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Shane's Wish

DaxDax Redshirt
[URL="http://www.shaneswish.com/"]Shane's Wish[/URL]

I read this on facebook this morning and I think that with all of our internet connections getting this done shouldn't be that hard!

Spread the word!

Comments

  • Entil'ZhaEntil'Zha I see famous people
    Just as an FYI for anyone who doubts the authenticity of this. (unfortunately, i doubt all such claims by default)

    [url]http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/medical/bernier.asp[/url]

    Claim: Cancer sufferer Shane Bernier wants to set a world record for number of birthday cards received.

    Status: True.

    Origins: This request for birthday cards for a languishing tot first reached us in January 2007. Unlike some of the other "sick child asks for cards" entreaties, this one is for real — there is such a child, and both his condition and request are as described.
  • croxiscroxis I am the walrus
    You know, if those 350 million posted donated the money they would spend on cards and postage, lets say $2 each, to research institutions working on a cure and treatment, that would be $700 million. Almost 3/4th of a billion.

    Sorry to rain on the parade.
  • SanfamSanfam I like clocks.
    I'm not sure where that 350 million number comes from.
  • DaxDax Redshirt
    His website, that's how many cards he wants... there is only 2 weeks left and they haven't even hit 1 million so I don't know if that will come true and yeah Croxis I agree... but what can you do? Send a card since that's all we have the power to do right now.
  • croxiscroxis I am the walrus
    [url]http://www.leukemia-research.org[/url]

    Click the donate button.
  • yes own those bozos!
  • C_MonC_Mon A Genuine Sucker
    I think it's nice for once someone doesn't want money. Sure, they can do all the research and stuff with money, but that's not always what people need, sometimes it's just good for some sick people to know that there are people out there who care, because you can feel quite alone in the world when you got a really nasty disease.
  • Its all dressing though.

    I'd rather have a cure than a false sense of hope.
  • C_MonC_Mon A Genuine Sucker
    well, not everyone is you
  • DaxDax Redshirt
    here here, I mean come on, it's a little boy- and if he wants a card, I am going to make sure he gets as many as I can muster, who cares about the outside world.
  • TyvarTyvar Next best thing to a St. Bernard
    Seriously denying this kid some comfort when he's sick for reasons he doesnt understand very well probably and all for some pie in the sky solution?

    Billions upon billions have been put into cancer reaserch of various types over from all the developed nations from the Japan to the US to everywhere in Europe, and many great strides have been made, but actually solving the problem is decades off and frankly even 750 million dollars probably wont mean a damn thing to the end result of cancer reaserch, compared to the amount of money that STILL will be spent across the globe on it.

    This argument illustrates the problems I have with utilitarian theory, it its pursuit of the greatest good, it ends up sacrificing its humanity.
  • Fuck it, let's just give up on researching the cure for cancer. Instead let's put the money to better use, such as buying children 100 million cards!

    Hell, as sick and unfortunate as it sounds, they'll probably be dead before they finish all 100 million.
  • PSI-KILLERPSI-KILLER Needs help
    30 years of reseach and we are still at the same cancer rate as 30 years ago. Some sort of shenanigans are going on or there is no cure.
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    Spoken like someone who doesn't understand how the research process works. Research isn't some sort of gradual, constant improvement. It goes in fits and bursts. You spend a year doing constant research into something with no apparent progress, then suddenly spend a week of massive, unexpected progress, all of it built on that year of research that didn't seem to be going anywhere.

    Also, why would research into cures for cancer decrease the rate of its occurance?
  • C_MonC_Mon A Genuine Sucker
    Sure, I bet the kid would be one of the happiest children in the world if there was at this instant a cure for him. But there isn't and there wouldn't be one instantly even if they got a gazillion bazillion dollars for research fund. Also, sending a card to this kid is atleast better than alot of other send a card thing (like conan o'brien's "conan hates my homeland" where he said something bad about a country and he wanted people to send him postcards so he would know where his show was aired).
  • PSI-KILLERPSI-KILLER Needs help
    I can't see how perpetual funding with taxpayer dollars and donations and not one tangeable result what so ever is acceptable. Actually cancer rates have incresed after billions of dollars of goverment funding and private donations with 0 results. This is not just some wack idea. Research scientists who don't depend on goverment grants to feed themselves say the same thing. Do you stop research no, but something must be done for accountability an approaching a solution. It may not be profitable to cure cancer or prevent it, too many people would be out of jobs.


    "Everyone should know that most cancer research is largely a fraud and that the major cancer research organisations are derelict in their duties to the people who support them." - Linus Pauling PhD (Two-time Nobel Prize winner).

    australian source [url]http://100777.com/node/201[/url]
  • SanfamSanfam I like clocks.
    The problem with something as large in scope as curing cancer is not the funding. Rarely is it the case that something so large in recent times has underfunded to the point of being hindered in development. The issue at hand is the workforce available to perform the research and to make the discoveries that can lead to a cure. You can throw all the money in the world at it and as long as the researchers are not available to perform the work, nothing will get done.
  • FreejackFreejack Jake the Not-so-Wise
    Not to mention that cancer covers a huge range of illnesses, each with it's own triggers, symptoms and treatments and there is a massive amount of ground to cover. Add in the fact that cancer is less an outside agent, like a virus or microbe and more just certain cells doing what they are programmed to do, just at the wrong time, and it is no wonder that 30 years of cancer has not found a "cure"

    Jake
  • croxiscroxis I am the walrus
    The sophistication and prevelance of diagnostic equipment is also a factor that can't be ignored when looking at cancer rates. Also with more of the population living longer (ie - not dying from non cancer stuff) means that they now have the chance to get it.

