Triple board certified physician, Zach Bush, MD: "And through that experience I really started to transition my worldview to realize that the chemotherapy I was helping to design and things like this were really chasing after the wind."
34 2017-08-23 by jbrs_
On his background from this interview:
"After that, I was promoted to chief resident and did a whole teaching year at the University of Virginia, teaching medical students, residents; and then went on to a fellowship in endocrinology and metabolism, which was three years of study in the areas of hormonal control of the body, glands, and metabolism which is the mitochondria and how they control cellular function. During that time, I got into cancer research, and I was doing tumor research under the microscope, and then managing diabetes and autoimmune diseases and that kind of stuff in the clinic. And through that experience I really started to transition my worldview to realize that the chemotherapy I was helping to design and things like this were really chasing after the wind. It turns out cancer is not caused by a lack of chemotherapy. And so that took a little bit of time, four years kind of that journey to realize 'wait a second, there's no way this is the solution'. And at the same time, I was seeing that insulin and all of these diabetes medicines were making my patients more diabetic, not less diabetic. And so it was a real deconstruction of the pharmaceutical model that I had been 17 years in the training for. I think ultimately our educational journeys are really dictated by our willingness to deconstruct what we've already learned. And if we're willing to constantly question what we've learned so far, we can guarantee the opportunity to continue to learn."
4 comments
1 YoureAllRobots 2017-08-23
If you don't upvote this you don't belong here.
1 St7awbe77ySunshine 2017-08-23
I agree....kudos!
1 bradok 2017-08-23
Individuated vaccines and gene editing technology are likely the only true future for curing cancer, and even then, with things like gene editing, we may be letting a genie out that we can't put back in
1 gjones33 2017-08-23
As someone in this field, this guy sounds like a complete moron.
"Insulin makes my patients more diabetic". (Assuming he means refractory type 2 diabetics, because with insulin, type1 diabetics live a pretty normal, long life (theyre the thin kind). It turns out end stage type 2 (the fat ones) getting insulin are becoming more diabetic, except for the caveat that without the insulin, they would all die, quickly. Yes insulin makes them store more fat, and without massive changes in diet/lifestyle, that just pushes them further down the path, but they've done studies which show that with the small amount of time a doctor has with each patient, it's virtually impossible to do or say anything which will make them change their diet and lifestyle habits in any meaningful way....so drugs are the next best thing. Thats sad, but if you care, push for community gardens and mandatory exercise programs like Japan has, don't blame insulin lol that just makes you sound stupid.
His thoughts on insulin are very analogous to chemotherapy. No medical professionals think chemo is a cure, it's a tacit acceptance that we don't yet have a cure for many diseases. If you understood that chemo is a deliberate, targeted poison for your immune system, you can understand why we still use it for diseases like cancer, where we know what's wrong immunologically, but can't yet fix it. Why? Because cancer is smart and learns to circumvent the things we try and keep growing. We used to use chemo on aids patients too...why? Because we didn't have a better treatment. Today however, with basically 4 drugs, aids patients can live long, happy lives and chemo is nowhere to be found. The same thing is happening with cancer, it's just a far more complex disease. Currently all sorts of small molecule, biologics are being developed which will eventually make most cancers as survivable as aids is today. Same with diabetes, scientists are currently working on using stem cells to regenerate your own insulin-producing cells and permanently fix diabetes......this guy is cynical because he doesn't understand how real science and real research gets done.
Yes, corporations are profiting left and right and charging insane prices for these drugs and putting tons of Americans into bankruptcy, but be honest, there's no industry right now where that's not happening...that doesn't mean chemotherapy is some grand conspiracy....most doctors angrily speak out against the broken system we have, but are powerless to do anything. Big Pharma is evil, congratulations, water is wet too. Does that mean we should stop taking care of sick people? No. We should fix our financial System which is poisoning every industry we have today, especially medicine.