Talk:1217: Cells

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Revision as of 21:45, 27 May 2013 by Dgbrt (talk | contribs)
Jump to: navigation, search

One can test the cytotoxicity (the ability to kill cells) on a petri-dish level for cancer cells and healthy cells separately. However, this is often not done, knowingly neglecting selectivity issues one could face if the tests were done. This should be included in the explanation. The part that is written in the moment mainly explains the title text. 130.60.152.125 08:34, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

 Sorry to correct you. Toxicity is tested for both, healthy cells an cancer cells. But as the targets for drugs are often present in both celltypes, the drug itself affect also both cells. Then you have to choose between certain death by cancer in short time and maybe death or side effects in the long row but survival. It's replacing one evil with another. Only very modern anticancer drugs (e.g. Gleevec) are selective enough to target (mostly) only cancer cells. The drawback is, as cancer in different people is not the same but different cells, you would need different drugs for everybodey affected. One way here lies in the personalized medicine, but that is very expensive...

195.37.27.58 10:05, 27 May 2013 (UTC)Richard

I've seen plenty of (academic, not industry) studies where tests on healthy cells were not done: The author present the synthesis of fancy new anti-cancer compounds XY, test it on HELA cells, see it is killing them, and publish this - even in high impact journals. This is a fact. 130.60.152.125 11:09, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

I am pretty sure this comic refers to the most recent overhyped headline of that type 'Vitamin C kills cancer cells'. Since it sounded like a natural remedy it was very widely spread, and widely misunderstood.62.220.2.194 11:38, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Oxygen kills cancer cells! Under high enough temperatures it reacts with organic molecules in cancer cells, and produces CO2, H2O and some other stuff. --81.23.24.43 12:28, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Read environmentalists-how-to-tell-the-bad-ones-from-the-good[1] as analogous on how people commonly are unable to decipher scientific information. Spongebog (talk) 20:51, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Hey, that's "A Canadian-based monthly Christian magazine". Randall and me do not accept this!--Dgbrt (talk) 21:23, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
Sure, we can just go with the Snopes [2] version instead ... Spongebog (talk) 21:31, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
That April's fool is also a really old joke. "dihydrogen monoxide". H (hydrogen), two times - and O (oxygen) one time (mono...). My body and also yours too contains 60% of water. Any link to cancer? --Dgbrt (talk) 21:45, 27 May 2013 (UTC)