November 2000
Fabulous Science
Telling a good story has become essential to today's biotechnology enterprise. But truth still matters.
By Stephen S. Hall
Stop the presses! Sharks do get cancer. This normally wouldn't qualify as big medical news, and I barely noticed the item when it appeared not long ago in the New York Daily News. But think of the huge amount of mythology-and business-that has mushroomed out of a single, easy-to-grasp and, as it happens, false anecdote. If sharks are immune to cancer, wishful thinking went, they must make a protein or molecule that prevents cancer from developing. From this appealing little fiction emerged a thriving branch of alternative medicine: the use of shark cartilage to treat cancer.
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