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Although I'm on the author's side, things like http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/alzheimers-tr... make me think twice on whether I'm right or wrong.


1. Wait until something ships before thinking it's changed anything. Medicine is littered with would-be wonder drugs which turned out to have critical shortcomings — if these were easy problems, they'd already be done by now.

2. In many cases, new treatments don't help outside of the early stages — in the story you linked, the description suggests that the treatment wouldn't help someone who's already in an advanced stage of the disease. Great for the future, perhaps, but cold comfort to when someone is already past the point of permanent damage.


Miracle cures are announced all the time. Cancer-patients in their terminal phase usually get told that a new ground-breaking drug is right around the corner.




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