    And I am flat out calling bullshit to those who say that the research has been a waste. Survivability and quality of life has improved drastically over the past 50 years.
  • [QUOTE=croxis;160691]
    And I am flat out calling bullshit to those who say that the research has been a waste. Survivability and quality of life has improved drastically over the past 50 years.[/QUOTE]

    here here.

    Hence my sarcastic remark earlier.
  • SanfamSanfam I like clocks.
    I'm not entirely sure who that comment was aimed at, Croxis, but in regards to the posts by myself and Freejack, neither of us are anti-research. Just anti-overfunding.

    Edit: nevermind. found the source.
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    [QUOTE=PSI-KILLER;160672]I can't see how perpetual funding with taxpayer dollars and donations and not one tangeable result what so ever is acceptable.[/quote]

    There have been plenty of tangible results in both diagnosis and treatment. Just because we don't have a cure-all for every type of cancer, that doesn't mean that cancer research is not producing any results. For example, the use of radioactive iodine to diagnose the spread of thyroid cancer and determine necessary treatments is one result to come out of cancer research that I know at least two people on this forum can relate to.

    [quote]Actually cancer rates have incresed after billions of dollars of goverment funding and private donations with 0 results.[/quote]

    Our ability to diagnose a disease better can lead to a perceived increase in the rate of that disease. That doesn't mean research into [i]cures[/i] is not having any results.

    [quote]This is not just some wack idea. Research scientists who don't depend on goverment grants to feed themselves say the same thing. Do you stop research no, but something must be done for accountability an approaching a solution. It may not be profitable to cure cancer or prevent it, too many people would be out of jobs.[/quote]

    Are you suggesting that researchers should be accountable if their research doesn't achieve a desired result, like having to pay back the funding or something? That wouldn't work because you can never guarantee the outcome of a research project. Research funding is granted on the basis that any result is a benefit, because you find out whether an approach has merit or not.

    [quote]"Everyone should know that most cancer research is largely a fraud and that the major cancer research organisations are derelict in their duties to the people who support them." - Linus Pauling PhD (Two-time Nobel Prize winner). [/quote]

    There are a few interesting points about Linus Pauling: Firstly, he died in 1994. This means he probably said what he said many years before that, but even if he said it just before dying, it's still 13 years ago. That's quite a long time and much work has been done since then. Secondly, he disagreed with medical research into cures in general, advocating research into disease prevention over disease cure (an admirable goal, but cures will always be necessary because absolute prevention is impossible). Thirdly, while not really relevant to the argument, it is somewhat ironic that he died of prostrate cancer.

    [quote]australian source [url]http://100777.com/node/201[/url][/QUOTE]

    Perhaps you should read what that article is actually advocating (as suspicious as it is - anyone who throws their qualifications at you at the very start of their argument should be treated with suspicion): that the research should focus on ways to prevent cancer rather than cures for it (this is actually what Linus Pauling advocated as well, both specifically and the taking of vitamins for a generally healthy life). While research should naturally be done on prevention, and prevention is better than having to treat it, prevention will never be 100%, and given how wide the range of possible cancers is, and their causes, finding a magic prevent-all is just as difficult as finding a magic cure-all. Research into cures is just as important.

    While I have no doubt that the huge pharmaceutical companies would prefer to find a cure that they can sell to desperate people for lots of money over finding simple methods that everyone can follow to avoid cancer, this doesn't mean that government-funded researchers are simply trying to scam tax payers for money rather than actually trying to achieve their research goals.

    However, this doesn't mean that just throwing money at the problem is a good idea, because throwing money at researchers doesn't lead to good research. Picking out good research proposals and giving them the funds necessary is what leads to good research. So if you want to send a card to a dying little boy, go right ahead.
  • shadow boxershadow boxer The Finger Painter & Master Ranter
    [I]prostate[/I] cancer mate, 'prostate' not prostrate.... though I guess its been proven that not being prostrate often enough with the good lady wife increases your chance of getting it..:D
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    Unless you happen to have prostate cancer.

    One of my more amusing typos, I must admit. :)
  • DaxDax Redshirt
    wow, so yeah... I think I'll give up posting anything reliatively contravesial for a while heh.. my threads seem to go in directions I don't expect :P
  • croxiscroxis I am the walrus
    This one was my bad ;) It is just a pet peeve of mine.

    It was like the anti-abortion thing here last week. In the Park Blocks (city property that is in the middle of campus) an organization put up a bunch of big pictures that attempted to equate abortion to genocide and child abuse. What bugs me about people on both sides of this issue is that if they want it to be a non-issue they should be out being proactive in reducing the root cause of abortions -- unwanted pregencies -- instead of the three ring circuses that plague the conversation.
  • SanfamSanfam I like clocks.
    At FirstOnes, no thread goes unmarred.
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