Cancer Decisions - Free Newsletter -June 10, 2007

HERE AT THE MOSS REPORTS

People facing a diagnosis of cancer typically must make a series of crucial treatment decisions in very short order. It can be hard to choose wisely at a time when one is under such intense pressure. The widely praised Moss Reports are an invaluable source of information on the currently available conventional and alternative treatments. There are now over 240 Moss Reports, each one on a different, specific kind of cancer. For the cancer patient, a Moss Report offers a truly comprehensive resource, detailing the most promising conventional treatment options as well as complementary and alternative approaches that may be useful both to patients undergoing treatment and to those who are recovering.

If you would like to order a Moss Report for yourself or someone you love, you can do so securely from our website, www.cancerdecisions.com, or by calling 1-800-980-1234 (814-238-3367 from outside the US).

For those who have already purchased a Moss Report on their specific cancer diagnosis, a phone consultation with Dr. Ralph Moss can be enormously helpful in narrowing down the options and arriving at a coherent treatment strategy. A recent phone consultation client wrote:

"It was heartening to receive a well-researched unbiased opinion from Dr. Moss. I thank you for being a watchdog over the business of cancer with an objective outlook that is a very useful resource to many. I would recommend your report to anyone with a diagnosis of cancer. Thank you." - M.R.

To schedule an appointment, please call 1-800-980-1234 (814-238-3367 from outside the US) or submit a request via email to Jacquie@cancerdecisions.com.

We look forward to helping you.

CURRENT TOPICS

Also available from our website are our Current Topics reports - a series of in-depth reviews of cancer-related subjects and controversies. Currently available are the following:

On Guard - Gardasil (An in-depth discussion of the anti-cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil)
Do Antioxidants and Chemotherapy Conflict?
Mammography, Biopsy and the Diagnosis of Breast Cancer
Herceptin or Deceptin? (An evaluation of the use of Herceptin in breast cancer)
Avastin: Your Money Or Your Life. (A clear-eyed look at the targeted drug Avastin)
The Politics of Hope: Andrew von Eschenbach and the Decline of the National Cancer Institute
The Mexican Cancer Clinics in the Era of Evidence-Based Medicine

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CANCER ACTIVISM: A NEW FORCE IN THE WAR ON CANCER

(The two-part serialization I began last week of the article I wrote for Genetic Engineering News will conclude, with references, next week.)

I was asked by the magazine New Scientist to review the recently-published book "Cancer Activism: Gender, Media and Public Policy" by Karen Kedrowski and Marilyn Stine Sarow. Here is the review I wrote:

The beginnings of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s ushered in an era of grassroots patient activism. Until then, direct political action to speed the pace of medical research was unknown. Militant organizations such as ACT-UP had a profound influence on the course of AIDS research and public policy in the US. By the 1990s, cancer advocacy groups had also mastered the art of getting media attention and research funding through the skilful combination of public relations and lobbying. Among the most successful of these were groups representing women with breast cancer.

If the effectiveness of lobbying were a function of the size of the population affected by a disease, then prostate cancer research would be more generously funded than that for breast cancer, according to the authors of a new book, Cancer Activism. In fact, prostate cancer, which in the US strikes more individuals than breast cancer - 234,460 compared with 214,640 in 2006, according to the American Cancer Society - comes a distant second in the amount of media attention and public funding it receives. Last year, the US government spent about $557 million on breast cancer research, compared to $309 million for prostate cancer.

This paradox has piqued the interest of two US social scientists, whose book examines the history, structure and modus operandi of what they call GSOs (grassroots survivors' organizations), paying special attention to the central role of women. Feminism, the authors believe, has been a crucial factor in the success of breast cancer advocacy. Much of the dynamism of the early breast cancer lobbying effort was fuelled by a belief that research into this disease, which overwhelmingly strikes women, had long been hampered by a male-dominated medical and political establishment.

One of the book's most interesting points is how breast cancer activists managed to put a youthful and attractive face on the disease. In the media, people with breast cancer are frequently depicted as young and beautiful, or as the mothers of young children, struck down in their prime. The average age of people with breast cancer mentioned in magazines is around 40, whereas in reality, 77 per cent are over 50 when diagnosed. Breast cancer has had as its public face the celebrities Brigitte Bardot, Ann Jillian and Linda McCartney. Prostate cancer's poster children, by contrast, were Senator Bob Dole and General Norman Schwarzkopf. Older American men still tend not to talk about having prostate cancer, but their reticence does their fellow sufferers no favors.

Whether breast-cancer groups can maintain their dominance is questionable, I believe. GSO advocates have to work ever harder just to keep funding at present levels, and this can lead them to exaggerate the dangers of developing and dying of the disease.

The book points out that financial backing from the pharmaceutical industry is an essential component of GSO success - but there are strings attached. "GSOs need to be careful in aligning themselves with pharmaceutical companies," the authors caution, since such backing can subvert objectivity. Several breast cancer GSOs have a special relationship with the drug Herceptin, one of the few treatments for an aggressive form of breast cancer. However, in lobbying for greater availability of this drug, activists may have promoted its effectiveness beyond what the facts allow, while downplaying side effects, such as an increased risk of heart damage.

Taking money from drug companies is a slippery slope for advocacy groups. While the authors do mention this, I felt they failed to sufficiently highlight the danger of such groups becoming fronts for profit-making enterprises. That these cancer activists are motivated by genuine altruism there is no doubt, but the same cannot be said for their industry sponsors.

Overall, Cancer Activism is a well-written and engrossing account of how a determined group of grassroots leaders - many of them feminists - have changed the face of medical research.

Cancer Activism: Gender, media and public policy by Karen Kedrowski and Marilyn Stine Sarow. University of Illinois Press ISBN 9780252031984

--Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D.

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IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER

The news and other items in this newsletter are intended for informational purposes only. Nothing in this newsletter is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice.