Chemotherapy is less effective than a placebo

Pro equivocates: "Since when does a survival rate become a cure rate?" My response: Since when does a cure rate become relevant in this debate? The resolution is about effectiveness at treating cancer. From the definitions of this debate: "effectiveness - successful in producing a desired/intended result" The intended result of chemotherapy is to reduce tumor size and prolong human life, and this result can be successfully produced without a "cure." Pro complains: "Just the fact that placebo aren't used shows that bias is more of a factor. A good study would have three groups, placebo, untreated, and chemotherapy. I'm not finding any of those." My response: Placebos aren't used in most cancer studies, because most doctors believe "that when proven therapy exists, the use of a placebo-controlled trial lacks both scientific and clinical merit...[and] violate[s] the therapeutic obligation of physicians to offer optimal medical care;" this obligation is called therapeutic beneficence. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... Cancer studies aren't like pain studies where if someone doesn't get the actual treatment, then they may ache for a few more days. Instead, with cancer studies, if people don't receive treatment, their lives are shortened at the hands of people with the obligation to offer optimal medical care who also had access to known treatments and knowingly withheld them. Given malpractice suits, it seems obvious why doctors would not want to be dragged into such. But to calm the placebo fanatics... Breast cancer leads to low white blood cell (neutrophil granulocytes) counts and induces high fevers. They call this condition of low white blood cell count "febrile neutropenia" (FN). From a study that was a "placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomized trial:" Patients who had breast cancer were given Chemotherapy (pegfilgrastim) and Placebo. After the study, here's who had low white blood cell FN (absolute numbers of course): Chemotherapy: 2 of the 173 had FN, which is 1.2 %. Placebo: 119 of the 173 had FN, which is 68.8 %. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... 68.8% of the time, not receiving chemo lead to dangerously low levels of white blood cells, the very things our own bodies would use to fight off illness without treatment. Chemo is a more effective treatment of breast cancer than a placebo is, because low white blood cell counts (FN) neither lead to the reduction of cancer cells, nor the prolonging of life; chemotherapy leads to significantly more white blood cells than does placebo. Pro tried to attack my studies by saying that there exists a funding bias, so I asked Pro who was funding all of this bias and Pro replied: "Alas, I've tried, but I found it incredibly difficult to figure who funds which study." My response: If Pro cannot demonstrate who funds these studies then how does Pro know there's a funding bias? Since Pro never demonstrated that my specific studies had funding bias, then we must assume that they do not. Pro mentions side effects with chemo, and these side effects are admittedly pretty bad; chemo's mechanism of stopping cell division in all cells, leads to healthy cell death as well. However, this debate is about the effectiveness at treating cancer, not adverse side effects. There are antibiotics that some people can have an allergic reaction to and die from, but antibiotics kill many fatal bacteria, so antibiotic effectiveness should be untainted by the adverse reactions of people with particular allergies; think of the millions who would be dead without antibiotics. Chemotherapy is proven effective for reducing cancer cells, increasing certain white blood cell counts (placebo study), and prolonging life a significant percentage of the time. I reject the resolution because: 1. No placebo has been shown to illicit an 82% survival rate, chemo has. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... 2. Though there are not many cancer placebo studies, the ones provided still show placebo effectiveness is lower than chemo effectiveness. 3. Pro never provided any names or investors that funded my studies showing chemo's effectiveness, so we're left with no reason to believe that my particular studies have funding bias. 4. Placebos are inert, and chemotherapy has a mechanism behind its action; impeding cell division in cancerous cells. 5. Pro's data on 60% survival rate in Australia without treatment is not demonstrated in Pro's source, rather, overall cancer survival rates in Australia are 60% which includes, cancer patients who had surgery or received chemo. I reject the resolution, because chemo is more effective at treating cancer than placebo.