Stop Looking For a Cure

I get it.

Looking for a cure sounds good--rather, great. It offers hope not only to all the people who've had cancer in the past but to all the people who are just finding out they have it, or to the people who have relatives or friends in any of these situations.

The problem is, though, that focusing on a cure detracts from the thing with the real chance of increasing survival rates: early detection.

With science, you can't just go around using words of absolute certainty, which is why I--and the thousands of people out there stuck using research against a bunch of singleminded idiots (not the cure searchers)--are forced to use such limited, indeterminate-sounding terms. But this is really good, and if you don't believe me, look up the survival rates and chances of remission for any cancer based on the point at which it was detected (yes, I am too lazy to find them myself and post them here, although if you find me a news article I'll gladly go after the original journal).

I'm sure I've said this before, but hey, it's Breast Cancer Awareness Month (which is actually another thing that kind of annoys me...you can't really do a prostate cancer awareness month because Americans would totally make that awkward, and there are other common but dangerous cancers such as melanomas; although, at the same time, it's better to narrow the focus--look at the success we've had with those BRSA genes).


And, for something I haven't said before: the real problem with Windows Vista is that stupid dwm.exe process.

Where's my free copy of 7, Microsoft?!