grants for the cancer institute herself, she
said, and realizes that, among other things, those that get financed
must have “a novel hypothesis that is credible based on what we know
already.”
Trying to Change the System
The National Institutes of Health has started “pilot experiments” to
see if there is a better way of getting financing for innovative
projects, its acting director, Dr. Kington, said.
They include “pioneer awards,” begun in 2004 for “ideas that have the
potential for high impact but may be too novel, span too diverse a
range of disciplines or be at a stage too early to fare well in the
traditional peer review process.” But only 3 percent to 5 percent of
the applicants get funded. Now the institutes have decided to set
aside up to $25 million for “transformative R01 grants,” described as
“proposing exceptionally innovative, high risk, original and/or
unconventional research with the potential to create or overturn
fundamental paradigms.”
About 700 proposals have come in, but only a small number are expected
to be financed, according to Dr. Keith R. Yamamoto, a molecular
biologist and executive vice dean of the school of medicine at the
University of California, San Francisco, and co-chairman of the
committee that reviewed the proposals last week.
“From reading the applications so far, there are really some fantastic
things,” Dr. Yamamoto said.
There also is new money from the federal economic stimulus package
passed by Congress, which gives the National Institutes of Health $200
million for “challenge grants” lasting two years or less.
But the N.I.H. has received about 21,000 applications for 200
challenge grants, and researchers who have applied concede there is
not much hope.
“I did submit one of these challenge grants recently, like the rest of
the lemmings,” said Dr. Chi Dang, professor of medicine, cell biology,
oncology and pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of
Medicine. But, he added, “there are many, many more applications than
slots.”
Some experienced scientists have found a way to offset the problem
somewhat. They do chancy experiments by siphoning money from their
grants.
“In a way, the system is encrypted,” Dr. Yamamoto said, allowing those
in the know to wink and do their own thing on the side.
Great discoveries have been made with N.I.H. financing without
manipulating the system, Dr. Klausner said.
“But,” he added, “I actually believe that by and large it is despite,
rather than because of, the review system.”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rod Speed
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/health/research/28cancer.html?em
> New York Times
> June 28, 2009
> Grant System Leads Cancer Researchers to Play It Safe
> By GINA KOLATA
> Among the recent research grants awarded by the National Cancer
> Institute is one for a study asking whether people who are especially
> responsive to good-tasting food have the most difficulty staying on a
> diet. Another study will assess a Web-based program that encourages
> families to choose more healthful foods.
> Many other grants involve biological research unlikely to break new
> ground. For example, one project asks whether a laboratory discovery
> involving colon cancer also applies to breast cancer. But even if it
> does apply, there is no treatment yet that exploits it.
> The cancer institute has spent $105 billion since President Richard M.
> Nixon declared war on the disease in 1971. The American Cancer
> Society, the largest private financer of cancer research, has spent
> about $3.4 billion on research grants since 1946.
> Yet the fight against cancer is going slower than most had hoped, with
> only small changes in the death rate in the almost 40 years since it began.
That is just plain wrong with quite a few cancers.
Stray Dog
On Tue, 30 Jun 2009, Rod Speed wrote:
> Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 05:53:36 +1000
> From: Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com>
> Newsgroups: alt.gossip.celebrities, soc.retirement, misc.consumers,
> alt.health, alt.politics.usa
> Subject: Re: NYT expose: Cancer research is a $105 billion scam -
> "Cancer researchers" spent $105 billion of taxpayer money to make sure
> there is NO cure
>
> JCW wrote:
>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/health/research/28cancer.html?em
>
>> New York Times
>> June 28, 2009
>
>> Grant System Leads Cancer Researchers to Play It Safe
>> By GINA KOLATA
>
>> Among the recent research grants awarded by the National Cancer
>> Institute is one for a study asking whether people who are especially
>> responsive to good-tasting food have the most difficulty staying on a
>> diet. Another study will assess a Web-based program that encourages
>> families to choose more healthful foods.
>
>> Many other grants involve biological research unlikely to break new
>> ground. For example, one project asks whether a laboratory discovery
>> involving colon cancer also applies to breast cancer. But even if it
>> does apply, there is no treatment yet that exploits it.
>
>> The cancer institute has spent $105 billion since President Richard M.
>> Nixon declared war on the disease in 1971. The American Cancer
>> Society, the largest private financer of cancer research, has spent
>> about $3.4 billion on research grants since 1946.
>
>> Yet the fight against cancer is going slower than most had hoped, with
>> only small changes in the death rate in the almost 40 years since it began.
>
> That is just plain wrong with quite a few cancers.
Only a few cancers respond to treatments. The majority of treatments are
defined as "cures" if they extend life a few years compared to
non-treatment. Most of the cancers that go into remission after treatments
come back some years later and still kill the victim.
The real "success" is with highly localized/benign cancers which have not
metastasized and can be "cured" if surgery gets the local tumor. A lot of
cancers are still not operable.
There has been very little progress in fundamental science with cancer.
All of this article is very accurate, and I was a career grant-funded
biomedical researcher with my own lab and staff of as many as five people
and many articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
I also sat on grant proposal review committees and reviewed a good 200
grant proposals in my life. I know how this stuff works.
Rod Speed
> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>> JCW wrote:
>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/health/research/28cancer.html?em
>>> New York Times
>>> June 28, 2009
>>> Grant System Leads Cancer Researchers to Play It Safe
>>> By GINA KOLATA
>>> Among the recent research grants awarded by the National Cancer
>>> Institute is one for a study asking whether people who are
>>> especially responsive to good-tasting food have the most difficulty
>>> staying on a diet. Another study will assess a Web-based program
>>> that encourages families to choose more healthful foods.
>>> Many other grants involve biological research unlikely to break new
>>> ground. For example, one project asks whether a laboratory discovery
>>> involving colon cancer also applies to breast cancer. But even if it
>>> does apply, there is no treatment yet that exploits it.
>>> The cancer institute has spent $105 billion since President Richard
>>> M. Nixon declared war on the disease in 1971. The American Cancer
>>> Society, the largest private financer of cancer research, has spent
>>> about $3.4 billion on research grants since 1946.
>>> Yet the fight against cancer is going slower than most had hoped,
>>> with only small changes in the death rate in the almost 40 years
>>> since it began.
>> That is just plain wrong with quite a few cancers.
> Only a few cancers respond to treatments.
Thats a lie. Very few dont.
> The majority of treatments are defined as "cures" if they
> extend life a few years compared to non-treatment.
Another lie. What matters is that there is an extension.
> Most of the cancers that go into remission after treatments
> come back some years later and still kill the victim.
Another pig ignorant lie. It isnt even the majority now with some cancers.
> The real "success" is with highly localized/benign cancers which have
> not metastasized and can be "cured" if surgery gets the local tumor.
And it isnt just surgery now either. Plenty are fixed
with surgery and radio or surgery and chemo.
> A lot of cancers are still not operable.
Another pig ignorant lie. It is in fact only a small minority that arent.
> There has been very little progress in fundamental science with cancer.
Another pig ignorant lie.
> All of this article is very accurate,
Not on that particular claim I chose to comment on its not.
> and I was a career grant-funded biomedical researcher with
> my own lab and staff of as many as five people and many
> articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
But dont have a clue on the most basic stuff like that the bulk who get
cancer do get some extention of life that they wouldnt otherwise have got.
> I also sat on grant proposal review committees and reviewed a
> good 200 grant proposals in my life. I know how this stuff works.
You clearly dont have a fucking clue about what happens when someone gets cancer today.
Bluuuue Rajah
news:Pine.NEB.4.64.09...@sdf.lonestar.org:
Show us your CV.
Stray Dog
On Wed, 1 Jul 2009, Rod Speed wrote:
> Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 03:51:13 +1000
> From: Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com>
> Newsgroups: alt.gossip.celebrities, soc.retirement, misc.consumers,
> alt.health, alt.politics.usa
> Subject: Re: NYT expose: Cancer research is a $105 billion scam -
> "Cancer researchers" spent $105 billion of taxpayer money to make sure
> there is NO cure
>
>>>> Yet the fight against cancer is going slower than most had hoped,
>>>> with only small changes in the death rate in the almost 40 years
>>>> since it began.
>
>>> That is just plain wrong with quite a few cancers.
>
>> Only a few cancers respond to treatments.
>
> Thats a lie. Very few dont.
Majority of responses are weak, temporary.
>> The majority of treatments are defined as "cures" if they
>> extend life a few years compared to non-treatment.
>
> Another lie. What matters is that there is an extension.
What matters is whether the specific patient feels the extension was worth
the prolongation of the symtomology.
Besides the prolongation of the symptomology is the extra costs in terms
of money.
The tobbacco litigation and settlement story is just one example of how
society failed to deal with a major cancer outcomes for a very large
fraction of the population.
>> Most of the cancers that go into remission after treatments
>> come back some years later and still kill the victim.
>
> Another pig ignorant lie. It isnt even the majority now with some cancers.
Your use of the term "some cancers" is grasping at straws.
>> The real "success" is with highly localized/benign cancers which have
>> not metastasized and can be "cured" if surgery gets the local tumor.
>
> And it isnt just surgery now either. Plenty are fixed
> with surgery and radio or surgery and chemo.
Your use of the term "plenty" is still a pitifully weak argument to prop
up a broad failure of the "war on cancer" fiasco.
>> A lot of cancers are still not operable.
>
> Another pig ignorant lie. It is in fact only a small minority that arent.
How about my use of the qualifier "a lot" and your use of "small minority"
and that it is not a "pig ignorant lie" when the quantitation is not
specified.
>> There has been very little progress in fundamental science with cancer.
>
> Another pig ignorant lie.
I spent a lot of my life reading mainstream journals on this. Its not a
lie, and deaths and death rates from cancers are going up in many states,
localities, and no one knows why.
>> All of this article is very accurate,
>
> Not on that particular claim I chose to comment on its not.
I've spent my whole career in biomedical sciences and the author knew what
was going on.
>> and I was a career grant-funded biomedical researcher with
>> my own lab and staff of as many as five people and many
>> articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
>
> But dont have a clue
A lot more clue than you.
on the most basic stuff like that the bulk who get
> cancer do get some extention of life that they wouldnt otherwise have got.
A lot of people, maybe most, will "buy into" this. I know a few people who
tell me they would vote for euthanasia if they got into a terminal
diagnosis rather than have their assets eaten up by the "medical industry"
and have no house/money to hand to their surviving spouses, offspring.
The fact that life extention costs are right in there with much higher
than average inflation rates, and government costs for subsidized medical
payments means that pretty soon there just ain't going to be enough money
to pay for that "life extension" unless you are just a member of the rich.
>> I also sat on grant proposal review committees and reviewed a
>> good 200 grant proposals in my life. I know how this stuff works.
>
> You clearly dont have a fucking clue about what happens when
> someone gets cancer today.
I watched all kinds of innocent people, friends and relatives, and their
families go through this, including my own father who died about as ugly
death from cancer as you can find.
The really worse problem is guys like you who think YOU have a bigger
fucking clue about everything and anything in the universe and think
EVERYONE ELSE clearly have no fucking clue.
And, the ultimate proof is the (see below) "Rod Speed FAQ" which I did not
write.
The "Rod Speed FAQ" read it below or at the URL for yourself.....
- - - - - - - - -
http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Alt/alt.internet.wireless/2006-07/msg00462.html
- - - - - - - - - -
After its recent emergence in the thread "How to calculate increase
of home wireless router range?", readers of this group may find
this useful. [based on a post in comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage]
Who or What is Rod Speed?
Rod Speed is an entirely modern phenomenon. Essentially, Rod
Speed is an insecure and worthless individual who has discovered
he can enhance his own self-esteem in his own eyes by playing "the
big, hard man" on the InterNet.
Rod is believed to be from Australia.
Rod certainly posts a lot. Why is that?
It relates back to the point about boosting his own self esteem by
what amounts to effectively having a wank in public. Rod's
personality, as exemplified by his posts, means he is practically
unemployable which means he sits around at home all day festering
away and getting worse and worse. This means he posts more and
more try and boost the old failing self esteem. Being unemployed
also means he as a lot of time on his hands to post in he first
place.
But maybe Rod really is a very clever and knowledgable person?
Clever? His posts wouldn't support that theory. As far as being
knowledgable, well, Rod has posted to various aus newsgroups
including invest, comms, and politics. He has posted to all as a
self professed "expert" and flames any and all who disagree with
him. Logically, here's no way any single individual could be
more than a jack of all trades across such a wide spread of
subject matter.
But maybe Rod really is an expert in some areas?
Possibly. However, his "bedside manner" prevents him from being
taken seriously by most normal people. Also, he has damaged his
credibility in areas where he might know what he's on about by
shooting his self in the foot in areas where he does not. For
example, in the case of subject matter such as politics, even a
view held by Albert Einstein cannot be little more than an
opinion and to vociferously denigrate an opposing opinion is
simply small mindedness and bigotry, the kind of which Einstein
himself fought against his whole life.
What is Rod Speed's main modus operandi?
Simple! He shoots off a half brained opinion in response to any
other post and touts that opinion as fact. When challenged, he
responds with vociferous and rabid denigration. He has an
instantly recognisable set of schoolboy put downs limited pretty
much to the following: "Pathetic, Puerile, Little Boy, try
harder, trivial, more lies, gutless wonder, wanker, etc etc".
The fact that Rod has been unable to come up with any new insults
says a lot about his outlook and intelligence.
But why do so many people respond to Rod in turn?
It has to do with effrontery and a lack of logic. Most people
who post have some basis of reason for what they write and when
Rod retorts with his usual denigration and derision they respond
emotionally rather than logically. It's like a teacher in a
class room who has a misbehaving pupil. The teacher challenges
the pupil to explain himself and the student responds with "***
off, Big Nose!" Even thought the teacher has a fairly normal
proboscis, he gets a dent in his self-esteem and might resort to
an emotional repsonse like "yeah? well your *** wouldn't fill a
pop rivet, punk", which merely invites some oneupmanship from the
naughty pupil. Of course, the teacher should not have justified
the initial comment with a response, especially in front of the
class. The correct response was "please report to the
headmaster's office right NOW!"
What is a "RodBot"?
Some respondents in aus.invest built a "virtual Rod" which was
indiscernable from the "real" Rod. Net users could enter an
opinion or even a fact and the RoDBot would tell them they were
pathetic lying schoolboys who should be able to do better or some
equally pithy Rod Speedism.
Are you saying that Rod Speed is a Troll?
You got it!
What is the best way to handle Rod Speed?
KillFile!
Stray Dog
On Tue, 30 Jun 2009, Bluuuue Rajah wrote:
> Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:16:48 GMT
> From: Bluuuue Rajah <Bluuuuue@Rajah.>
> Newsgroups: alt.gossip.celebrities, soc.retirement, misc.consumers,
> alt.health, alt.politics.usa
> Subject: Re: NYT expose: Cancer research is a $105 billion scam -
> "Cancer researchers" spent $105 billion of taxpayer money to make sure
> there is NO cure
>
Short version: BS in physics, PhD in biology, four years postdoc at Univ.
No. Carolina School of Medicine, nine years as research scientist at Am.
