False Hope

I am most grateful to Paul Raeburn for his article entitled, “Biotherapeutics: Expensive Scam, Or Equal Opportunity” (The Scientist, December 26, 1988, page 7). As a biomedical researcher, a medical school professor, and a metastatic malignant melanoma patient, I believe it important that the public be aware of the overall implications involved in such an endeavor as Biotherapeutics. We all know that immunotherapy is in its developing stage, and I hope it will prove to be an answer for the survival of many of us. To me, the administration of this treatment on a “walk-in” clinic basis, similar to obtaining an antibiotic for an infected finger, is not ethical. Each person whose life has been threatened by an aggressive type of cancer faces his or her mortality differently. From my own experience, I find it appalling that members of the medical profession, who should have compassion for cancer patients, would ...