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Why the cancer "moonshot" is a bad idea

Foxx:

Supporting Medical Research and Modernizing the Health Care System

This week I voted in favor of bipartisan legislation that seeks better, faster, safer and more innovative approaches to treat diseases and medical conditions that currently lack effective therapies. H.R. 34, the 21st Century Cures Act, modernizes clinical trials to expedite the development of new drugs and devices, remove regulatory uncertainty in the development of new medical apps and break down barriers to facilitate increased research collaboration.

It currently takes 15 years for a new drug to move from the lab to the local pharmacy. Great strides have been made in research and treatment of many diseases, but there is still much we have to learn. By accelerating the discovery, development and delivery of life saving and life improving therapies, we can transform the search for faster cures.

I'm pleased the language restricting federal funding for children placed in congregate care programs such as Baptist Children’s Home or the Crossnore School was dropped from the legislation. As I stated in the House Rules Committee hearing earlier this week, I have done a lot of volunteer work with one of these facilities, and I know how hard they work to get foster homes established. Now these congregate care facilities have time to make their case to legislators for why a one-size-fits-all system doesn’t apply.
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Rafi said:
This is incorrect. Tobacco use increases the risk of dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases, such as ALS. There is some evidence that tobacco use may decrease the risk of Parkinson's disease, but it's not dose-dependent and some think it might be more likely that those with premorbid Parkinson's are less likely to smoke, confounding study results.
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Ummm.....not really. It *might* increase specific neurodegenerative diseases lik ALS but there is pretty solid evidence that both AD and Parkinsons are greatly reduced in smokers. That's why the nicotinic/cholineric receptors are being explored as treatment medications....with a7 glial receptors looking more and more like the key one IMO. There have been some claims that second hand tobacco smoke might increase risks but....those kinds of studies have lots of problems. Plus, we know even less about what that exposure means chemically. I'm curious to see what happens via the vapor routes.
 
pourdeac said:
Ummm.....not really. It *might* increase specific neurodegenerative diseases lik ALS but there is pretty solid evidence that both AD and Parkinsons are greatly reduced in smokers.
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This is wrong. Do you work for a tobacco company? Tobacco use is one of the few known risk factors for ALS and it significantly increases the risk of dementia. Here's the WHO report outlining the evidence linking tobacco and dementia http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/128041/1/WHO_NMH_PND_CIC_TKS_14.1_eng.pdf
 
That's in the hall of fame of misleading statistics. Obviously, any person with decent critical thinking skills would see through it, but wow.
 
PhDeac said:
That's in the hall of fame of misleading statistics. Obviously, any person with decent critical thinking skills would see through it, but wow.
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Much like the polls that had Hillary winning by a landslide, that ad features a "Nationwide" survey. Don't believe everything you read, kids.
 
Cures Act passed the Senate today.

Only Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Ron Wyden & Jeff Merkley (both D-OR), and Mike Lee (R-UT) voted against it.

I'll choose to focus on the good for now.

When people say (especially after a gun tragedy) that we have a mental health crisis in America we need to do something about, this is probably a good step. The Act mandates a new assistant secretary of mental health and substance abuse, appointed by the president. It steps up protections for equal coverage of mental health alongside physical health in insurance plans. There's also a decent amount of $ earmarked specifically for mental health research, though most of it will likely go to Alzheimer's.

Too many problems with the Act to mention, but alas. President will sign it pretty soon.
 
The assistant secretary of mental health and substance abuse, just another pick Trump can fuck up. I'm sure he knows some alcoholic and drug addict he can put in charge.
 
Rafi said:
This is wrong. Do you work for a tobacco company? Tobacco use is one of the few known risk factors for ALS and it significantly increases the risk of dementia. Here's the WHO report outlining the evidence linking tobacco and dementia http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/128041/1/WHO_NMH_PND_CIC_TKS_14.1_eng.pdf
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So as is stated, smoking is "potentially" a weak risk factor according to the WHO, which includes the second hand studies that are probably not very reliable. Potentially. At best it's "inconclusive". But believe what you want. Pharma wouldn't be investing all that money in the nicotinic approach if it didn't have merit. I've seen a lot of the data presented at nicotinic conferences (not tobacco cos), some of it very compelling.
 
pourdeac said:
So as is stated, smoking is "potentially" a weak risk factor according to the WHO, which includes the second hand studies that are probably not very reliable. Potentially. At best it's "inconclusive". But believe what you want. Pharma wouldn't be investing all that money in the nicotinic approach if it didn't have merit. I've seen a lot of the data presented at nicotinic conferences (not tobacco cos), some of it very compelling.
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No "potentially" or "inconclusive" about it. They present 14 studies showing a significantly increased relative risk of about 1.75 for smokers to develop dementia. The studies estimate that 45% of dementia is secondary to tobacco use.
 
Rafi said:
No "potentially" or "inconclusive" about it. They present 14 studies showing a significantly increased relative risk of about 1.75 for smokers to develop dementia. The studies estimate that 45% of dementia is secondary to tobacco use.
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LOL...THEY labeled it "potential", not me.
 
pourdeac said:
LOL...THEY labeled it "potential", not me.
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No, they didn't. This shouldn't be this difficult. Here is the very first bullet point from the link I provided, word for word: "Smoking is a risk factor for dementia." No "potential," definitely no "inconclusive." Smoking is a risk factor for dementia - they could not have been any more clear.
 
pourdeac said:
Bullshit. My stance is, climate modeling is not predictive but is treated as a holy grail. People keep thinking that more data and more modeling will somehow make it predictive. It fundamentally can't be accurate because the data going into the model has greater error/variance than the end result being modeled, there are factors/drivers/data not included, etc. It's a lot like "bacon is worse than smoking" BS. So models have severe limitations and are only useful if that is understood. Big data does not mean better results. It often hides the true correlation/connection (see NSA trying to look for terrorist activity in communcations...and finding them not) and it is highly manipulative leading to extreme bias.

I even posted this pic in the past. It was used in a in silico drug discovery modeling conference I was at to describe model accuracy. The lego version is as accurate as any model can get...but we're treating climate modeling as if it's the actual painting..and the end change in climate is like a tiny hair width variation of the painting.

2s6pwye.jpg
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OMG you're right ! I'll have to remember this the next time I try to predict the future with a discounted cash flow analysis.
 
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