Red Cross labs, five years as research professor at Univ Maryland (at
Baltimore) School of Medicine (two departments, split appointment), some
35+ papers in peer-reviewed journals, two dozen plus book chapters, editor
or co-editor of some 11 books, recipient of about $1 mil in grants from
ONR and NIH, NRC-sponsored scientific exchange trip to USSR in 1989,
invited speaker at many international conferences, and workshops. Also,
years in a testing lab as a project engineer, and two years in the US Army
as physical sciences assistant working on the radiological safety
sub-project in connection with the feasibility study for a second
inter-oceanic (as in Panama Canal) project. I left out a few details. But
I was on about a dozen ad-hoc NIH grant review panels, reviewing 15-20
proposals per panel. And, external reviewer (by mail) for about 30 NSF
grant proposals, and several NASA, and several foreign grant reveiwer
jobs. Been a paid consultant on several projects. Worked for a year as
vice president of R&D at a small biotehc startup.
Bluuuue Rajah
And now you're retired?
Stray Dog
On Tue, 30 Jun 2009, Bluuuue Rajah wrote:
> Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:04:28 GMT
>>>> scientific journals.
>>>>
>>>> I also sat on grant proposal review committees and reviewed a good
>>>> 200 grant proposals in my life. I know how this stuff works.
>>>
>>> Show us your CV.
>>>
>>
>> Short version: BS in physics, PhD in biology, four years postdoc at
>> Univ. No. Carolina School of Medicine, nine years as research
>> scientist at Am. Red Cross labs, five years as research professor at
>> Univ Maryland (at Baltimore) School of Medicine (two departments,
>> split appointment), some 35+ papers in peer-reviewed journals, two
>> dozen plus book chapters, editor or co-editor of some 11 books,
>> recipient of about $1 mil in grants from ONR and NIH, NRC-sponsored
>> scientific exchange trip to USSR in 1989, invited speaker at many
>> international conferences, and workshops. Also, years in a testing lab
>> as a project engineer, and two years in the US Army as physical
>> sciences assistant working on the radiological safety sub-project in
>> connection with the feasibility study for a second inter-oceanic (as
>> in Panama Canal) project. I left out a few details. But I was on about
>> a dozen ad-hoc NIH grant review panels, reviewing 15-20 proposals per
>> panel. And, external reviewer (by mail) for about 30 NSF grant
>> proposals, and several NASA, and several foreign grant reveiwer jobs.
>> Been a paid consultant on several projects. Worked for a year as vice
>> president of R&D at a small biotehc startup.
>
> And now you're retired?
>
Yes.
Now, why were you asking for my CV, and whether I am retired?
And, now, who are you (and what is your background), Mr. Bluuuue Rajah?
Bluuuue Rajah
Just planning my argument. I once knew a guy like you - my favorite
professor, who signed off on my MS thesis. He was MIT's first full
professor of nuclear fusion, and in 1984, he had a medical crisis that
cost him a kidney and made him turn his back on everything he had
previously valued. He wrote a merciless critique of the fusion program
in MIT's magazine, Tech Review, then quit and went back into fission.
Fusion still hasn't recovered, and in fact, as of this month, it's just
gotten a lot worse. The last remaining experiment is now sufficiently
over-budget that they're starting to chop off little pieces of it.
These things are a lot bigger than we are, and fusion will work someday,
only none of us will be around to see it. It reminds me of that Moody
Blues album - "To Our Children's Children's Children."
Stray Dog
On Wed, 1 Jul 2009, Bluuuue Rajah wrote:
> Date: Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:14:26 GMT
> From: Bluuuue Rajah <Bluuuuue@Rajah.>
> Newsgroups: alt.gossip.celebrities, soc.retirement, misc.consumers,
> alt.health, alt.politics.usa
> Subject: Re: NYT expose: Cancer research is a $105 billion scam -
> "Cancer researchers" spent $105 billion of taxpayer money to make sure
> there is NO cure
>
> Stray Dog <qcw...@sdf.lonestar.org> wrote in
> news:Pine.NEB.4.64.09...@sdf.lonestar.org:
>>>>>>
As in part of the CTR stuff?
and in 1984, he had a medical crisis that
> cost him a kidney and made him turn his back on everything he had
> previously valued.
First, let me acknowledge that people who suffer from life-threatening
events should deserve some sympathetic compassion. Most people have a lot
of trouble with this.
He wrote a merciless critique of the fusion program
> in MIT's magazine, Tech Review,
I have a personal friend who was a BSME at the Lawrence Radiation Lab, now
LLL, and retired from there after having only that job all his life, who
told me a lot about the CTR program at LRL-LLL and its a very mixed bag,
with a lot of Machiavellian politics, and in the end, he concluded that it
was a big boondoggle project. He was a manager at one point, and then
stepped down because they were making him do things that he did not like.
We were both there at the same time in late 1960s, waiting for our
security clearances to come through.
then quit and went back into fission.
> Fusion still hasn't recovered, and in fact, as of this month, it's just
> gotten a lot worse.
I am a layperson on fission and fusion, but from all I read, there is a
future for fission reactors and I see the USA gearing up for dozens of
more power reactors in a few years.
The last remaining experiment is now sufficiently
> over-budget that they're starting to chop off little pieces of it.
Do you think there is any future for fusion despite what seems to me to be
miniscule progress in the last 50 years?
> These things are a lot bigger than we are, and fusion will work someday,
Maybe some genius will figure out a practical containment methodology for
the size and heat to come out, but even if this happens, the crystal ball
lookers are saying that a fusion power plant will easily be a $1 trillion
dollar investment and a great terrorist target. How much would we get out
of that money if it were put into solar cell panels?
> only none of us will be around to see it.
If we don't get chemical waste and pollution (and a few other things)
under better control, there might not be an inhabitable earth in 100-200
years, either.
It reminds me of that Moody
> Blues album - "To Our Children's Children's Children."
I would hope that human intelligence could concentrate on engendering
stable and prosperous governments and societies, escape from malnutrition
and poverty, and fairness and justice for all.
Rod Speed
> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>> Stray Dog wrote
>>> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>>>>> Yet the fight against cancer is going slower than
>>>>> most had hoped, with only small changes in the
>>>>> death rate in the almost 40 years since it began.
>>>> That is just plain wrong with quite a few cancers.
>>> Only a few cancers respond to treatments.
>> Thats a lie. Very few dont.
> Majority of responses are weak, temporary.
Another pig ignorant lie, most obviously with surgery.
>>> The majority of treatments are defined as "cures" if they
>>> extend life a few years compared to non-treatment.
>> Another lie. What matters is that there is an extension.
> What matters is whether the specific patient feels the
> extension was worth the prolongation of the symtomology.
And the absolute vast bulk of them do.
> Besides the prolongation of the symptomology
> is the extra costs in terms of money.
Irrelevant to what is being discussed.
> The tobbacco litigation and settlement story is just one
> example of how society failed to deal with a major cancer
> outcomes for a very large fraction of the population.
Its nothing even remotely resembling anything like a very large
fraction of the population and irrelevant to what is being
discussed anyway, that original claim now right at the top.
>>> Most of the cancers that go into remission after treatments
>>> come back some years later and still kill the victim.
>> Another pig ignorant lie. It isnt even the majority now with some cancers.
> Your use of the term "some cancers" is grasping at straws.
You are lying, as always. Its what matters when they are the majority of cancers.
>>> The real "success" is with highly localized/benign cancers which have
>>> not metastasized and can be "cured" if surgery gets the local tumor.
That still blows the original claim now right at the top completely out of the water.
>> And it isnt just surgery now either. Plenty are fixed
>> with surgery and radio or surgery and chemo.
> Your use of the term "plenty" is still a pitifully weak argument
> to prop up a broad failure of the "war on cancer" fiasco.
You're lying, as always.
>>> A lot of cancers are still not operable.
>> Another pig ignorant lie. It is in fact only a small minority that arent.
