Studies worldwide have been finding microbes within tumors. If true, this could potentially create a whole new way to fight against cancer. The very implication shows how important this is for those affected by such diseases. End of story, right? If only it were that simple. Inevitably, other research teams would attempt to follow the experiments themselves, yet this is where the problem occurred. Other teams weren't able to procure similar results no matter how closely they followed the other teams’ methods (even with little experimental procedures to go off of), writing off the studies as insufficient. Meanwhile, researchers who worked on these studies adamantly defended and continue to defend their work.
So, which is it? An extraordinary discovery which may lead to
beneficial medical breakthroughs or simply sullied data? It can certainly be
both, or at least the latter which may lead up to the former. Although, this is something that may take some time.
The research teams of the original studies need to go back and try their
experiments many more times, tweaking their methodologies until they are able
to reproduce their results reliably. Until then, the critics of their studies
will continue to push them and that should be expected. Progress can only be made by questioning whether claims have a foundation to stand upon. As stated by Dr. Casadevall (microbiologist)
from within the article, "This is a story of the scientific process at
work."
Links
- https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/25/health/cancer-microbes-debate.html
- https://www.cell.com/trends/microbiology/fulltext/S0966-842X(23)00030-6
No comments:
Post a Comment