David Brown’s article in The Washington Post, “War Against Cancer Has More Than One Target,” offers information on new theories on how different kinds of cancer develop and a new treatment called “targeted biological therapy,” which targets cell errors with drugs that locate and block a defective gene or its protein product.
Brown sees as ironic President Nixon and a “White House room full of happy scientists and proud politicians” declaring a “war on cancer” on Dec. 23, 1971. He says no one believes anymore that cancer is one enemy and that victory is possible.
Prescription drugs
Brown says the search is underway for drugs that target pathways rather than damaged genes. That way, he says, targeted therapy could target numerous cancers.
While this analysis on the war on cancer reflects the way the government, pharmaceutical companies, and institutions of higher learning are going about research on cancer and its causes, other avenues, which don’t receive the massive amounts of funding or attention that prescription drugs do, weren’t discussed in the article.
Alternative medicine
Alternative medicine treatments also need to be considered and receive much more funding for research. The Seattle Cancer Treatment and Wellness Center is having success combining conventional cancer treatments with alternative medicine procedures. The National Cancer Institute and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine are sponsoring or cosponsoring various research studies to examine complementary and alternative medicine therapies for cancer.
Chemicals and cancer
The link between chemicals and cancer also needs more attention and harmful chemicals need to be closely regulated.
Even with the growing body of evidence linking environmental exposures to cancer in recent years, a report released by the President’s Cancer Panel finds that the true burden of environmentally-induced cancer is greatly underestimated.
The panel’s report, “Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk: What We Can Do Now,” concludes that while environmental exposure isn’t new in cancer prevention, the harm from this group of carcinogens hasn’t been addressed adequately by the National Cancer Program.
Nearly 80,000 chemicals, which are unstudied or understudied and largely unregulated, are used in products sold in the United States. While exposure to potential environmental carcinogens is widespread, the public remains unaware of many of these carcinogens as well as their own level of exposure, especially to many common environmental carcinogens such as radon, formaldehyde, and benzene, the report finds.
The report also recognizes the U.S. military as a major source of toxic occupational and environmental exposures that can increase cancer risk.
Our national public policy must include the regulation of toxic chemicals in the workplace and in consumer products. The use of thousands of chemicals, the effects of which are largely unknown, is one of the largest experiments in the history of humankind. We pay for it every day through the illnesses and deaths of our family members and loved ones.
