158: What Do Oncologists Make On Chemotherapy?
This week Dr. Jack and Mary take us on a startling journey through the history of chemotherapy. Talk about crazy-making! When exactly did we decide we should poison cancer patients? And what sort of measures of success were put into place to justify this wild strategy? Part luck, and part deception, chemotherapy showed amazing promise because of the accident of what specifically it was tried on first. But we now know that chemotherapy is prescribed for all kinds of cancers, when it’s definitively only proven to be effective for a limited class of “soft” cancers, such as Hodgekins and leukemia. There are always exceptions, and the engines of commerce have driven chemotherapy to the top of the treatment plan, with the false hope it can bring to millions of cancer sufferers, often regardless of prognosis. So this begs the question: how much does chemotherapy actually cost? And why is it nearly impossible to find this information? Dr. Jack and Mary are on the case, and you will be stunned by what they found.