Over my life I have lost very many people I have loved to cancer...as I´m sure have numerous people on this site.
I do find it frustrating that prominent people like James Watson are now saying (if obliquely) what I have been saying for years and years...that there is much more money in looking for a cure for cancer than there is in finding it.

Watson and Crick got all the credit.

Wilson and Fleming did most of the work in crystallography.

Large institutions dare not solve their main problem or they go out of business.

This is why "For Profit" business is more honest and more effective.

FTA: Watson advocates a different approach: targeting features that all cancer cells, especially those in metastatic cancers, have in common.

I know nothing about such things, but like #1 and so many others I´m familiar with the devastating toll cancer can have.

This idea sounds like common sense to these untrained ears. I pray that it is tried, and that it yields genuine good results.

My dad is a problem solver, graduated pre-med but his sponsor died before he could go to med school, but ended up as a detail man for a pharmaceutical company for over 30 years. Back in the 70´s he tried to tell them how cancer can be fought successfully and even cure it...something to do with liver cells or something. But the research folks wouldn´t even look into it. Later, another doctor came up with a similar theory but it wasn´t exactly the right approach so it didn´t quite make it, but he did get a little backing for a while. Still, my dad has never been wrong (that I know of) with these kinds of things and from what he told me it sounds very feasible. He might have actually found a good way to take care of cancer once and for all. Unfortunately, I think the other poster is correct in that there is too much money in searching for and managing cancer that they don´t really want a real cure.

#1, right on. How many zillions of $ have been spent "finding the cure"? There is so many more $in dragging someone along and then throwing up their hands and saying we did all we could do. My God, these quacks hopefully will find a very warm corner of hell.

OK. First, it´s great to see something by Sharon Begley, I used to love her regular columns in the WSJ.

Second, it may be Watson has a point about the overuse of anti-oxidants, since the immune system uses oxidants to kill all sorts of invaders.

Third, cancer turns out to be a lot messier than anyone thought, but there is a ton of good research going on now, it may take another twenty or fifty years to sort it out completely, but it´s a different kind of a job than anyone thought even twenty years ago. Probably see a lot of small steps, year by year, if Obamacare doesn´t shut everything down cuz he gives all the money to the medical division of Solyndra.

Too bad cancer patients don´t have the clout of say...gay people. Look what´s been thrown at finding cures for AIDS. And while the vast majority of AIDS can be avoided with an overabundance of caution and preventative measures, cancer is much less predictable (except for smoking/lung cancer). I wonder what the dollar/person ratio is for aids vs cancer research.

My husband survived colorectal cancer. We do not contribute to cancer research. It is our opinion that there will not be a cure as too much money is to be made.

We are in a sad state of affairs. We could find a cure for cancer if there was enough money for the government to take and give away. Power corrupts absolutely. It has corrupted our politicians.

How do people "know" there a conspiracy to not cure or lessen the effects of cancer because of the money to be made? I wonder who is in charge, and what is the structure of this supposed group? Oh, I know, let´s speak wisely (sic) that it has to be Big Pharma.

#10 EVERYBODY knows that the cure for cancer is in the same farmer´s barn that houses the 400 mile carburetor and the perpetual motion machine. It´s a FACT.

As a cancer survivor, I would never donate to ACS or any nonpropit after what I have seen. No one follows the money. Does it ever make it to research ?

If they cured cancer tomorrow, a lot of nonmedical personnel would be unemployed.