> How about my use of the qualifier "a lot" and your use of "small minority"
> and that it is not a "pig ignorant lie" when the quantitation is not specified.
Another lie.
>>> There has been very little progress in fundamental science with cancer.
>> Another pig ignorant lie.
> I spent a lot of my life reading mainstream journals on this.
Irrelevant to what the current situation is.
> Its not a lie,
Corse it is.
> and deaths and death rates from cancers are going up in many states, localities,
Another lie with the first world.
> and no one knows why.
>>> All of this article is very accurate,
>> Not on that particular claim I chose to comment on its not.
> I've spent my whole career in biomedical sciences and the author knew what was going on.
And that claim right at the top that I commented on is a lie.
>>> and I was a career grant-funded biomedical researcher with
>>> my own lab and staff of as many as five people and many
>>> articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
>> But dont have a clue
> A lot more clue than you.
You're lying, as always.
>> on the most basic stuff like that the bulk who get cancer do get
>> some extention of life that they wouldnt otherwise have got.
> A lot of people, maybe most, will "buy into" this.
Its a fact.
> I know a few people who tell me they would vote for euthanasia
> if they got into a terminal diagnosis rather than have their assets
> eaten up by the "medical industry" and have no house/money to
> hand to their surviving spouses, offspring.
That only happens in the US in the first world.
> The fact that life extention costs are right in there with much
> higher than average inflation rates, and government costs for
> subsidized medical payments means that pretty soon there
> just ain't going to be enough money to pay for that "life
> extension" unless you are just a member of the rich.
Another lie with the whole of the first world except the US.
And surgery isnt even that expensive and is by far the biggest
extenser of life with those with early detected cancer.
>>> I also sat on grant proposal review committees and reviewed a
>>> good 200 grant proposals in my life. I know how this stuff works.
>> You clearly dont have a fucking clue about what
>> happens when someone gets cancer today.
> I watched all kinds of innocent people, friends and relatives,
> and their families go through this, including my own father
> who died about as ugly death from cancer as you can find.
You clearly dont have a clue about the very large numbers
that get a very decent result from early detection of cancer
and surgery and appropriate treatment after that.
<reams of your usual response when you have go done like a
fucking dinner, over and over again, flushed where it belongs>
Bluuuue Rajah
>> and in 1984, he had a medical crisis that
>> cost him a kidney and made him turn his back on everything he had
>> previously valued.
>
> First, let me acknowledge that people who suffer from life-threatening
> events should deserve some sympathetic compassion. Most people have a
> lot of trouble with this.
So you admit it.
> I have a personal friend who was a BSME at the Lawrence Radiation Lab,
> now LLL, and retired from there after having only that job all his
> life, who told me a lot about the CTR program at LRL-LLL and its a
> very mixed bag, with a lot of Machiavellian politics, and in the end,
> he concluded that it was a big boondoggle project.
Ernest Lawrence's greatest gift to science was not the cyclotron. It
was projects too big to control.
> He was a manager at one point, and then stepped down because they were
> making him do things that he did not like.
Precisely how did they "make" him do these awful things?
>> then quit and went back into fission.
>> Fusion still hasn't recovered, and in fact, as of this month, it's
>> just gotten a lot worse.
>
> I am a layperson on fission and fusion, but from all I read, there is
> a future for fission reactors and I see the USA gearing up for dozens
> of more power reactors in a few years.
Americans have pitifully short memories.
>> The last remaining experiment is now sufficiently
>> over-budget that they're starting to chop off little pieces of it.
>
> Do you think there is any future for fusion despite what seems to me
> to be miniscule progress in the last 50 years?
What time scale is "the future"?
>> These things are a lot bigger than we are, and fusion will work
>> someday,
>
> Maybe some genius will figure out a practical containment methodology
> for the size and heat to come out, but even if this happens, the
> crystal ball lookers are saying that a fusion power plant will easily
> be a $1 trillion dollar investment and a great terrorist target.
You watch too much tv.
> How much would we get out of that money if it were put into solar cell
> panels?
Where will we put these solar cells?
Stray Dog
On Wed, 1 Jul 2009, Rod Speed wrote:
> Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 13:34:15 +1000
> From: Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com>
> Newsgroups: alt.gossip.celebrities, soc.retirement, misc.consumers,
> alt.health, alt.politics.usa
> Subject: Re: NYT expose: Cancer research is a $105 billion scam -
> "Cancer researchers" spent $105 billion of taxpayer money to make sure
> there is NO cure
>
> Stray Dog wrote
>> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>>> Stray Dog wrote
>>>> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>
>>>>>> Yet the fight against cancer is going slower than
>>>>>> most had hoped, with only small changes in the
>>>>>> death rate in the almost 40 years since it began.
>
>>>>> That is just plain wrong with quite a few cancers.
>
>>>> Only a few cancers respond to treatments.
>
>>> Thats a lie. Very few dont.
>
>> Majority of responses are weak, temporary.
>
> Another pig ignorant lie, most obviously with surgery.
Only if the tumor is localized and not metastasized. And, I have many
friends and dead friends that underwent surgery and the cancer came back.
>>>> The majority of treatments are defined as "cures" if they
>>>> extend life a few years compared to non-treatment.
>
>>> Another lie. What matters is that there is an extension.
>
>> What matters is whether the specific patient feels the
>> extension was worth the prolongation of the symtomology.
>
> And the absolute vast bulk of them do.
We all sometimes wish for things we can't afford.
>> Besides the prolongation of the symptomology
>> is the extra costs in terms of money.
>
> Irrelevant to what is being discussed.
Its been a serious problem for decades; how to pay for medical care, and
for the US, the articles all say health care is 18% of GDP and costs going
up, now, 9% per year. Medicare-medicaid is already swamping state/govt
budgets.
>> The tobbacco litigation and settlement story is just one
>> example of how society failed to deal with a major cancer
>> outcomes for a very large fraction of the population.
>
> Its nothing even remotely resembling anything like a very large
> fraction of the population
The articles all say lung cancer is still the leading cause of death
(despite all that "progress" in your over active imagination), and
there are other non-cancerous problems due to particulate deposition
in lungs (eg. brown lung) that also absorb large sums of money.
and irrelevant to what is being
> discussed anyway, that original claim now right at the top.
I've read a lot more about the problems of biomedical research than you,
and I've actually been in the field for most of my career, publishing and
getting grants and contracts.
>>>> Most of the cancers that go into remission after treatments
>>>> come back some years later and still kill the victim.
>
>>> Another pig ignorant lie. It isnt even the majority now with some cancers.
>
>> Your use of the term "some cancers" is grasping at straws.
>
> You are lying, as always. Its what matters when they are the majority of cancers.
I looked at some outcomes data some years ago and you misunderstand your
own optimism. You should check some, yourself, before you open your mouth.
Generally, in the good cases, it comes back about 50% of the time, grows
up again and causes trouble where anotehr surgery is needed, also exposing
patients to side effects and complications and exposure to hospital
antibiotic resistant bacteria which are also a major problem, too.
All it takes is one cancer cell to fall off an excised tumor and lodge
itself somewhere in the body and start a new nest.
And, out of all people I knew who got some kind of cancer, all but one who
had what was known as a benign tumor and many women who get fibroids in
the uterus (and the likes) are the ones with good long term outcomes.
Another one is non-malignant prostate cancers. And, I have one friend who
had malignant prostate cancer, had surgery and they thought they got it,
and now he says its back.
>>>> The real "success" is with highly localized/benign cancers which have
>>>> not metastasized and can be "cured" if surgery gets the local tumor.
>
> That still blows the original claim now right at the top completely out of the water.
No, the original author whos name I know well from a long history of
science writing, and in major journals, knew what she was talking about.
