Clarification
Antibiotics do work, but they are “stupid”. Most antibiotics have broad-spectrum activity. This is good in that we don’t have to figure out exactly which bacterium is causing the disease and apply the very-specific antibiotic to deal with it. It is bad because broad spectrum activities kill off everything, the good bacteria with the bad.
Also, recent discoveries show that our immune system can in many cases detect cancer cells, via the usual detection of “foreign” antigens that might be expressed by the cancer cells. These antigens are either truly novel, due to mutations in the cancer cells, or due to expression of antigens that normally are expressed by cells intentionally shielded from the immune system (e.g., testicular antigens).
The trouble is that cancer cells survive, thru selection, to express cell surface molecules that essentially tell the immune cells “nothing to see here, go away”. The immune cells do “go away”, and the cancer can continue growing and spreading.
To deal with this, scientists have invented so-called CAR-T cells, chimeric antigen receptor T cells, engineered to recognize tumor antigens, respond robustly to them, and to ignore signals from the cancer cells to tell them to go away. These treatments have terrible side effects, due to the T cells getting very excited upon finding the cancer cells, and the subsequent wholesale destruction of the cancer cells. But, they work! CAR-T cells can eradicate a number of cancers. You will likely see a lot more news about this.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
