The Secret History of the War on Cancer
October 8th, 2007Via: Salon:
Children shouldn’t use cellphones. No one should drink diet sodas sweetened with aspartame. And think twice before getting X-rayed with a CAT scan except in a bona fide life-threatening emergency. That’s just some of the precautionary advice that epidemiologist Devra Davis, who runs the runs the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, delivers in her new book, “The Secret History of the War on Cancer.”
Davis, who is a professor of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and formerly served in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, argues that the United States’ $40 billion “war on cancer” has focused far too much on treatment, and not nearly enough on prevention. There’s a lot of blame to go around here, and Davis serves it to up to the scientific community, the government, polluting industries and even cancer advocacy groups. For instance, in the late ’60s, three years after the surgeon general declared that smoking causes cancer, the United States spent $30 million of taxpayer money to create a safer cigarette, essentially doing the tobacco companies’ research and development for them. Needless to say, this effort failed, but it succeeded in giving the tobacco companies cover, assuring smokers that a safer cigarette was just around the corner.
Davis argues that again and again, from tobacco to benzene to asbestos, the profit motive has trumped concerns about public health, delaying, sometimes for decades, the containment of avoidable hazards. And, as in the current scientific “debate” about global warming, the legitimate need for ongoing scientific research about many possible carcinogens has been exploited by industry to promote the idea that there’s really no need to worry.
In “The Secret History of the War on Cancer,” we meet one of the foremost epidemiologists of the 20th century, who is revealed after his death to have been on the take from Monsanto to the tune of $1,500 a day, and we visit the site of former towns that have literally disappeared, like Times Beach, Mo., which since being declared a toxic waste site, has been incinerated, reduced to some grass, geraniums and tulips — the only signs that anyone ever once lived there.
…
In 1977, Richard Merrill, who later became dean of the University of Virginia Law School, was the chief counsel of the Food and Drug Administration, and he formally asked the U.S. attorney to convene a grand jury to decide whether or not to indict the producer of aspartame, G.D. Searle, for misrepresenting “findings, concealing material facts and making false statements” in aspartame safety tests.
This is not some left-wing group. This is the actual chief counsel of the FDA asking the U.S. attorney’s office to convene a grand jury. It never happened, because by the time the grand jury was ready to be convened we had a new president. That president was Reagan, and within a month of Reagan taking office, he had a proposal from a guy you might have heard of named Donald Rumsfeld [who was then chief operating officer of Searle].
And Jan. 22, 1981, one day after Reagan’s inauguration — one day — Searle reapplied for FDA approval. Prior to that, ever single request for approval was turned down by all the scientists ever looking at the data. That’s a fact. There’s no dispute about that fact. And then, it gets approved May 19, 1981.
Remember what happened with the Reagan revolution? It was: “We need to get the government off our backs.” One of the backs it got off of was suppressing the aspartame industry. Later, many of the people who worked at the FDA to evaluate aspartame ended up going to work for the company producing it.
Later, many of the people who worked at the FDA to evaluate aspartame ended up going to work for the company producing it.
How could they do that, knowing what they supposedly knew? I bet there is an interesting story behind that sentence.
Gee, a big money-making machine is telling us that their goal is one thing (in this case, curing cancer), when in fact it’s obviously another (making a ton of money, not to mention careers and GIGANTIC EGOS). Where have I heard that before? Hmmmm, let’s see… Iraq, we’re there for al Qaeda/WMP then Democracy then al Qaeda again, then Iran, and all the time the arms and oil (and oil-related) industries are making unprecedented profits.
My sarcasm is not directed at you, Kevin, thanks for the post. It’s the fact that too many of the people can be fooled SO FRIGGING OFTEN that blows my mind. What a nation of sheep. Thank you public school for stripping us of all our native intelligence and putting in its place blind faith in the military-industrial complex. “I pledge allegiance to the flag… and to the psychopaths that love nothing but power who run the whole show…”
On Ran Prieur’s website, I recall reading that before tobacco started being grown with inorganic phosphate fertilizers in the 30’s, lung-cancer rates from cigarette-smoking were virtually nonexistent. That statistic, however, doesn’t address emphysema-from-smoking rates, and there’s lots of ways in which smoking even organic tobacco cigarettes are bad for you. But to the credit of tobacco vendor American Spirit, they reduce the cancer risk of their product not only by organically growing their tobacco but also by adding nothing to it. Back when I smoked, I simply liked their product because it didn’t taste like bitter ash (from the potassium nitrate added to keep the cigarette burning on its own) when smoked. (It’s probably also the potassium nitrate that makes chain smokers smell bad.)
I also used to drink a lot of Crystal Light, which was sweetened with aspartame. My hairline started majorly receding but filled back in when I stopped drinking the stuff. Also, aspartame is not much of a help in losing weight because it stimulates major carbohydrate cravings.
An informative article that unfortunately, as one would expect of a “left-defining” rag like Salon, skims the surface of each of these dark satanic subjects without digging into the truly grisly aspects of the individual issues discussed.
For all the author’s good intentions publishing such a necessary book, it’s truly sad to see her go so far and then waffle, fence-sitting all the way when it comes to her willingness to state strong opinions about the industrial nature of the larger problem.
For example, the greatest concern with aspartame isn’t about its role as a cancer-causing agent. Numero uno is its proven neuro-toxic effects and one of the primary breakdown components when it goes even briefly unrefrigerated: formaldehyde.
And I could go on and on and on.
Before you think me over-cynical, consider: as Kevin has insight into the financial and security industries via experience and study, so I have insight into the inner workings of the “perception management” biz, having made a living off the beast in earlier times.
