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dbratt@trinidad.net
The ‘war’ on cancer
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So-called ‘war on cancer’ in the US was intentionally
misguided from its start.
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The Nazis ran the first public advertisements that warned
of the dangers of smoking.
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The environment we live in causes cancer.
Devra
Davis has written a book called The Secret History of the
War on Cancer that should be required bedtime reading for
any politician interested in anything more than the local
cocktail party circuit, or anyone interested in finding
out about the causes of cancer.
Dr Davis is the director of the Center for Environmental
Oncology at the University of Pittsburg Cancer Institute
and a professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Graduate
School of Public Health.
Her book tells the story of the sordid history of how research
into the environmental causes of cancer was and is being
systematically and deliberately ignored, hidden or discredited
by powerful politicians, industrialists and sadly, doctors.
The thesis of the book is that the so-called “war on
cancer” in the US was intentionally misguided from
its start in 1971, by insisting that a “cure”
for something called cancer, really about 200 different
diseases, was possible and that prevention was a waste of
time.
The end result is that more than 30 years after the “war”
began, even though enormous strides in treatment have taken
place, there is still no cure and the elements that cause
the different kinds of cancer are still out there, even
though the main causes of cancer have been known since the
1930s.
One of the astonishing things you learn in the book is that
the Nazis ran the first public advertisements that warned
of the dangers of smoking and in 1939 actually banned smoking
in public places.
As is usual when asking why this undue emphasis on treatment
happened, “Follow the money,” the memorable quote
from All the President’s Men which Deep Throat advised
Bob Woodward, is the key to understanding this “war
on cancer” mystery. And it is a lot of money, at present
more than US$100 billion in direct treatment costs in one
year.
From the beginning the “cancer war” was characterised
by a “revolving door” policy of cancer researchers
and administrators in and out of the cancer-causing industries,
tobacco, petroleum, asbestos, chemical and pesticide, and
food and drugs.
Many of the leading figures in the fight against cancer
in both the US and the UK seem to have profited, both from
producing cancer-causing chemicals and from producing anti-cancer
drugs.
Prominent scientists like Dr Clarence Cook Little, pictured
on the cover of Time magazine in 1937 and who headed the
American Cancer Society in 1944 and then became the founding
director of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Tobacco
Industry Research Council; Sir Richard Doll, who co-authored
the study on British physicians in the early 60s that made
me stop smoking; Hans-Olav Adami of the Swedish Karolinska
Institute, and Dimitri Trichlopoulos of the Harvard School
of Public Health, all secretly worked for the chemical industry
for years and did not disclose these ties even when providing
advice to governments on subjects of direct interest to
their bosses.
From the beginning the American Cancer Society was dominated
by titans of industry, who made it their duty not only to
push cancer research in the direction of expensive drugs
but to cast doubt on any research that implicated the environment
as a cause of cancers.
One of their first appointments was to hire the dean of
modern public relations, Edward Bernays, who pioneered the
introduction of “tobacco experts,” articulate
professional sceptics, to sew the seeds of doubt in the
minds of the public about the causes of cancer, much like
the aluminium smelter people do today.
Mr Bernays is the one who came up with the idea to present
smoking as a solution to being fat. One famous ad for Lucky
Strike read, “Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet.”
He was also the genius behind the move to encourage women
to smoke as a sign of the feminist movement. I can remember
the ads on the backs of women’s magazines saying, “You’re
free, baby. Light up!”
To prevent cancer, in the 12th century, the famous Jewish
physician Maimonides advised staying away from dusty cities
and dirty air, eating chicken soup and garlic and getting
regular exercise.
He was correct. Most cancer develops not because who our
parents were but because of what happens to us after we
are born. Where and how we live and work, what we eat, how
we spend our private time, how we move about: all these
things affect the kind of health we will have.
Heat, cold, dust, dirt, radiation, soot, fumes and myriad
natural and synthetic agents combine to affect the chances
that anyone will get cancer.
There is no longer any doubt. The environment we live in
causes cancers.
Will anyone pay attention to this little article? No. Will
anyone remember? No. Most of you reading this will be dead
of cancer in the next few years or so, years before your
children and grandchildren die of the same thing. Most of
you will go bleatingly to your death crying, “Why?”
The answer is all around you.
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