"Sometimes you really do want to tell the medical profession to just make up its mind.
We got word this week that estrogen therapy, which was bad, is good again. Possibly. In some cases.
This was not quite as confusing as the news last year that calcium supplements, which used to be very good, are now possibly bad. Although maybe not. And the jury’s still out.
Or the recent federal study that suggested women be told to stop checking their breasts for lumps. Or the recommendations on when to get a mammogram, which seem to fluctuate between every five years and every five minutes.
We certainly want everyone to keep doing studies. But it’s very difficult to be a civilian in the world of science."
It is indeed difficult to be a civilian in today's world of science, and Ms. Collins apparently knows as little about drug and diagnostic R&D as she knows about terrorism (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2010/01/gail-collins-on-terrorism-clueless.html). However, she does have a personal story to relate, and it was refreshing to read something other than her weekly rant against Republican washouts.
I submitted the following online comment in response to her op-ed, and I am hoping that at least in this instance I will not offend the New York Times thought police:
Ms. Collins, thank you for this op-ed. I thought that it was refreshing to move away from Mitt Romney and Donald Trump, who are of little consequence to me, and to delve into something very personal for you. I am sorry that you had breast cancer (as did my mother), and I was touched by your willingness to share your most intimate feelings with your readership.
Occasionally, I write about biotechnology in my blog, and I sincerely believe we are fast reaching an inflection point regarding the manner in which new medicines will be discovered.
Until now, most pharmaceutical research was performed on the basis of brute force and trial and error. Enormous libraries of chemicals were accumulated by the pharmaceutical industry and thrown at ever increasing speed at drug targets to see if something would happen.
Today, there is an effort underway by a handful of tiny, elite biotech companies to understand biological phenomena at the molecular level, and this understanding, for the first time, will facilitate the rational development of new drugs. Moreover, I believe this development is around the corner.
My message is one of optimism: the necessary understanding of human biology, which is very complicated, is being achieved, and there is indeed hope for more specific, less dangerous medicines on the horizon.
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