hepatitis B

Cancer prevention in 12 steps – HPV and hep B vaccines included

There are 12 good steps that you can take for cancer prevention, and none of them are magical supplements. Getting the HPV vaccine is step 1.

Secret cancer cure — is Big Pharma hiding it from all of us?

One of the more annoying comments from the pseudoscience crowd is that there is a secret cancer cure and Big Pharma is hiding it in a vault somewhere because they make more money from “treating” cancer than curing it. Now anyone who understands anything about cancer and understands how greedy Big Pharma is would know this is the dumbest conspiracy theory since the claim that NASA faked the moon landing.

I love answering questions on Quora because I thoroughly enjoy taking down people who think you can boost your immune system against COVID-19 or that there is a homeopathic potion that will do something. But the question I probably answer every single day is whether Big Pharma is hiding the secret cancer cure, the one cure to cure them all, from all of humanity.

To save me time in the future, I decided to put it all down in one article for the world to read. The simple answer to the question is no. No, there is no secret cancer cure. And no, Big Pharma isn’t hiding it, because if there were such a cure, the one company that had it could essentially ask for Fort Knox to deliver all the gold to Big Pharma headquarters. It would be the mother of all blockbuster drugs.

So let’s take a look at cancer and the secret cancer cure myth. Get a big bowl of popcorn, because this is going to be a long one.

Vaccine adverse events are very rare – vast benefits outweigh risks

Like all medical procedures, devices, and pharmaceuticals, vaccines are not perfect – there are rare vaccine adverse events. What matters is that the benefits, not only medically but also economically, outweigh any risks. As far ask I know, no perfect medical procedures, devices, or pharmaceuticals, none, that are perfectly safe or perfectly effective. Sometimes the ratio is small.

For example, there are chemotherapy drugs that only add a few months to a patient’s life, usually with substantial side effects to the medication. Yet, if you ask a patient whether it was worth it, to spend just a few extra months with their children and loved ones, the value becomes nearly incalculable.

But mostly, the FDA and other regulatory agencies demand that new products and procedures must meet or exceed the safety, and meet or exceed the financial and health benefits of currently acceptable versions. Actually, the FDA examines a lot more than that.

They check the packaging, shelf life, instructions, manufacturing practices, and so much more, it would take a book to explain it (and there probably are several). It may not be a perfect process, but it’s better than what we had 100 years ago, and it continues to improve every single day. People tend towards a form of confirmation bias where they remember where a drug may have been found to be dangerous (the best example is Vioxx).

But they forget about the millions of medications and devices that save lives or measurably improve the standard of living.

Is Vaxxed producer Del Bigtree credible on vaccines? Not really.

This article about Vaxxed producer, Del Bigtree, was written by Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law (San Francisco, CA), who is a frequent contributor to this and many other blogs, providing in-depth, and intellectually stimulating, articles about vaccines, medical issues, social policy, and the law.

Professor Reiss writes extensively in law journals about the social and legal policies of vaccination. Additionally, Reiss is also a member of the Parent Advisory Board of Voices for Vaccines, a parent-led organization that supports and advocates for on-time vaccination and the reduction of vaccine-preventable disease. She is also a member of the Vaccines Working Group on Ethics and Policy.

Over the past few months, Vaxxed producer Del Bigtree, who formerly worked on the show The Doctors, has made numerous statements about vaccines and vaccine safety. His claims about fraud by the CDC have been addressed in the past, and the evidence doesn’t support his beliefs. But the claims he makes about vaccines go beyond the movie, and he makes an effort to present himself as an authority on the issue.

Mr. Bigtree’s statements are consistently inaccurate, suggesting he is not a good source of information about vaccines. It’s impossible to address every single wrong claim Mr. Bigtree has made about vaccines, of course. But these problems should demonstrate that Mr. Bigtree’s claims about vaccines cannot be relied on.

Why can’t we get a cancer vaccine as fast as one for COVID-19?

by Michael Simpson
2021-06-13
Cancer, COVID-19, HPV vaccine, JNJ, Moderna, Pfizer, Vaccines

I keep reading memes and other nonsense that if scientists are so smart why can’t we have a cancer vaccine as fast as we did for COVID-19? It’s not a serious question, it’s actually pejorative – it’s meant to imply that we’ve been looking for years for a cancer vaccine without success, yet we were able to get a COVID-19 vaccine within a few months, so obviously it was rushed.

Fortunately for us on the side of science, this is one of the silliest and most desperate myths being pushed by our favorite anti-vaxxers.

Busting cancer myths is one of my favorite activities – my non-statistical analysis of medical pseudoscience puts cancer slightly above vaccines on the stupidity of the tropes. Combining vaccine nonsense with cancer is right up my bailiwick. Let’s have some tearing apart this trope.

Debunking annoying zombie cancer myths

Cancer is a scary disease, and that has lead to many myths about the disease that have no basis in science. This article debunks many of them.

Secret cancer cure – is Big Pharma hiding it from us?

by Michael Simpson
2020-09-14
Cancer, Cannabis, HPV vaccine, Pharmaceutical, Vaccines

Here is one of the most annoying questions asked on the internet – “Is Big Pharma hiding a secret cancer cure just to make bundles of money?” Seriously, I think a see a variation of that question every day on sites like Quora, where people ask occasional intuitive but mostly ridiculous questions to get answers from so-called experts.

Since I end up answering this question every day, I thought maybe I should put down my thoughts in an article here. It will allow me to cut and paste the answer right from here – a true sign of either extreme preparedness or laziness. Maybe both.

It’s clear that a lot of the “secret cancer cure” myths arise in the typical pseudoscience websites. They’re pushing “natural” cures that are 100% effective in “curing” every known cancer with no side effects. What’s the evidence? You just need to trust them.Read More »Secret cancer cure – is Big Pharma hiding it from us?

Falling cancer death rate – cancer scam artists crying homeopathic tears

Despite the various tropes from internet scam artists, the American Cancer Society (ACS) reports falling cancer death rates in the USA. Maybe we haven’t won the “war on cancer,” but it is far from bleak.

As you know, cancer myths run rampant on social media. One of them is that cancer is a massive epidemic these days, killing everyone. And the second myth is that “Big Pharma is hiding a secret cancer cure. So, according to the internet scam artists pushing fake cancer “cures,” not only are we dying more of cancer but the evil Big Pharma scientists are hiding a miracle cure from us.

Well, the facts don’t support those fake claims. This article will take a look at the new data from the American Cancer Society about the falling cancer death rates in the USA.Read More »Falling cancer death rate – cancer scam artists crying homeopathic tears

Hepatitis B virus causes cancer – yes, the vaccine can prevent it

A recent study provides more evidence that the hepatitis B virus (HBV) is linked to a variety of cancers – that’s not surprising to most of us. We also know that the HBV vaccine can prevent the infection, thereby preventing a wide range of cancers.

Despite the facts supporting the dangers of the hepatitis B virus, the anti-vaccine zealots absolutely despise the vaccine, especially since it’s usually given to newborns (with a second dose recommended at 1-2 months along with a third dose at about 12-18 months) to prevent HBV infections passed from the mother.

Let’s take a look at the hepatitis B virus and this new peer-reviewed paper that discusses the link between HBV and a number of cancers.Read More »Hepatitis B virus causes cancer – yes, the vaccine can prevent it