Chemotherapy is less effective than a placebo

Con "The overall 5-year cancer-specific survival rate was 65.6%." Con Since when does a survival rate become a cure rate? The survival rate of 65.6% needs to be compared to a non-treated group. Now look at my source. "As the 5-year relative survival rate for cancer in Australia is now over 60%, it is clear that cytotoxic chemotherapy only makes a minor contribution to cancer survival. To justify the continued funding and availability of drugs used in cytotoxic chemotherapy, a rigorous evaluation of the cost-effectiveness and impact on quality of life is urgently required." [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... 5-year survival is over 60%. Lets round to 60%. With treatment that's only a 5.6% increase in survival. Regardless of how effective a placebo is, that's low. Chemotherapy pumps people full of toxins. That's why they lose their hair. "Cancer cells tend to grow fast, and chemo drugs kill fast-growing cells. But because these drugs travel throughout the body, they can affect normal, healthy cells that are fast-growing, too. Damage to healthy cells causes side effects. Side effects are not always as bad as you might expect, but many people worry about this part of cancer treatment." [2] "Some types of chemo cause long-term side effects, like heart or nerve damage or fertility problems. Still, many people have no long-term problems from chemo. Ask your doctor about the long-term risks of the chemo drugs you"re getting." [2]. "Some people have allergic reactions to chemo. This can cause hives (or skin welts), itching, or trouble breathing." [3]. "A chemotherapy drug that is supposed to help save cancer patients' lives, instead resulted in life-threatening and sometimes fatal allergic reactions. A new study identified 287 hypersensitivity reactions and 109 deaths in patients who received Cremophor-based paclitaxel, a solvent-administered chemotherapy." [4]. Considering the side effects and possibility of an allergic reaction no treatment may be preferable. As for a placebo and cancer "Placebos are rarely used in cancer treatment clinical trials." and "Placebos are another way to help prevent bias in research. You always will be told if the study uses a placebo." [5]. 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. Lets take another look at those studies ""The overall 5-year cancer-specific survival rate was 65.6%." ""Overall 5-year and 10-year disease-free actual survival rates were 82.0% and 79.4%, respectively." ""Five-year survival rates for patients with tumors less than 5 cm were 60%." " ""Continuous disease-free survival [was] 58%." " "Complete remission...[and] partial remission..[were] a total...rate of 64%." Again, if the survival rate is 60% with no treatment, the difference between 60% is these studies are. 5.6%, 22% and 19.4%, 0%, -2%, and 4%. None of these studies show a 90%+ rate of survival. If a placebo adds 30%, for a total of 90%, you can see how ineffective these procedures are. Some actually lowering the survival rate. That's the problem with your studies. They are just straight out survival rates with no comparison. An experiment without a control group. Let's phrase this another way. Let's say the survival rate is 60% with no treatment. You produce a drug that with treatment the patients survive 40% of the time. You just lowered the survival rate by 20%. Yet, you can claim 40% survival rate! Sounds good, until you compare to the untreated. Thanks for the debate. Thanks for sticking out all five rounds. http://www.cancer.org... http://www.cancer.org... http://www.sciencedaily.com... http://www.cancer.gov...