Ultimately, a very Chomsky-esque bit of “left-guardianship”. Carefully defining the fringes of allowable subject matter, while offering up what might seem like ground-breaking information to anyone not already steeped in the dark side of the subject matter the author claims to be revealing.
Another fine example of old half-news about long-discussed material from the “lunatic fringe”, all tarted up to look like a truly wild bit of dissident reading. But what more can one expect from Salon, one of the great bastions of America’s foundation-funded republocratese propaganda.
Like the magic words used to deactivate the “Marauder’s Map” in the Potter books: “mischief managed”, it turns out Salon casts a spell very similar to many other supposedly challenging publications: “perception managed”.
I for one am always “happy” when Kevin writes about cancer. Statistically speaking, the lastest I’ve read is that the chances are now 3 out of 100, rather than 3 of a thousand that someone in US will “get” cancer.
I’ve posted here before re my family. 2 have passed on from environmentally related cancers: asbestos and non-Hojdkins lymphoma.
Agree with “anothernut,” there is very little work being done to CURE cancer. Most of the dollars are going into creating ever more expensive machinery to diagnose it. Who gains with that approach?
In addition to that, here in the great old USofA the TV bombards any hapless viewer (even on the Weather Channel for Crying out loud) with adds for drugs, drugs, drugs. Mostly for made up diseases. If you are in the US reading this- get a good laugh when the latest and greatest cure all is identified by “syndrome.” That’s the catch phrase for SCAM.
I know what needs to be done when a person has a poop accident. I’m thinking I’ll have a poop accident of my own when one day, I am looking at the weather forecast and any ole drug company puts an ad on the Telly that talks about a drug that will cure cancer.
Since I’ve spent so much time in hospital and re care with Mom, I could draw you all an org chart that follows the money. There is not ONE FREAKING DIME that goes to prevention, and/or cure if its not related to diagnostic and/or drugs. Need rehab after a stroke? Go Fuck yourself, find someone to do that work in your home and then pay for it out your own pocket change.
But Medicaire will pay for your Scooter when you can’t walk anymore. Every time I hear this thing I wonder – who the fuck gets these people on their scooter once they get it?
Have about 2K to spend on a cure for..well, I dunno, I’m still exploring the technology and think it might be the best way out of this mess for now.
http://www.rifealternative.com/
Miraculix, comment more often, will you?
Miraculix:
“Ultimately, a very Chomsky-esque bit of “left-guardianshipâ€. Carefully defining the fringes of allowable subject matter, while offering up what might seem like ground-breaking information to anyone not already steeped in the dark side of the subject matter the author claims to be revealing.â€
The titular “left†exists so that it can be referenced whenever we are bludgeoned with the “of course we have Diversity of Opinion and Democracy†myths. What importantly is usually lacking in the gate keeper faux opposition persuasion is a call-to-action; any good sales piece would have one.
“A program director at one major foundation that funds a wide variety of progressive groups agreed with Faber. “I can’t think of any topic we work on domestically where we feel like we want to build a movement,†she said.â€
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/continued/2697/the_new_funding_heresies/
Bigelow
Some great comments here.
Kevin, you should consider having a forum, like the one on latoc. Takes a bit more time to manage, but a couple of decent mods can reduce the workload for you.
I’ve seen the Cancer machine at work. When my girlfriend was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, her first question was “How did I get it?”
Answer there came none. Just a shrug of the shoulders.
Not FUCKING GOOD ENOUGH…
I was also puzzled by the refusal of staff to tell us what the “cure rates” were for Chemotherapy. They never said.
Curious, no?
After she passed away, I found myself noticing the cancer-causing articles that I’d been studiously ignoring previously.
They only seem to move in one direction – which has been described above.
Anyhow, here’s a fascinating article with quotes on the “effectiveness” of chemo:
http://www.ghchealth.com/chemotherapy-quotes.html
Thanks Eileen.
My father died of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Or was killed by the second round of chemo-“therapy”.
Take your pick.
I have always wondered why he got cancer.
You just put your finger on it.
Chromated copper arsenate (CCA).
Wood preservative.
Used extensively in NZ on radiata pine, the main building timber.
My father was a carpenter.
Bingo.
No, it doesn’t get everyone. It’s partly luck.
But the long-term exposure to treated wood dust and just handling the newly treated wood, well, it must surely take its toll on a person’s lymphatic system.
The cancer + chemo reduced my father to something that no one should have to go through.
No one.
May I suggest the article “Hiding the Truth about Losing the War on Cancer” http://www.tbyil.com/waroncancer.htm
as well as others found at the article directory at that site.
“Healthcare for Dummies” (though needing a bit of editing help) and “Modern Medicine versus Nature in Treating Cancer” are two other good ones.
BOOK SIGNING WITH DEVRA DAVIS, AUTHOR OF “THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE WAR ON CANCER” ON NOV. 16th in New York City.
On November 16th, Devra Davis will lecture about her latest book the “Secret History of the War on Cancer.” The War on Cancer was run by leaders of industries that made cancer-causing products, and sometimes also profited from drugs and technologies for finding and treating the disease.
The Secret History of the War on Cancer shows how we began fighting the wrong war,
with the wrong weapons, against the wrong enemies-a legacy that persists to this day.
This is the gripping story of a major public health effort diverted and distorted for
private gain.
A portion of the profits from this book will go to support research on cancer prevention.
Lecture & Book Signing Reception on November 16th, 6:30 PM – 7:45 PM at the
New York Academy of Sciences, 7 World Trade Center, 250 Greenwich Street, 40th Floor, NY, NY.
For more information or to register visit http://www.nyas.org/snc/sncevents/events.asp