as has been pointed out here on numerous occasions, i lost my dad to cancer in mid 2013. if you haven't already lost somebody to cancer, you will - that's as statistically sure a statement as there is. and, if you have, you know the desperation that sets in near the end.

for my dad, it was mushrooms. my sister had been feeding him some trash about magic mushrooms (not those kinds.) from japan that could cure cancer. he was near death; what can you lose from trying mushrooms? but i'm the more science-y one of the two of us, so he ran it by me first, and i ended up having to talk him out of eating something that was just going to put dangerous stress on his liver. first, do no harm.

so, when you see headlines that reference things like "untested stem cell therapies", you need to be careful with them on two levels. yes, it may be true that the success rate is kind of shady at this point, but that's not the same thing as writing it off as magic beans, like you would with cancer-curing mushrooms. and, i think the disconnect is in not understanding what you're doing - if you're just holding still and taking a needle, what's the difference between accepting the syringe or popping a cap?

the difference is that there is no known mechanism whereby any unknown agent could survive digestion long enough to defeat cancer cells, whereas injecting somebody with antibodies is a tried and tested method to kill all kinds of things. see, and this is the thing about immunotherapy - it is eminently plausible that it will eventually work once we finally get it right.

is it there yet? adamantly not.

but, there's a huge difference between interpreting success rates in the context of a plausible work in progress, and interpreting them in the context of some kind of sympathetic magic - namely, the science under the hood.

i understand that it doesn't always work, but you have to understand that sometimes it does work, and spectacularly well when it does. and, that means we need more research to try and get it to work more often, not less.

so, if you find yourself nearly dead, should you spend $100,000 on immunotherapy injections?

well, it's a lot better than eating magic mushrooms.

if you can, and you want to live, i'd say you should - yes.