>>> And it isnt just surgery now either. Plenty are fixed
>>> with surgery and radio or surgery and chemo.
>
>> Your use of the term "plenty" is still a pitifully weak argument
>> to prop up a broad failure of the "war on cancer" fiasco.
>
> You're lying, as always.
Now, if you want to talk about heart disease, that is a different story.
There is general agreement among the cardiology community that death rates
due to various heart diseases have gone measurably down.
It was such a threat to medical schools when 15-20 years ago this became
recognized that NIH was proposing to decrease the budget for cardiology
research and move the money to AIDS/HIV or oncology research that all
manner of lobbying came out of the woodwork.
This is all well documented and published in the AAAS journal _Science_
which I read continuously from 1962 to 1996 when I retired. The other top
general journal is _Nature_ out of England.
>>>> A lot of cancers are still not operable.
>
>>> Another pig ignorant lie. It is in fact only a small minority that arent.
>
>> How about my use of the qualifier "a lot" and your use of "small minority"
>> and that it is not a "pig ignorant lie" when the quantitation is not specified.
>
> Another lie.
You just cant face a more informed opinion and/or an opinion that
contradicts yours, and I've been in the business and you have not.
>>>> There has been very little progress in fundamental science with cancer.
>
>>> Another pig ignorant lie.
>
>> I spent a lot of my life reading mainstream journals on this.
>
> Irrelevant to what the current situation is.
And, you have not demonstrated any knowledge involving real expertise.
>> Its not a lie,
>
> Corse it is.
Your unsubstantiated boast.
>> and deaths and death rates from cancers are going up in many states, localities,
>
> Another lie with the first world.
Even the experts had a big conference on this year ago, and little
agreement other than on the definitions of "cures" which really were not
cures but prolongation of conditions.
>> and no one knows why.
>
>>>> All of this article is very accurate,
>
>>> Not on that particular claim I chose to comment on its not.
>
>> I've spent my whole career in biomedical sciences and the author knew what was going on.
>
> And that claim right at the top that I commented on is a lie.
I also know other authors, including D.S. Greenberg, who was once
president of the AAAS, and even the names also mentioned in the article,
plus many articles in the AAAAS journal, also complaining about the
problems with how biomedical science is funded and why the progress is
hard to find.
>>>> and I was a career grant-funded biomedical researcher with
>>>> my own lab and staff of as many as five people and many
>>>> articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
>
>>> But dont have a clue
>
>> A lot more clue than you.
>
> You're lying, as always.
See, when you can't come up with any kind of valid, objective, and expert
response, you just call people a liar.
>>> on the most basic stuff like that the bulk who get cancer do get
>>> some extention of life that they wouldnt otherwise have got.
>
>> A lot of people, maybe most, will "buy into" this.
>
> Its a fact.
There are also the peole who vote for Kevorkian's out.
>> I know a few people who tell me they would vote for euthanasia
>> if they got into a terminal diagnosis rather than have their assets
>> eaten up by the "medical industry" and have no house/money to
>> hand to their surviving spouses, offspring.
>
> That only happens in the US in the first world.
On the contrary, it happens all over the world.
>> The fact that life extention costs are right in there with much
>> higher than average inflation rates, and government costs for
>> subsidized medical payments means that pretty soon there
>> just ain't going to be enough money to pay for that "life
>> extension" unless you are just a member of the rich.
>
> Another lie with the whole of the first world except the US.
That would depend on the inflation for health care in the countries with
socialized medicine or single payor plans and how their economy is doing.
> And surgery isnt even that expensive
It is not for YOU to say how expensive surgery is AND you have to look at
those actual costs.
and is by far the biggest
> extenser of life with those with early detected cancer.
This is a vast understatement that needs to look at details.
>>>> I also sat on grant proposal review committees and reviewed a
>>>> good 200 grant proposals in my life. I know how this stuff works.
>
>>> You clearly dont have a fucking clue about what
>>> happens when someone gets cancer today.
>
>> I watched all kinds of innocent people, friends and relatives,
>> and their families go through this, including my own father
>> who died about as ugly death from cancer as you can find.
>
> You clearly dont have a clue about the very large numbers
> that get a very decent result from early detection of cancer
> and surgery and appropriate treatment after that.
I think it is you that is clueless
> <reams of your usual response when you have go done like a
> fucking dinner, over and over again, flushed where it belongs>
What makes you special is the FAQ which I did not write but perfectly
describes your sick personality. .....
Stray Dog
On Wed, 1 Jul 2009, Bluuuue Rajah wrote:
> Date: Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:13:14 GMT
> From: Bluuuue Rajah <Bluuuuue@Rajah.>
> Newsgroups: alt.gossip.celebrities, soc.retirement, misc.consumers,
> alt.health, alt.politics.usa
> Subject: Re: NYT expose: Cancer research is a $105 billion scam -
> "Cancer researchers" spent $105 billion of taxpayer money to make sure
> there is NO cure
>
> Stray Dog <qcw...@sdf.lonestar.org> wrote in
> news:Pine.NEB.4.64.09...@sdf.lonestar.org:
>
>>
>>>>> And now you're retired?
>>>>
>>>> Yes.
>>>>
>>>> Now, why were you asking for my CV, and whether I am retired?
>>>>
>>>> And, now, who are you (and what is your background), Mr. Bluuuue
>>>> Rajah?
>>>
>>> and in 1984, he had a medical crisis that
>>> cost him a kidney and made him turn his back on everything he had
>>> previously valued.
>>
>> First, let me acknowledge that people who suffer from life-threatening
>> events should deserve some sympathetic compassion. Most people have a
>> lot of trouble with this.
>
> So you admit it.
What is the problem here? Were you unhappy that the guy changed his whole
outlook on life? Or, did he maybe face up to the darkside of everything
he had previously valued?
I know of a lot of people, some personal, who had major changes of heart
due to life events. Major changes in religious beleif, major changes in
political belief. Why do you use the phrase "So you admit it" as if it is
a crime?
>> I have a personal friend who was a BSME at the Lawrence Radiation Lab,
>> now LLL, and retired from there after having only that job all his
>> life, who told me a lot about the CTR program at LRL-LLL and its a
>> very mixed bag, with a lot of Machiavellian politics, and in the end,
>> he concluded that it was a big boondoggle project.
>
> Ernest Lawrence's greatest gift to science was not the cyclotron. It
> was projects too big to control.
I would not consider anything Lawrence did as "too big to control" but one
of our former presidents (Eisenhour) when he left office did warn the
general public about the "US military-industrial complex" and that indeed
is a project that no politician has been able to control.
>> He was a manager at one point, and then stepped down because they were
>> making him do things that he did not like.
>
> Precisely how did they "make" him do these awful things?
Threatenting to fire him for an engineering opinion that conflicted with
administrative policy.
>>> then quit and went back into fission.
>>> Fusion still hasn't recovered, and in fact, as of this month, it's
>>> just gotten a lot worse.
>>
>> I am a layperson on fission and fusion, but from all I read, there is
>> a future for fission reactors and I see the USA gearing up for dozens
>> of more power reactors in a few years.
>
> Americans have pitifully short memories.
Would you care to explain that?
>>> The last remaining experiment is now sufficiently
>>> over-budget that they're starting to chop off little pieces of it.
>>
>> Do you think there is any future for fusion despite what seems to me
>> to be miniscule progress in the last 50 years?
>
> What time scale is "the future"?
There has to be a feasible and credible endpoint.
>>> These things are a lot bigger than we are, and fusion will work
>>> someday,
>>
>> Maybe some genius will figure out a practical containment methodology
>> for the size and heat to come out, but even if this happens, the
>> crystal ball lookers are saying that a fusion power plant will easily
>> be a $1 trillion dollar investment and a great terrorist target.
>
> You watch too much tv.
