Cancer and Farah Fawcett

[ZZman]

I have been watching the news about Farah Fawcett and her cancer issues. I also see that Patrick Swayze appears to be losing his battle too. Cancer is such a terrible thing to so many. I am sure it has touched everyone in some way. On a lighter note Who had the famous Farah Fawcett red swimsuit poster? I had it until the wife made me throw it away decades ago. My first love destroyed! http://www.customizedgirl.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/farah_fawcett.jpg

 

[ADFD1]

Cancer is horrible, my heart goes out both Farah and Patrick, and anyone suffering from that disease. On the brighter side of things, my father has some PB magazines from the 70's with Farah in them, IIRC they're in Pristine condition. Next time I'm in NY visiting him I am going to have a look. I bet they are worth a few $$$$ too. AD

 

[aquariuscsm]

 Originally Posted By: ZZman

Who had the famous Farah Fawcett red swimsuit poster? I had it until the wife made me throw it away decades ago. My first love destroyed! http://www.customizedgirl.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/farah_fawcett.jpg

I have it :^) That was so sad when I read about her. I had no idea. That`s so tragic.

 

[crinkles]

when you think about it. your body consists of billions of cells. all those cells (except brain cells i believe) need replacing. cells split to form new ones. this duplication of DNA happens so many uncountable times that it is quite likely to form a dud cell which becomes cancer when it duplicates itself. when you add environmental effects that affect how well DNA transfers occur (e.g. smoking) it makes sense that cancer has become our number 1 killer relative to other diseases we have been able to resist.

 

[Steve S]

Cancer is bad,I bet it is genitic and can be spurred on by many things. Innoculation chemicals, enviromental causes both man made and natural.

 

[jimbeamalki]

In the early 80's, I worked for a small electronics distributor, and taped one on the inside of the door to the men's restroom. Trying not to discrimnate I also taped a poster of some dude (can't remember who cause I only saw it once) on the inside of the door to the ladies' room. They stayed there for a long time. Sad thing to read about.

 

[buster]

 Originally Posted By: crinkles

when you think about it. your body consists of billions of cells. all those cells (except brain cells i believe) need replacing. cells split to form new ones. this duplication of DNA happens so many uncountable times that it is quite likely to form a dud cell which becomes cancer when it duplicates itself. when you add environmental effects that affect how well DNA transfers occur (e.g. smoking) it makes sense that cancer has become our number 1 killer relative to other diseases we have been able to resist.

True. Cancer is simply cell division gone out of control.

 

[Gary Allan]

 Originally Posted By: Steve S

Cancer is bad,I bet it is genitic and can be spurred on by many things. Innoculation chemicals, enviromental causes both man made and natural.

It's a sad ending to endure, I'm sure. I've seen it enough with my mother's side. Most of her sisters died from it. They all also died around the same age (with or without cancer). I really don't think there will ever be a cure for cancer. There may be more effective treatments, but it's not like eliminating an infectious disease. You can't eliminate free radicals from the environment, and you can't just live inside a shielded bunker either. If there was any "cure" it would have to be in the form of altering genetic resilience in enduring attack ...effectively, a mutation in itself.

 

[Steve S]

I have seen loved ones and friends die from various forms of cancers ,,not good!!!

 

[GROUCHO MARX]

The only REAL advance in treating cancer has been diagnostic. Early diagnosis increases your chances for survival. In most other cases, you live a few months longer than you would have in the 1940s in spite of billions in research dollars spent.

 

[Kruse]

 Originally Posted By: ZZman

Who had the famous Farah Fawcett red swimsuit poster? I had it until the wife made me throw it away decades ago.

No. But I had an identical Mustang II Cobra that she used to drive in CHARLIE'S ANGELS. Does that count?

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

Cancer is awful. We lost a good friend last year, she was 46. She lived to see her grandson's 1st b-day. She was a great mom, a great person and the "glue" to their family. My wife still misses her "Survivor" nights with her. It just ain't the same. On a good note, the early detection by the doctors saved my sis-in-law last year. She went into immediate chemo and had 6 months to endure all the treatments, but she has been told she's cancer-free now. HUGE relief to all of us. As for the poster, has anyone from the 70's & 80's NOT seen that one? That's got to be the most popular poster from that era.

 

[Whitewolf]

I just wish that everyone would leave her alone to end her life with peace and dignity.

