alt Hacker NewsBesides cancer isn't really "a disease" but rather "a family of diseases" that can vary a lot. Even breast cancer can be one of many different cancers.
It's like saying "we'll cure infectious diseases"
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"Cancer isn't a single disease" is often shouted from the Dunning-Kruger peak of cancer research. I think it was popularized by an explainer video on Youtube, and now it's being memed. The people who think this way want to legitimize funding a particular research niche that they benefit from.
A more sophisticated view is that cancer (one idea) is an problem of rates (like most things in biology) and there is a tumor burden per unit time from whatever causes vs. the immune system's capacity to detect and destroy them per unit time. As humans age, the balance tips in one direction. If the balance is too far off for too long, tumors accumulate, doctors take notice, and assign whatever labels to the condition.
Looking into particular causes of tumors (and calling each cause its own cancer) can create a vast research program that employs a lot of people, since there are so many mutations that lead to tumors. But interrupting the development of a particular mutation is not going to have the same society-changing effect that solving the fundamental issue of rates would.
> It's like saying "we'll cure infectious diseases"
Don't worry, I'm sure that's his next blog post. Right after Claude has finished solving famine and poverty. ;)