The Secret History of the War on Cancer
“The best wars finish fast. Nearly forty years and more than forty billion dollars since the official launch of the War on Cancer in 1971, that effort shows no signs of ending,” writes Devra Davis. In her new book, The Secret History of the War on Cancer, Davis describes how the cancer-research community focused on detecting and treating cancer while neglecting to thoroughly investigate the many things known to cause cancer including tobacco, the workplace, radiation, or the global environment.
In a note to readers Davis writes:
The hubris of the formal war on cancer is clear today. President Nixon in 1971 declared war on the disease itself, but left untouched the things known at the time to cause it, including tobacco and synthetic hormones. From the start, the cancer effort has made astonishing advances in treating and finding the disease, but failed to tackle known carcinogens like radiation, benzene, asbestos and other toxic materials, including tobacco until quite recently. The enterprise has virtually ignored the incompletely tested 80,000 industrial chemicals found—in infinite combinations—in everything from cosmetics to carpet glue.
Friday November 16, as part of the Science & the City @ NYAS event series, Davis will read from her book and discuss how the War on Cancer was influenced by leaders of industries that made cancer-causing products or that profited from drugs and technologies designed to find and treat the disease.
Click here for more information about the event.
December 18th, 2007 at 2:06 am
100 Words
President Nixon declared the War on Cancer 36 years ago. Acknowledging
the fact that the tools necessary to accomplish the task were missing, the mandate was to invest money in research and apply the results to reduce the incidence, morbidity and mortality from cancer.
After spending approximately $200 billion (if we add up the taxes,
industry support, etc.) since 1971 on this war, 150,855 experimental
studies on mice and publication of 1.56 million papers, the results
can best be summarized like this-
Based on available data, there were 10.9 million new cases of cancer
worldwide, 6.7 million deaths, and 24.6 million persons who had been
diagnosed with cancer in the previous five years. Like in many other areas, unfortunately, the USA is leading in this one too! More than
1.5 million Americans develop cancer each year claiming some 563,700 lives, killing more Americans in 14 months than the combined total of all wars the nation has ever fought (a new cancer is diagnosed every 30 seconds in the United States, about 1,540 dying each day from the poison). A look at the worldwide incidence of cancer raises
some puzzling issues, especially related to the unexpectedly high
incidence of cancers in the USA:
If we credit the increased incidence solely to the aging of the
population, then why is the incidence so much higher in the USA than in some of the developed countries where life expectancy is comparable? On the other hand, if lifestyle is more important as suggested by the association of smoking and cancers of the lung, then why is this incidence not equally high in countries where people smoke at least as much as in the USA? One answer could be that smokers in countries such as South America or India do not live long enough to develop cancer. However, the incidence of lung cancer in Sweden with an average life expectancy of 80.3 years is less than half of that in the USA which has a life expectancy of 77.4 years (22 versus 55.7 per 100,000 respectively) even though 22% of the adults smoke in both countries. This suggests that lifestyles may be important, but smoking may not be the only important factor. Another factor could be that all American Tobaccos are grown on soils that were
once used for poultry production. There is a much higher Arsenic
content in American Tobaccos (A Known Human Carcinogen). The same
carcinogen is in every piece of American produced meat.
The idea that genetic predisposition to cancer may have something to do with high American numbers has been laid to rest by the experience of the Japanese who immigrated to America. The incidence of cancer, and the types of Cancer, were quite different between fresh immigrants and existing American residents, however the differences disappeared in the second generation Japanese Americans who adopted local lifestyles.
While death from heart disease has declined significantly in the last 30 years, the percentage of Americans dying from Cancer, save
those with Hodgkin’s, some leukemias, carcinomas of the thyroid
and testes, and some childhood cancers, is about the same as in
1950. In the last twelve years, there has been a 1% decline annually
in Cancer mortality. Early detection has had significant impact but, once the cancer has spread, the outcome has remained unchanged for the last half century (Death from Arsenic Poisoning).
In another hundred years Americans will pull their heads out of the
sand and realize they were duped into looking for a cure for Cancer
while the initiator of the “War on Cancer” was putting a Human Car-cinogen into all American Food. This activity was similar to looking for a lost dime in the opposite corner of the room just because the light was better. This was a common Nixon behavior as evidenced in standard-ization of air travel. Air Travel was established as the American Standard while federal funding was cut for every American Railroad. Asking for an appropriation of an extra $100 million to launch an intensive campaign to find a cure for Cancer was like adding insult to injury. “I will give them an extra $100 million to see if they can find out what I did”!
Americans would be a lot better off if they were using the Space Program to move every atom and every molecule of Arsenic to fill the
craters on the moon! It probably wouldn’t cost as much as we’ve
already wasted on Cancer Research and the Space Program. Cancer is not a disease! Cancer is a side effect of Arsenic Poisoning! A ravenous Hunger, High Blood Pressure, Diabetes, Cardio Vasscular Problems, and Mental Instability have also been linked to this poison. Put the Government into the health industry and I bet a cure for Cancer will be found overnight. If Tax Dollars are used to pay the Doctor Bill and Hospital Bills there won’t be any disease in a couple of weeks!