 

[jaj]

 Originally Posted By: GROUCHO MARX

The only REAL advance in treating cancer has been diagnostic. Early diagnosis increases your chances for survival. In most other cases, you live a few months longer than you would have in the 1940s in spite of billions in research dollars spent.

That's not actually true. Since the 70's, five-year survival rates have soared for some types of cancer like breast cancer and skin cancer, a direct result of earlier detection and better treatment. The problem is that "cancer" is actually about 200 different diseases. Some are almost benign like CLL and some types of prostate cancer where you'll die of something else before it kills you. Others are very aggressive or just plain hard to reach like pancreatic cancer or brain cancer. The key is to find cancer and treat it before it spreads. Once it has metastasized, it's very hard to manage. The concept of management is important, too. After all, cancer doesn't kill you directly, it's the side effects that do the damage, so even if there's no cure, suppressing it can let you can live for years. I've been a volunteer with the Canadian Cancer Society for 15 years - board member, treasurer, board chair, etc. It's a battle that I care about and that I've helped to wage. It doesn't cost anything to be a volunteer and you can make a difference. If you don't like what cancer has done to your family, friends and co-workers, get involved with your local, state or national charity and do something about it.

 

[PandaBear]

 Originally Posted By: GROUCHO MARX

The only REAL advance in treating cancer has been diagnostic. Early diagnosis increases your chances for survival. In most other cases, you live a few months longer than you would have in the 1940s in spite of billions in research dollars spent.

Very huge improvement has been made all the time. My wife works in Genentech on Cancer drug research (well, carry out experiments instead of the theory behind it). The molecules we synthesized and created in the past and currently in the pipeline pending verification and approval are very impressive at prohibiting cancer growth without killing normal cells. The problem is always how much risk and toxic can your body handle. You can treat everything if you can risk dying along the way, but that's no good either. Another problem is, to recoup the initial high risk research and future research that cost up to billions and can be scraped like Vioxx from the FDA, they have to sell treatment for 100k per patient before the patent expire. At least Genentech provide huge discount for people who don't have insurance and can't afford it.

 

[GROUCHO MARX]

Billions of dollars have gotten us to the point where if your body can endure copious amounts of toxic chemotherapy, you may have a chance of surviving. Pardon me if I'm not impressed.

 

[Gary Allan]

I'm not either. I AM SURE ..that the "donate to cancer research" has been Hollywood accounted to doing very little research of merit. It's like the burn unit. The patients are the beta program of choice. "Let see how long this guy lasts when we do this!"

 

[Shannow]

It's the "five year" statistic that gets me. If you live for another five years you are cured ? That's the stat that's driving the "early detection is vital"...pick it up two months earlier, and there's another one that crosses the 5 year mark. The New Scientist link that I posted the other day holds pretty true in my experiences. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20...ody.html?page=1 Seen people become part of the cancer machine, and succumb almost "on time"...seen others with whole different mindsets live for years past there due date...a mate's Dad was given 2 weeks to live with asbestosis and denied treatment, die 14 years later, cancer free from a heart attack.

 

[jaj]

 Originally Posted By: GROUCHO MARX

Billions of dollars have gotten us to the point where if your body can endure copious amounts of toxic chemotherapy, you may have a chance of surviving. Pardon me if I'm not impressed.

A half-billion dollars is the current cost for getting a drug for pretty much any major disease from a lab bench to the bedside, and most of the cost is putting together and delivering the (literally) one-container-load of documents required to support FDA approval. And, you have to think of FDA approval not as a public health and safety issue but as lawyer-proofing. Of the drug candidate compounds that start the journey, maybe one in 100 finishes. If one fails at the $450 million point, just at the threshold of approval, and many do, then most of the money is down the drain and it's back to the drawing board. Nobody is trying to impress you. It's just that this stuff is really hard and it costs a lot of money. If you are prepared for a lower standard of testing and quality, approval could be cheaper and there would be more drugs on the market faster. But the money-grabbing legal vultures that pillage drug companies when a flaw goes undetected, for instance VIOXX, take away any urgency that companies and the FDA might have to try anything that's not perfect (and totally lawyer-proof).

 

[Gary Allan]

(visions of some Monty Python movie where the father was telling all his children that most of them had to go to medical experiments). Test it in impoverished nations where life comes cheap. Then the real stuff can be a "turn your head and cough" since you've got the real data already in the can. It's a free global market