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IN YOUR PRIME
Ca War
If you’re a survivor of a struggle against malignancy, there is urgency to the question that begs: “Are we winning the war
against cancer?”
Consider, in the United States today there are nine million survivors of cancer, including this columnist. Our preoccupation:
“Will my cancer return?”
If we, as a nation, possessed a cure then the shadow across our individual futures would be of small consequence. With
disappointment, and a sense of unease, I read in Fortune magazine recently that, “Within the next decade, cancer is likely to
replace heart disease as the leading cause of U.S. deaths.” (This is based upon a forecast by the National Cancer Institute.)
“Cancer is already the biggest killer of those under 75,” the report continues. “Among those ages 45-64, cancer is
responsible for more deaths than the next three causes (heart disease, accidents, stroke) put together. It is also the
leading disease killer of children, as well as 30-somethings, and everyone in between.”
The article is written by Clifton Leaf, survivor of a blood cancer (Hodgkin’s disease) at age 15. Later, Leaf was witness to
his mother’s death too soon from a liver cancer. He spent three months researching and producing the 14-page article that is
comprehensive, revelatory and alarming. As someone who has covered health and medicine 34 years, I suggest we are in his debt
for “Why We’re Losing The War on Cancer and How To Win It.”
It is Leaf’s premise that despite the investment of $200 billion, and a lot of brilliant science, our medical leadership
persists in targeting the wrong devil. Instead of continuing to shrink tumors (in terminally ill patients) with newer, often
more expensive drugs, we need to be focusing upon: prevention, early detection, and the understanding of metastasis—the
spread of the disease, described some 2400 years ago by Hippocrates as like “the arms of a crab” reaching out and grabbing
onto another body part.
Here, in summary, is the argument: just as heart disease doesn’t begin with the coronary artery attack, cancer starts its
malignant journey long before a tumor can be detected. And, with heart disease, patients are taught about diet, exercise,
smoking and other correct lifestyle habits. This is: disease prevention.
Next, we confront the emotional subject of smoking. By getting people to stop smoking, we could prevent hundreds of thousands
of cancers; in fact, 30 percent of all cancer deaths are traced to habitual cigarette smoking, precursor of lung cancer,
emphysema, plus cancers of the mouth, tongue, lip.
Reporter Leaf introduces a team of investigators, notables in their disciplines, all arguing for profound change in research
and discovery. The negative result of today’s campaign: we’re not in fact fighting a war vs. cancer. Instead, individuals are
earning grants and working to gain Food and Drug Administration approval of a particular drug. Label these mere skirmishes,
say critics.
A panel of cancer center directors concludes this approach “is likely to remain inefficient, unresponsive and unduly
expensive.” Further, writes Leaf, drug companies worry about stockholders; thus the focus is not on breakthrough treatments,
“but on incremental improvements to existing classes of drugs.”
“In 2004, cancer will claim some 563,700 of your family, friends, co-workers and countrymen. More Americans,” declares the
Fortune article: “will die of cancer in the next 14 months than have perished in every war the nation has fought…combined.”
The public enemy we know as cancer—in truth, 100 or more diseases—is formidable, complicated, and unyielding. I have watched
one wonder drug after another be heralded as “the silver bullet,” only to later fail. One in two men, and one in three women
will know cancer in their lifetimes. Perhaps, then, it is time our health care generals reexamine this war within our
borders, a conflict none of us chooses or deserves, and determine if new, bolder leadership might lead us toward victory.
Doesn’t the question: “How goes our war against cancer?” deserve to be asked—and answered—during a presidential campaign?
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Outrageous Associations
