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There is a front page story in the NY Times today showing how although death rates from heart disease and stroke have plummeted by more than 50% since 1950 the death rate from cancer has dropped by only 5%. This belies the much touted “war on cancer” which has been trumpeted in the media and amongst our leading medical institutions. I have long been annoyed by the cancer medical machine. The thing the bothers me the most about it how much people out and out lie (doctors, journalists, healthcare administrators) about the effectiveness of their treatments and so-called progress in this field. America spends more on cancer research and treatment than any other country. The result? Cancer death rates essentially unchanged, our healthcare outcomes second worse in the industrialized world. Surprised?
I guess we can blame the marketers who want to sell us low fat diet/breakfast cereals/high fiber/vitamins/etc, none of which have been shown to prevent cancer. And I have written here before about the lack of utility of breast and prostate screening although many readers have publicly and privately thrown eggs at me. Back then I wrote about studies showing that breast and prostate cancer screening only decrease your risk from that disease by 1 in 10,000 screened and don’t reduce overall mortality. Unless you are from France. So you can wear your pink ribbon if you want but it won’t necessarily do much good. Sorry to be so negative.
Fact is that if you have metastatic cancer from whatever you can’t get rid of it, unless it is testicular or thyroid or some types of lymphoma. The treatments only slow down the progression. The “statistically significant improvements in survival” mean that if you take toxic chemotherapies you might live 12 weeks instead of 10. With more nausea and vomiting. Big deal.
[addendum: Fellow MD blogger (“Critical Condition“) Rick Lippin MD sent me this letter to Sen. Specter:
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE
Doug
Thanks
Here is what I wrote in my blog-Open letter to my Senator who was instrumental in obtaining funding to continue this “failed war”
Feel free to circulate
(PS- America seems to have a penchant for declaring war on a number of things and then failing- War is our chief metaphor)
Rick Lippin
Senator Specter, Re “CURING CANCER”
Since I heard you make a similar comment I want to express my objection to your and President Obama’s use of the phrase “we need to cure cancer in our lifetime”
This phrase is not consistent with what experts know about the biology of cancer- over 200 different types I might add.
Senator -There is no “cure for cancer”. Just like there is no “cure” for aging. We can cure individual patients with certain types of cancer thank goodness but indisputably the greatest risk factor for most cancers is cellular and bodily aging.
Declaring we “need to cure cancer” is well intentioned but naïve – harkening back to President Richard Nixon’s failed war on cancer from the 1970’s.
We must continue to chip away at the many factors that contribute to cancers but to suggest we will “cure” all is completely unrealistic and is actually irresponsible.
I share your interest in these diseases and applaud your own personal triumphs and political leadership in this arena.
Sincerely,
Richard A Lippin MD
Southampton,Pa
March 2009
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War on cancer or any other disease state is a PR stunt, I believe. We must remember that if a cure is found for a disease, that disease is no longer profitable for others.
my brother died because of his treatment. the cancer did not kill him. after seeing what happened to him I WOULD NEVER opt for chemo or radiation EXCEPT in the few instances where the stats show it TRULY is the wise thing to do…
Otherwise chemo, in general, KILLS you…and not just the chemo but the massive dosing of antibiotics too.
I would much rather die a natural death to cancer and while I can’t know the veracity of the claims I’ve read reports on studies that claim to show that people treated with chemo die on average 6 years earlier than those who opt to support their bodies as best they can with natural means.
While I might die if I were diagnosed with cancer, I’d rather die naturally and gracefully instead of letting chemo poison and steal my body, mind and soul, which is what happened to my brother.
forgot to sign up for email notification, sorry. this comment does so.
very well said dr bremner.
My favorite are the people who are working to increase cancer “awareness”, i. e., Lance Armstrong. Apparently not enough people are “aware” of cancer!
So, why is Alzheimer’s increasing since the 1980′s?
Re: cancer
Since some cancers may be the result of toxins in our environment and increasing amounts of toxins are in our water supply and the food supply and emanating from products in our surroundings such as that new carpet or the new kitchen cabinets from China, I would have expected deaths from cancer to steadily increase. That they have stayed the same, by my way of looking at it, is an improvement over what I would have projected. Also, yes, you will die, but many now live years with cancer when they’d have died right away in 1950. I have a friend in her third year with ovarian cancer. Another friend had a cancerous breast removed over ten years ago and she’s had no recurrence. It would be worth it to me to have treatment and live another 10 years, even if I were STILL eventually going to die from the disease. Those 10 years would be important to me.
“Back then I wrote about studies showing that breast and prostate cancer screening only decrease your risk from that disease by 1 in 10,000 screened and don’t reduce overall mortality.”
I did not know breast cancer screening reduced your risk from that disease at all. So, evey time I get a mammogram my risk goes down? I think breast screening is an early detection test- not a risk reduction test. I think colon screening reduces your risk, and cervical screening, not breast though.
I mean it reduces your risk of dying of breast cancer by 1/10,000, but does not reduce your overall risk of dying, possibly because for every woman saved from a breast cancer death, there is one who dies from the complications of getting treated (chemo, radiation) for a breast cancer that wouldn’t have killed her any way. Ditto for prostate cancer. You can follow the links here to the studies that show that.
I don’t know why Alzheimer’s is increasing. It is probable that people can live longer with cancer than they used to, although not a lot longer, and of course we all want to live as long as possible even if we have metastatic disease. The reality is that for some cancers we are given false hope.
No doubt you have a point but that graph is meaningless, surely? People are going to die of something, and if it’s not heart disease or stroke it’s more likely to be cancer. I mean, if you cured every other disease in the world, everyone would die of cancer!
So maybe Alzheimer’s is going up because the age of the population is increasing as a result of the great success with heart disease. Then there are those who claim that open heart surgeries cause decline in cognition. Just take a look at Bill Clinton…
Yes people do have to die of something but I was just making the point that the “war on cancer” is largely hype and we have not made a lot of progress. And yes “pump brain” is real and has been documented in several studies, probably related to kicking off small pieces of plaque into the brain.
[comment from Rick Lippin]
Doug
Thanks
Here is what I wrote in my blog-Open letter to my Senator who was instrumental in obtaining funding to continue this “failed war”
Feel free to circulate
(PS- America seems to have a penchant for declaring war on a number of things and then failing- War is our chief metaphor)
Rick Lippin
Senator Specter, Re “CURING CANCER”
Since I heard you make a similar comment I want to express my objection to your and President Obama’s use of the phrase “we need to cure cancer in our lifetime”
This phrase is not consistent with what experts know about the biology of cancer- over 200 different types I might add.
Senator -There is no “cure for cancer”. Just like there is no “cure” for aging. We can cure individual patients with certain types of cancer thank goodness but indisputably the greatest risk factor for most cancers is cellular and bodily aging.
Declaring we “need to cure cancer” is well intentioned but naïve – harkening back to President Richard Nixon’s failed war on cancer from the 1970’s.
We must continue to chip away at the many factors that contribute to cancers but to suggest we will “cure” all is completely unrealistic and is actually irresponsible.
I share your interest in these diseases and applaud your own personal triumphs and political leadership in this arena.
Sincerely,
Richard A Lippin MD
Southampton,Pa
March 2009