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[Danail Bulgaria]

For a relatively long time I believed, that sharks do not develope cancer.

 

Today, by a chance I found this Wikipedia page about sharks:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark

It climed, that the concept, that sharks do not have a cancer is a misconception.

 

Here is the citing, that got my attention:

"

Popular misconceptions
A popular myth is that sharks are immune to disease and cancer, but this is not scientifically supported. Sharks have been known to get cancer.[87][88]
....

87.Finkelstein JB (2005). "Sharks do get cancer: few surprises in cartilage research". Journal of the National Cancer Institute 97 (21): 1562–3. doi:10.1093/jnci/dji392. PMID 16264172.
88.Ostrander GK, Cheng KC, Wolf JC, Wolfe MJ (2004). "Shark cartilage, cancer and the growing threat of pseudoscience". Cancer Research 64 (23): 8485–91. doi:10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-04-2260. PMID 15574750.

"

 

So what do you think about that? Does one of the possible ways to seek cures against cancer fall heroically ?

[Danail Bulgaria]

Several more negative citings:

 

From:
http://news.national...harkcancer.html

 

"Carl Luer of the MOTE Marine Laboratory's Center for Shark Research in Sarasota, Florida, has been studying sharks' cancer resistance for some 25 years"

....

"Sharks have a low incidence of disease," he said, "but unfortunately many of the observations leading to this conclusion are anecdotal.

....

"Luer says that sharks aren't entirely cancer-free, a mistaken perception that has gained some public acceptance."

....

"But not all scientists are sure that sharks are even resistant to cancer. Gary Ostrander, professor of biology and comparative medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, says that just because not a lot of evidence exists doesn't mean that the animals aren't getting cancer. "