The other day, I did a reality check on a story making the rounds through the blogosphere about an alleged new cure for cancer that, if you believe some hysterical bloggers, is being suppressed because it would cut into their profits. I took one blogger to task for what I characterized as the “utterly ridiculous title” of his post (Objectively Pro-cancer). Well, he apparently didn’t like that and showed up in my comments claiming that he was joking.
It sure didn’t sound like a joke to me, but I thought I’d poll my readers to see if anyone thought I was out of line in my criticism. So, look at what the first words were after the ridiculous title Objectively Pro-cancer:
Digby lights on the sort of story that makes my blood boil:
What then follows is an excerpt from the story and an utterly serious paragraph arguing that increasing public sector research funding and bemoaning this story. My conclusion: Either Ezra was utterly serious iwith his title or he was being sarcastic, which is very different from “joking.” His comment struck me as being an embarrassed excuse for having spouted off on this story without understanding much about how cancer drug development works and how often compounds that show promise in cell culture and animals fail to pan out.
Or am I mistaken? After all, my fellow ScienceBlogger Jonah thinks I was too quick to label people posting about this story as conspiracy-mongers. For example, would my characterization of this atrocious article on DCA as a sterling example of everything bad that I said in my original post be off-base?
