Bookraft

Cancer still has the stigma of being a pronouncement of imminent death. Recent Cancer statistics say otherwise. So it was with great interest I and hundreds of thousands of others read the headline article in this Friday's Metro News, a freebie newsheet produced by the Toronto Star for commuters in the GTA. The headline says: Cancer too complex for cure. Hmmm.

The story cited research on Cancer reported in Nature and Science, two very respected scientific journals. The research is also being done primarily at the very respected John Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. So the work has top quality associated with it.

And the reporting by Metro News/Toronto Star was ostensibly complete and thorough - not always the case with newsheet stories. It gave details on two very debilitating cancers - pancreatic and glioblastoma multiforme brain tumours. The research indicated there are a mind numbing array of factors that lead to the onset of these two deadly cancers. The article went on to conclude that "the disease may be too genetically complex for any magic bullet medicine to defeat it in the forseeable future".

One of the key researchers, Dr, Bert Vogelstein, then was quoted as saying: "It is, I think, apparent from studies like ours that it is going to be more difficult perhaps than previously expected to derive real cures from such [drug] therapies". Unfortunately, such drug therapies were NOT spelled out. Were they drug therapies that could be used like vaccines to prevent the onset of Cancer, which has been a new and active area of research? Or is it drug therapies that ultimately eradicate the target Cancers by disabling the Cancers' own biological pathways? Or is it drug therapies like the ones in Aids that use a battery of attack vectors that do not eliminate the Cancer entirely but render it non-lethal at the expense of constant treatments for the patient's life duration? Therefore the article was, despite its accuracy, not complete enough to make an important judgement on the nature of Cancer and its therapies. Nor to make a decision on whether the article's argument, that Cancer research is mis-directed because the disease is immune to magic bullet type drugs, is a reasonable conclusion. And if the conclusion is true then why tune into Stand-up to Cancer on network television or go on that Breast Cancer Walk to Defeat Cancer Once and For All other than for the physical exercise and/or personal catharsis ?

Cancer Cure Drives

The issue is important because here in Toronto Canada alone there are at least a dozen major drives To Cure Cancer in our Lifetime. Toronto has pre-eminent research work being done at Princess Margret Hospital and U of T on Cancer research. But perhaps of even greater impact is how drug research works.

For example, the CTV Network reported in mid Summer that very promising work on a common drug called DCA that appeared to attack a wide range of Cancers with low side effects in mice and human tissue samples. DCA works by restoring mitchondial function in Cancer cells inhibiting their ability to a)grow rapidly and b)postpone their own molting or death. Again the story seemed to be fairly complete but it raised some serious moral and economic issues.

The researchers at the University of Alberta pointed out that though the drug was generic and not hard to make and appeared to offer widespread effectiveness, it was not of interest to most commercial drug companies precisely because it is generic and therefore cannot be patented in order to secure for that drug company suffient patent protected profits. The net result was that the researcher was concerned that moneys to agressively and thoroughly investigate this drug would not be forthcoming.

Now again, the CTV story, though mentioning the issue fell short. Having raised this crucial issue, CTV left the most significant point uninvestigated and unaswered - are drug companies bypassing promising Cancer or other drug/alternative therapies because they cannot see their way to a guaranteed "patented" profit? On whose behalf is the federal government and the various Cancer drives working when taking on literally millions of dollars? Are patent or other blinders being put on by the very nature of the current extremely high cost and very profitable drugs used in some Cancer treatments? These crucial issues were clearly implied if not directly raised in the CTV story but not addressed.

And so this is the problem with Cancer coverage. The subject is a Wicked Problem with complexities that cross not just medical fields and technology but also raise economic, social, moral and ultimately political issues that cannot be covered in a one story hit. Yes, I cannot fault Metro News or CTV for raising the stories to front page and major TV coverage. It certainly broght forth issues that otherwise I and thousands of otherswould have been blissfully ignorant of.

But Cancer is wicked just like the Energy Crisis, Poverty and Immigration, or Outsourcing and Globalization. The challenge is how to report and follow these issues in a fashion that a) engages the public (here are two small successes) but also b) does not leave the public in the lurch on crucial issues. Let me suggest that this is no easy row to hoe.