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Tuesday 2 December 2008

The Secret History of the War on Cancer

A very vicious circle

Jervoise Andreyev on the new book by Devra Davis

There are more than 200 forms of cancers which arise through different complex mechanisms often over decades. It was therefore ludicrous when the men from NASA who had landed astronauts on the moon were charged by President Nixon to oversee the next winnable cause: the war against cancer. Such a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of cancer coupled with the fact that oncology has become a business where ‘sometimes its business side stands in the way of its larger, more noble goals’ has led to a marked distortion in how we regard cancer today. Huge emotional energy and billions of pounds are spent in pursuit of the next new anti-cancer agent which rarely produce more than minor benefit. In contrast, millions of patients cured of cancer but left with difficult symptoms receive no systematic care and the hospices rely on two thirds of their funds from charity, not government. As for systematic strategies to prevent cancer, to clean up established environmental toxins and to analyse potential new risks to our health, they are almost non-existent. The agenda has been hijacked by the people who make the money from technological advances.

This book is not free of factual errors. Sometimes its tone is irritatingly conspiratorial, and it is littered with scientifically worthless (though often interesting) anecdotes. It doesn’t matter. When you have a hypothesis this important and the opposition is devious, well-funded and driven by a profit motive which has resulted in tens of millions of premature deaths and chronic ill-health for countless others, why not use any means at your disposal to counter their arguments? But only do it once. After that, defeat them using proper science, funded by a government which is alert to the well- being of its people rather than in cahoots with industrial plutocrats.

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