OK, are you saying that you know a lot about this or are you saying, like
you were hinting not in your lifetime, we should spend tons of money
forever?
>> How much would we get out of that money if it were put into solar cell
>> panels?
>
> Where will we put these solar cells?
We have very large fractions of many states with very very low population
densities.
I made a calculation a few years ago that if all the money spent on CTR
research, which has not even come close to a demonstration plant, were
spent on solar cells, we would have, today, 10-15% of US electricity needs
in place and no waste heat or radioactivity, totally renewable energy with
low maintenance.
You should look at that.
Not to mention that wind farms are popping up all over, too.
Bluuuue Rajah
I touched a nerve.
> I know of a lot of people, some personal, who had major changes of
> heart due to life events. Major changes in religious beleif, major
> changes in political belief. Why do you use the phrase "So you admit
> it" as if it is a crime?
Changes of people's hearts don't change the validity of science.
>>> I have a personal friend who was a BSME at the Lawrence Radiation
>>> Lab, now LLL, and retired from there after having only that job all
>>> his life, who told me a lot about the CTR program at LRL-LLL and its
>>> a very mixed bag, with a lot of Machiavellian politics, and in the
>>> end, he concluded that it was a big boondoggle project.
>>
>> Ernest Lawrence's greatest gift to science was not the cyclotron. It
>> was projects too big to control.
>
> I would not consider anything Lawrence did as "too big to control" but
> one of our former presidents (Eisenhour) when he left office did warn
> the general public about the "US military-industrial complex" and that
> indeed is a project that no politician has been able to control.
You've got a PhD and you can't spell Eisenhower's name? That's fishy.
>>> He was a manager at one point, and then stepped down because they
>>> were making him do things that he did not like.
>>
>> Precisely how did they "make" him do these awful things?
>
> Threatenting to fire him for an engineering opinion that conflicted
> with administrative policy.
Better to call their bluff than to quit and spare them the dirtywork of
firing you. They might turn out to have been faking it.
>>>> then quit and went back into fission.
>>>> Fusion still hasn't recovered, and in fact, as of this month, it's
>>>> just gotten a lot worse.
>>>
>>> I am a layperson on fission and fusion, but from all I read, there
>>> is a future for fission reactors and I see the USA gearing up for
>>> dozens of more power reactors in a few years.
>>
>> Americans have pitifully short memories.
>
> Would you care to explain that?
Have we so soon forgotten the aftermath of Three Mile Island?
>>>> The last remaining experiment is now sufficiently
>>>> over-budget that they're starting to chop off little pieces of it.
>>>
>>> Do you think there is any future for fusion despite what seems to me
>>> to be miniscule progress in the last 50 years?
>>
>> What time scale is "the future"?
>
> There has to be a feasible and credible endpoint.
Different people have different ideas of what are "feasible" and
"credible."
>>>> These things are a lot bigger than we are, and fusion will work
>>>> someday,
>>>
>>> Maybe some genius will figure out a practical containment
>>> methodology for the size and heat to come out, but even if this
>>> happens, the crystal ball lookers are saying that a fusion power
>>> plant will easily be a $1 trillion dollar investment and a great
>>> terrorist target.
>>
>> You watch too much tv.
>
> OK, are you saying that you know a lot about this or are you saying,
> like you were hinting not in your lifetime, we should spend tons of
> money forever?
I'm saying that your terrorist argument is a strawman. Any time the
Neo-Cons don't like something, they invoke the terrorism bogeyman.
>>> How much would we get out of that money if it were put into solar
>>> cell panels?
>>
>> Where will we put these solar cells?
>
> We have very large fractions of many states with very very low
> population densities.
Too vague.
> I made a calculation a few years ago that if all the money spent on
> CTR research, which has not even come close to a demonstration plant,
> were spent on solar cells, we would have, today, 10-15% of US
> electricity needs in place and no waste heat or radioactivity, totally
> renewable energy with low maintenance.
That argument is also a strawman, since electric utilities are privately
owned and CTR is in the public sector.
Stray Dog
On Wed, 1 Jul 2009, Bluuuue Rajah wrote:
> Date: Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:35:15 GMT
> From: Bluuuue Rajah <Bluuuuue@Rajah.>
> Newsgroups: alt.gossip.celebrities, soc.retirement, misc.consumers,
> alt.health, alt.politics.usa
> Subject: Re: NYT expose: Cancer research is a $105 billion scam -
> "Cancer researchers" spent $105 billion of taxpayer money to make sure
> there is NO cure
>
>>>>> and in 1984, he had a medical crisis that
>>>>> cost him a kidney and made him turn his back on everything he had
>>>>> previously valued.
>>>>
>>>> First, let me acknowledge that people who suffer from
>>>> life-threatening events should deserve some sympathetic compassion.
>>>> Most people have a lot of trouble with this.
>>>
>>> So you admit it.
>>
>> What is the problem here? Were you unhappy that the guy changed his
>> whole outlook on life? Or, did he maybe face up to the darkside of
>> everything he had previously valued?
>
> I touched a nerve.
I think this is another problem you are not explaining. I asked you three
questions and your response answered none of my questions. How about you
tell us what your sentence "...and in 1984...." is meant to elicit from me
and why what it did elicit from me is some kind of problem for you?
>> I know of a lot of people, some personal, who had major changes of
>> heart due to life events. Major changes in religious beleif, major
>> changes in political belief. Why do you use the phrase "So you admit
>> it" as if it is a crime?
>
> Changes of people's hearts don't change the validity of science.
I think history is full of people who changed their hearts and it led them
to re-appraise the "validity" of what they were doing.
The USA atomic bombed Japan to stop the war and at the time it was
considered a "valid" strategy. I have a book in which this "validity" was
retroactively and extensively discussed, both pro and con.
I can't agree or disagree with you unless I see what the guy actually did
before and after his kidney problem.
>>>> I have a personal friend who was a BSME at the Lawrence Radiation
>>>> Lab, now LLL, and retired from there after having only that job all
>>>> his life, who told me a lot about the CTR program at LRL-LLL and its
>>>> a very mixed bag, with a lot of Machiavellian politics, and in the
>>>> end, he concluded that it was a big boondoggle project.
>>>
>>> Ernest Lawrence's greatest gift to science was not the cyclotron. It
>>> was projects too big to control.
>>
>> I would not consider anything Lawrence did as "too big to control" but
>> one of our former presidents (Eisenhour) when he left office did warn
>> the general public about the "US military-industrial complex" and that
>> indeed is a project that no politician has been able to control.
>
> You've got a PhD and you can't spell Eisenhower's name? That's fishy.
I was never good a name spelling. Shall I nitpick on your trivial errors?
>>>> He was a manager at one point, and then stepped down because they
>>>> were making him do things that he did not like.
>>>
>>> Precisely how did they "make" him do these awful things?
>>
>> Threatenting to fire him for an engineering opinion that conflicted
>> with administrative policy.
>
> Better to call their bluff than to quit and spare them the dirtywork of
> firing you. They might turn out to have been faking it.
You can do this if you want. I would advise caution.
>>>>> then quit and went back into fission.
>>>>> Fusion still hasn't recovered, and in fact, as of this month, it's
>>>>> just gotten a lot worse.
>>>>
>>>> I am a layperson on fission and fusion, but from all I read, there
>>>> is a future for fission reactors and I see the USA gearing up for
>>>> dozens of more power reactors in a few years.
>>>
>>> Americans have pitifully short memories.
>>
>> Would you care to explain that?
>
> Have we so soon forgotten the aftermath of Three Mile Island?
Why do you bring this up? Lets see how much you know about TMI history and
fission reactor history.
>>>>> The last remaining experiment is now sufficiently
>>>>> over-budget that they're starting to chop off little pieces of it.
