A critical mass of medical knowledge could soon end the death threat of cancer, but politics stands
in the way.
Six years ago, I (Vincent) was diagnosed with life-threatening prostate cancer that would have killed most men. I survived because I was able to call on colleagues to deliver aggressive surgery outside the standard of care (hormone therapy) for my type of disease. Without a doubt, the operation saved my life.
What happened in my case should be how things happen as a matter of course, but it’s not. That more people than necessary continue to die from cancer has nothing to do with ‘the failed war on cancer’ – a familiar refrain in the press – or a lack of scientific tools, which have begun to accumulate at a breathtaking pace. Rather, obstacles take the form of not using the tools we already have to cure more; a reluctance to drop outdated beliefs; bureaucratic battles among physicians and medical groups; and outdated regulation by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) whose policies hinder the innovations wrought by cancer drug‑development in recent years. These issues are well‑known to doctors and researchers, but many are reluctant to talk about them overtly for fear that they could damage their colleagues or their chances of getting a grant or drug application approved.
When I was a child in the 1940s, long before I had any notion of becoming an oncologist, Aunt Violet, my godmother and a frequent visitor in my household, stopped coming over. My parents ceased talking about her, too. It was as if she had disappeared. Several months later, my father told me that she was sick and that she wanted to see me.
We went in, and I sat on the living‑room floor, playing with the toy car Aunt Violet had given me. I looked up when I heard the bedroom door open. Aunt Violet was quiet, gaunt and sad. Her skin looked yellow next to her white chenille bathrobe.
Snip
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