Sunday, October 31, 2010

The Riddle of Cancer Relapse

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/magazine/31Cancer-t.html?scp=1&sq=mukherjee&st=cse
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 8:20 PM
Subject: re: The Riddle of Cancer Relapse
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
      Whether or not "cancer stem cells" drive cancer--and that proposal is still hotly debated--part of Dr. Mukherjee's argument is clearly wrong.  There is no therapeutic benefit to be had in discriminating between killing such a cancer stem cell and killing the rest of the cancer.  It is quite hard enough to "discriminate between normal and malignant cells" in treating cancers without adding artificial constraints. Give me a drug that kills all the cancer cells and I'm satisfied that any "cancer stem cells" are dead--and the cancer non-stem cells won't be missed.
Barry Levine

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