>>>>
>>>> Do you think there is any future for fusion despite what seems to me
>>>> to be miniscule progress in the last 50 years?
>>>
>>> What time scale is "the future"?
>>
>> There has to be a feasible and credible endpoint.
>
> Different people have different ideas of what are "feasible" and
> "credible."
So, what are you saying? We should spend billions per year for an
indeterminant period of time on a project with little progress in 50 years
while the fision reactor technology, photovoltaic technology, wind
turbines, etc., are already mature and with many commercial installations?
>>>>> These things are a lot bigger than we are, and fusion will work
>>>>> someday,
>>>>
>>>> Maybe some genius will figure out a practical containment
>>>> methodology for the size and heat to come out, but even if this
>>>> happens, the crystal ball lookers are saying that a fusion power
>>>> plant will easily be a $1 trillion dollar investment and a great
>>>> terrorist target.
>>>
>>> You watch too much tv.
>>
>> OK, are you saying that you know a lot about this or are you saying,
>> like you were hinting not in your lifetime, we should spend tons of
>> money forever?
>
> I'm saying that your terrorist argument is a strawman. Any time the
> Neo-Cons don't like something, they invoke the terrorism bogeyman.
The WTC 9/11 event killed thousands of people, destroyed two skyscrapers
worth $1 bil, destroyed four commercial airliners (another $1/4 bil),
killed hundreds of passengers per each plane, and stunned the world and
you call this a strawman?
Not to mention whole books written now on terrorism, and lots of big bombs
going off in lots of places around the world.
>>>> How much would we get out of that money if it were put into solar
>>>> cell panels?
>>>
>>> Where will we put these solar cells?
>>
>> We have very large fractions of many states with very very low
>> population densities.
>
> Too vague.
Just look at population density in the USA in the arid states.
I even calculated that I could cover the roof of my house with solar cells
and then just disconnect from the power companies with no change in
lifestyle.
>> I made a calculation a few years ago that if all the money spent on
>> CTR research, which has not even come close to a demonstration plant,
>> were spent on solar cells, we would have, today, 10-15% of US
>> electricity needs in place and no waste heat or radioactivity, totally
>> renewable energy with low maintenance.
>
> That argument is also a strawman, since electric utilities are privately
> owned and CTR is in the public sector.
I guess you are unaware that some 1-2% of today's electricity is already
solar, another couple percent is already wind/geothermal, another
hydroelectric, etc., and how much comes from real, functional, practical
fusion reactors? And, I've seen a lot of solar panels going up on house
roofs and commercial store roofs (one liquor store has a sign outside:
"totally on solar power").
I guess you are unaware that there are or were some big tax breaks for
installing renewable energy sources.
And, do any of the fusion wonks have the faintest idea when we can expect
the first watt of electricity from CTR?
Rod Speed
> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>> Stray Dog wrote
>>> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>>>> Stray Dog wrote
>>>>> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>>>>>>> Yet the fight against cancer is going slower than
>>>>>>> most had hoped, with only small changes in the
>>>>>>> death rate in the almost 40 years since it began.
>>>>>> That is just plain wrong with quite a few cancers.
>>>>> Only a few cancers respond to treatments.
>>>> Thats a lie. Very few dont.
>>> Majority of responses are weak, temporary.
>> Another pig ignorant lie, most obviously with surgery.
> Only if the tumor is localized and not metastasized.
And that is pretty common now with the much more widespread use of screening.
Which is a large part of the reason the original claim now right at the top is just plain wrong.
> And, I have many friends and dead friends that underwent surgery and the cancer came back.
And I know even more that the surgery fixed and who are still around much more than 5 years later.
>>>>> The majority of treatments are defined as "cures" if they
>>>>> extend life a few years compared to non-treatment.
>>>> Another lie. What matters is that there is an extension.
>>> What matters is whether the specific patient feels the
>>> extension was worth the prolongation of the symtomology.
>> And the absolute vast bulk of them do.
> We all sometimes wish for things we can't afford.
Most of us in the modern first world have had enough of a clue
to have our govts go for a decent modern health care funding
system which ensures that if we do get cancer caught early by
screening which is quite literally free, get the surgery free too.
You clowns are too stupid to do that ? You get
to wear the major downsides of being that stupid.
>>> Besides the prolongation of the symptomology
>>> is the extra costs in terms of money.
>> Irrelevant to what is being discussed.
> Its been a serious problem for decades; how to pay for medical care,
And every other modern first world country has had enough of a clue to work
out how to pay for medical care using a decent modern funding system.
> and for the US, the articles all say health care is 18% of GDP
And every other modern first world country gets a total health
care cost of HALF of that, and they all get at least as good a
mortality and longevity result as the US gets. Some of them
do significantly better than the US does in both respects.
> and costs going up, now, 9% per year.
Thats because modern health care is so effective, tho not cheap.
> Medicare-medicaid is already swamping state/govt budgets.
And every other modern first world country gets a total health
care cost of HALF of that, and they all get at least as good a
mortality and longevity result as the US gets. Some of them
do significantly better than the US does in both respects.
Essentially because they dont have to fund the massive paper
shuffling bureaucracy that is the health insurance system in the US.
And thats all completely irrelevant to that stupid claim now right at the top anyway.
>>> The tobbacco litigation and settlement story is just one
>>> example of how society failed to deal with a major cancer
>>> outcomes for a very large fraction of the population.
>> Its nothing even remotely resembling anything like a very large fraction of the population
> The articles all say lung cancer is still the leading cause of death
Thats just because there are so many stupid enough to smoke.
Nothing even remotely resembling a very large fraction
of the population gets killed by lung cancer tho.
> (despite all that "progress" in your over active imagination),
You're lying, again.
> and there are other non-cancerous problems due to particulate deposition
> in lungs (eg. brown lung) that also absorb large sums of money.
Completely irrelevant to that stupid claim now right at the top being discussed.
>> and irrelevant to what is being> discussed anyway, that original claim now right at the top.
> I've read a lot more about the problems of biomedical research than you,
But are so stupid that you cant manage to grasp that the claim now right at the top is a lie.
> and I've actually been in the field for most of my career,
You're lying now. Thats nothing like what you have previously said.
> publishing and getting grants and contracts.
But are so stupid that you cant manage to grasp that the claim now right at the top is a lie.
>>>>> Most of the cancers that go into remission after treatments
>>>>> come back some years later and still kill the victim.
>>>> Another pig ignorant lie. It isnt even the majority now with some cancers.
>>> Your use of the term "some cancers" is grasping at straws.
>> You are lying, as always. Its what matters when they are the majority of cancers.
> I looked at some outcomes data some years ago
Your problem is your ear to ear dog shit that prevents
you from comprehending what the data says.
Look at the 5 year survival rates for early detected
bowel cancer for starters. Only 5% get killed by the cancer.
Thats a hell of a lot better result than it used to be.
> and you misunderstand your own optimism. You should check some, yourself, before you open> your mouth.
Been there, done that. You are lying, as always.
> Generally, in the good cases, it comes back about 50% of the time,
Thats a bare faced like with early detected bowel cancer for starters.
A lie with early detected skin cancers too.
A lie with early detected breast cancer too.
A lie with early detected prostate cancer too.
> grows up again and causes trouble where anotehr surgery is needed,
Its nothing even remotely resembling anything like 50% with those I listed just above.
> also exposing patients to side effects and complications and exposure to hospital antibiotic resistant bacteria which
> are also a major problem, too.
That last only affects a small minority, liar.
> All it takes is one cancer cell to fall off an excised tumor and lodge itself somewhere in the body and start a new
> nest.
And plenty dont ever get that with early detected cancer.
