Hope or Fishing for Likes?

Hope or Fishing for Likes?

Recently as the past week, an article about a possible cure for cancer was published by the University of Cardiff in the journal Nature Immunology and consequently spread on social media and news outlets. It talks about a possible cure for all cancers through a unique T-cell inside everyone´s bloodstream. According to the article, its uniqueness is its receptor that recognises and gets rid of cancerous cells while leaving the healthy tissues unharmed.

However, this breakthrough with “great potential” has not been tested in humans as of yet. The article, which was shared and turned into a news bit by the BBC among others, only mentions this last part near the end of that same news bit. It begs the question of why.

 It seems to follow a trend of articles that apparently talk about a cure for this disease or a revolutionary discovery of some kind, only to find out that we are still very far away from an actual “smoking gun”.

To the many cancer sufferers, it seems to offer hope of some kind that in the end isn't rooted in anything that a human being can really trust. No successful clinical trials have been made, no tangible results exist. It looks like a new product is being sold that has no substance to it although it has charts and data and even medical jargon.

In the fast world of social media, click bait and deceitful headlines, this type of news, no-news, has spread like a virus with a speed of a bullet. We the fast people who don´t seem to have the time or inclination to wait for an actual result, are left with the trap that offers hope but lets us down.

There are many examples out there of this type of journalism, one that is much more interested in “likes” it gets, rather than offer useful information.

Instead it “sells” hope and doesn't deliver it. It is the eagerness to produce content that creates its undoing. It is the marketing strategies ruling over people´s interest. The pressure to sell is winning over the actual job of informing and information deserving of its name.

 We all deserve better.