Gladwell Digs into Cancer Drug Research Difficulties

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2010/05/10/gladwell-digs-into-cancer-drug-research-difficulties/?KEYWORDS=cancer

Key Ideas:

• 90% of the drugs studied in humans to fight cancer show no difference between the control and treatment arms.
• Malcolm Gladwell points out that given the pitfalls of cancer drug development, a “master code behind the disease” may not be waiting to be cracked.
• The drug, which causes cancer cells so much oxidative stress that they die, showed promise in the lab.
• The company recently announced that the FDA has allowed it to resume clinical development of elesclomol.
• Gladwell has to work backward to find a solution, and that will be difficult because he does not have an understanding of cancer, just like other scientists.

Reflection:

I found the statistic given at the beginning of the article to be surprising. If there was a choice t have your disease treated or controlled, and chose to have it treated, it's sort of a waste because the two drugs are the same. I think its important that someone is looking for a solution to the problem of cancer. Drugs can only help a person fight the disease for so long, because there is no sure cure for the disease. The FDA shouldn't have approved the development of elesclomol because it will be harmful to the people who put that into their bodies.This course helped me to understand this topic because we studied cancer.

MLA: Hobson, Katherine. "Gladwell Digs into Cancer Drug Research Difficulties - Health Blog - WSJ." WSJ Blogs - WSJ. Wall Street Journal, 10 May 2010. Web. http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2010/05/10/gladwell-digs-into-cancer-drug-research-difficulties/?KEYWORDS=cancer.