The minefields of the War on Cancer - Letter from the Publisher

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients,  June, 2003  by Jonathan Collin

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At the moment we are celebrating a "victory" in the War against Iraq despite the administration's reticence to make such a claim. The sustained bombings have stopped and much of the larger armaments and naval carriers are returning home. When all is said and done the removal of Saddam Hussein and his Republican Guard has been accomplished with considerably less loss to civilian and military life than was expected. Still, there were many civilian casualties, deaths and dismemberments, as well as extraordinary damage to Iraq infrastructure and cultural heritage. Somehow, some way, Armageddon did not happen and life goes on here in the US, around the world, and even in Iraq. In many ways the administration accomplished what it promised in very short order, almost with surgical precision. The task of rebuilding Iraq may not be so easy -- too many parties have greatly different ideas as to what the new Iraq should be. However, the Iraq War sharply contrasts the Vietnam War in strategy and outcome.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the War on Cancer in 2003 compared to the War on Cancer in 1970. The War on Cancer remains a disgraceful quagmire of disproven treatments which fail and fail again. Radiation and chemotherapy are miserable tools for curing cancer and deserve to be unceremoniously thrown in the dumpster. These treatments are so bad that measures of effectiveness are made in terms of extra months of survival. Months! Why should anyone be subjected to recommendations for these therapies? Because there are no other options. Except... alternative cancer treatments. And alternative cancer treatments in 2003 remain a hodgepodge of unproven treatments, beckoning with great hope and promise, but fraught with unforgiving failures. The patients and doctors who live in the day-today world of alternative cancer treatment raise hopes while walking through the minefields of questionable therapies. Alternative treatments appear to be harmless, but every once in a while a treatment really blows up in the patient's and doctor's face, not just in failed results, but in horrible treatment crises. We all cheer the successful victors of alternative cancer treatment, but we need to be mindful of the many patients who braved the alternative cancer minefields and became another war casualty. This month we examine some of the strategies for treating cancer alternatively, mindful of the risk that the next treatment may be another hidden mine.

COPYRIGHT 2003 The Townsend Letter Group
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group