The topic of immunotherapy and everything surrounding its recent discovery is generating a lot of buzz in news outlets and within the community of readers. The article “Setting the Body’s ‘Serial Killers’ Loose on Cancer” by Andrew Pollack published by The New York Times on August 1, 2016, outlines the timeline of how the idea of immunotherapy first originated and the continuous development that led to the advances being made by doctors in the present time.
The majority of the 136 people who commented on the article showed their support and hopefulness to this ongoing research, while a minority decided immunotherapy is not up their alley.
About half of the comments express excitement and hopefulness over the new discoveries being made in the science world and the prospect of immunotherapy becoming an alternative in the battle against cancer. User Michael from Baltimore claims to have read the post with great interest and admiration for the doctors conducting this research. As excited as he is about this discovery, Michael is trying to keep his hopes from getting too high since multiple times he has been let down by claims that a cure for cancer is right around the corner. However, he does believe the article “heralds a breakthrough.”
Similarly, many other readers also express their appreciation toward the scientists working hard to make immunotherapy happen for a much wider range of patients, and their hopefulness and joy over having this new exciting prospect of a way to possibly treat certain types of cancer and hope that this time around the claims that a cure for cancer has been found prove to be true with time and positive results in patients being treated with immunotherapy.
The second most popular response from commenters is how they wish this treatment was already more easily accessible by cancer patients all over the world battling all types of cancer, not just the selected few that have gotten to try immunotherapy so far.
For example, reader Bmack poses the question “Why can’t each hospital, or region, have its own lab to crate and customize [this treatment] for people?” as several other users express how they have experienced cancer at home and would have jumped at the chance of trying to fight their or their family member’s cancer with immunotherapy if given the choice. Ira Shafiroff, who reads The New York Times from Los Angeles, commented “That the body can destroy cancer is undeniable, and it probably does so on a regular basis. When the immune system stops working well, then the cancer becomes a problem” while expressing that they support and accept the ideas behind the concept of immunotherapy.
Throughout the comments, there is a pattern that shows how a good number of people that are just now being informed that immunotherapy exists would be willing to give it a shot as long as they could obtain this treatment at their local hospital.
In comparison, the third most popular pattern in the comments section of this article indicates that about 18 out of about a hundred people either do not approve of immunotherapy or are skeptical about it.
The most prominent reason for why they reject this treatment is the high cost for the patients. Reader David Henry’s opinion is that even if this research turned out successful in the long run, treatment would be far too costly for the average cancer victim and he fears that insurance companies will refuse to cover it.
A few of his fellow subscribers share his opinion and share their interest in knowing how much these procedures will cost for cancer patients before determining whether it is a valid treatment option or not. Another small portion of the audience—take for example Dave, who said “[he thinks] this type of treatment is dangerous and detrimental to the rights of people. Too little is known about the human body to be monkeying around with genetics” — fears that since immunotherapy involves enhancing one’s immune system to fight off the disease, the immune system could get out of control and become a threat in itself to the person’s health by developing into an autoimmune disease, which sometimes have a higher fatality rate than some types of cancer.
All in all, people seem to like what they know about immunotherapy so far and hope that the scientists involved in this research are on the right path towards finding the long awaited cure for cancer.
photo credits: google.com and moneycrashers.com
Immunotherapy 