It was 2021, a year into the coronavirus pandemic, and as he slid into a chair, Patel shared that he’d just seen a patient in his 40s with cholangiocarcinoma, a rare and lethal cancer of the bile ducts that typically strikes people in their 70s and 80s. Initially, there was silence, and then one colleague after another said they’d recently treated patients who had similar diagnoses. Within a year of that meeting, the office had recorded seven such cases.

“We are completely under-investigating this virus,” said Douglas C. Wallace, a University of Pennsylvania geneticist and evolutionary biologist. “The effects of repeatedly getting this throughout our lives is going to be much more significant than people are thinking.”

“Covid wrecks the body, and that’s where cancers can start,” Tuveson said, explaining how autopsy studies of people who died of covid-19 showed prematurely aged tissue.

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[–] dat_math@hexbear.net 33 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

The uptick in aggressive, late-stage cancers since the dawn of the pandemic is confirmed by some early national data and a number of large cancer institutions

But there is no real world data linking SARS-CoV-2 to cancer, and some scientists remain skeptical.

I fucking hate the state of science journalism :( I guess early national data and analysis by the data collectors at cancer centers isn't real enough for the "real world"

The article continues:

Even as the first wave of the coronavirus pummeled the United States, public health officials predicted a surge of cancer cases. A Lancet Oncology paper analyzed a national registry showing increases of Stage 4 disease — the most severe — across many cancer types in late 2020. Baptist Health Miami Cancer Institute, UC San Diego Health and other large institutions have released data showing continued increases in late-stage cancers.

I guess those data indicating a potential link between cancer surges and the pandemic aren't real either.

I get that the authors are trying to navigate how to communicate that the researchers don't have enough evidence to conclusively support a hypothetical explanation for the increase in cancer prevalence but do have some preliminary evidence that indicates much more study has been warranted for at least 3 years.

It would be cool if they could do that in a way that wont lead lay people to think the thesis is: some scientists think covid causes cancer but there's no real world data that lead them to that line of thinking

“It’s like a cold. It seems like everyone has it,” said Bob, 73, a flight instructor.

Fuck you, Bob and fuck everyone who played a role in instilling this particularly pernicious piece of bullshit in your mind. I've been lucky enough to avoid even a single infection (okay there was a small amount of skill involved in consistently masking, not deliberately putting myself in high risk situations, and not caving to peer pressure from my friends and family, but it was mostly luck that I have a job that allows me to avoid high risk situations that I credit my success to) and it's going to take a lot more than a geriatric flight instructor's truisms to convince me that dropping my defenses is worth what you're going through.

[–] barrbaric@hexbear.net 14 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Re: Bob, I think it's written poorly but he's meant to be expressing that he knows of friends and family having the same rare blood cancer in the way they would if a cold was going around, which is extremely concerning.

[–] dat_math@hexbear.net 12 points 2 years ago

oooooooooooh shit thank you for reframing that