Newcastle’s Reviews > The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer > Status Update

It's super interesting how AIDS intersects here with cancer research - the astonishingly fast way AIDS went on killing people, there was a sudden demand for quicker drug trials. People actively dying didn't want to wait for some randomized blind study to be done.


Also.. wow this book is long. I'm still in the 80s... 100 pages less would've probably been fine 😅

It's almost funny how much of scientific discovery is just some random chance event where someone discovers something completely different than what they were researching.

HBV? accidentally discovered to cause cancer

prostate cancer linked to testosterone? accidentally discovered because some dude was bored and wanted to research prostate fluid in dogs

"On average patients on cisplatin vomitted 12 times a day."


...

"cracking or excavating of clavicals"


It's honestly horrendous what people had to go through in history for us to even have a vague idea what might cure cancer. "Ultraradical mastectomy" - the word alone builds a picture you can't unfeel.