> And, out of all people I knew who got some kind of cancer, all but one who had what was known as a benign tumor
The technical term for that is 'pathetically inadequate sample'
> and many women who get fibroids in the uterus (and the likes) are the ones with good long term outcomes. Another one
> is non-malignant prostate cancers.
Pity about the ones I listed above.
> And, I have one friend who had malignant prostate cancer, had surgery and they thought they got it, and now he says
> its back.
The technical term for that is 'pathetically inadequate sample'
>>>>> The real "success" is with highly localized/benign cancers which have not metastasized and can be "cured" if
>>>>> surgery gets the local tumor.
>> That still blows the original claim now right at the top completely out of the water.
> No,
Yep.
> the original author whos name I know well from a long history of science writing, and in major journals, knew what she
> was talking about.
Nope, she clearly doesnt with that stupid pig ignorant claim.
>>>> And it isnt just surgery now either. Plenty are fixed
>>>> with surgery and radio or surgery and chemo.
>>> Your use of the term "plenty" is still a pitifully weak argument
>>> to prop up a broad failure of the "war on cancer" fiasco.
>> You're lying, as always.
> Now, if you want to talk about heart disease, that is a different story. There is general agreement among the
> cardiology community that
> death rates due to various heart diseases have gone measurably down.
Just as true of early detected cancer.
> It was such a threat to medical schools when 15-20 years ago this
> became recognized that NIH was proposing to decrease the budget for cardiology research and move the money to AIDS/HIV
> or oncology
> research that all manner of lobbying came out of the woodwork.
> This is all well documented and published in the AAAS journal
> _Science_ which I read continuously from 1962 to 1996 when I retired. The other top general journal is _Nature_ out of
> England.
All completely irrelevant to the stupid claim now right at the top being discussed.
>>>>> A lot of cancers are still not operable.
>>>> Another pig ignorant lie. It is in fact only a small minority that arent.
>>> How about my use of the qualifier "a lot" and your use of "small minority" and that it is not a "pig ignorant lie"
>>> when the quantitation is not specified.
>> Another lie.
> You just cant face a more informed opinion and/or an opinion that contradicts yours,
You're lying, as always.
> and I've been in the business and you have not.
Anyone can look at the stats, fuckwit.
>>>>> There has been very little progress in fundamental science with cancer.
>>>> Another pig ignorant lie.
>>> I spent a lot of my life reading mainstream journals on this.
>> Irrelevant to what the current situation is.
> And, you have not demonstrated any knowledge involving real expertise.
Anyone can look at the stats, fuckwit.
>>> Its not a lie,
>> Corse it is.
> Your unsubstantiated boast.
Anyone can look at the stats, fuckwit.
>>> and deaths and death rates from cancers are going up in many states, localities,
>> Another lie with the first world.
> Even the experts had a big conference on this year ago, and little agreement other than on the definitions of "cures"
> which really were not cures but prolongation of conditions.
The obvious definition of a cure is that you die of
something else, other than the cancer, stupid.
>>> and no one knows why.
>>>>> All of this article is very accurate,
>>>> Not on that particular claim I chose to comment on its not.
>>> I've spent my whole career in biomedical sciences and the author knew what was going on.
>> And that claim right at the top that I commented on is a lie.
> I also know other authors, including D.S. Greenberg, who was once
> president of the AAAS, and even the names also mentioned in the
> article, plus many articles in the AAAAS journal, also complaining
> about the problems with how biomedical science is funded and why the progress is hard to find.
Pity that claim now right at the top is a bare faced pig ignorant lie.
>>>>> and I was a career grant-funded biomedical researcher with
>>>>> my own lab and staff of as many as five people and many
>>>>> articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
>>>> But dont have a clue
>>> A lot more clue than you.
>> You're lying, as always.
> See, when you can't come up with any kind of valid, objective, and expert response, you just call people a liar.
You're lying, as always.
>>>> on the most basic stuff like that the bulk who get cancer do get
>>>> some extention of life that they wouldnt otherwise have got.
>>> A lot of people, maybe most, will "buy into" this.
>> Its a fact.
> There are also the peole who vote for Kevorkian's out.
Irrelevant to whether some do in fact live longer than they would otherwise have done.
>>> I know a few people who tell me they would vote for euthanasia
>>> if they got into a terminal diagnosis rather than have their assets
>>> eaten up by the "medical industry" and have no house/money to
>>> hand to their surviving spouses, offspring.
>> That only happens in the US in the first world.
> On the contrary, it happens all over the world.
Another lie with the rest of the modern first world.
You cant get bankrupted when the cancer treatment is free, fool.
>>> The fact that life extention costs are right in there with much
>>> higher than average inflation rates, and government costs for
>>> subsidized medical payments means that pretty soon there
>>> just ain't going to be enough money to pay for that "life
>>> extension" unless you are just a member of the rich.
>> Another lie with the whole of the first world except the US.
> That would depend on the inflation for health care in the countries with socialized medicine or single payor plans and
> how their economy is doing.
Nope. The percentage that get cancer is always a lot less than those
who are still paying tax and dont have any serious medical problem.
>> And surgery isnt even that expensive
> It is not for YOU to say how expensive surgery is
Its for anyone who can look at the real costs right thruout the modern first world, fool.
> AND you have to look at those actual costs.
Another lie. All you have to do is to look at what all those non US first world health
care system spend on cancer surgery. It isnt a huge part of the health care budget.
>> and is by far the biggest extenser of life with those with early detected cancer.
> This is a vast understatement that needs to look at details.
You're lying, as always.
>>>>> I also sat on grant proposal review committees and reviewed a
>>>>> good 200 grant proposals in my life. I know how this stuff works.
>>>> You clearly dont have a fucking clue about what
>>>> happens when someone gets cancer today.
>>> I watched all kinds of innocent people, friends and relatives,
>>> and their families go through this, including my own father
>>> who died about as ugly death from cancer as you can find.
>> You clearly dont have a clue about the very large numbers
>> that get a very decent result from early detection of cancer
>> and surgery and appropriate treatment after that.
> I think it is you that is clueless
Never ever could bullshit and lie its way out of a wet paper bag.
Stray Dog
On Thu, 2 Jul 2009, Rod Speed wrote:
> Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 04:37:57 +1000
> From: Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com>
> Newsgroups: alt.gossip.celebrities, soc.retirement, misc.consumers,
> alt.health, alt.politics.usa
> Subject: Re: NYT expose: Cancer research is a $105 billion scam -
> "Cancer researchers" spent $105 billion of taxpayer money to make sure
> there is NO cure
>
> Stray Dog wrote
>> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>>> Stray Dog wrote
>>>> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>>>>> Stray Dog wrote
>>>>>> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>
>>>>>>>> Yet the fight against cancer is going slower than
>>>>>>>> most had hoped, with only small changes in the
>>>>>>>> death rate in the almost 40 years since it began.
>
>>>>>>> That is just plain wrong with quite a few cancers.
>
>>>>>> Only a few cancers respond to treatments.
>
>>>>> Thats a lie. Very few dont.
>
>>>> Majority of responses are weak, temporary.
>
>>> Another pig ignorant lie, most obviously with surgery.
>
>> Only if the tumor is localized and not metastasized.
>
> And that is pretty common now with the much more widespread use of screening.
And, all you are doing is "dance around" with your responses, no hard
quantitative data, no refereences, no actual job experience, no actual
knowledge of what is going on, and you just "make up" responses as you go.
Just like the "Rod Speed FAQ" which someone else wrote.
<flushed the rest of your crap where it belongs>
And, here is the Rod Speed FAQ again....
Rod Speed
delusions about being a dog, desperately cowering behind
Stray Dog desperately attempted to bullshit and lie its way out
of its predicament and fooled absolutely no one at all, as always.
No surprise that it got the bums rush, right out the door, onto its lard arse.
No surprise that its so pathetically bitter and twisted about it.