Wednesday, January 4, 2012

There Won't Be a Single Cure for Cancer

Curing cancer: a reality check | Stronger Than Cancer

A great article, with the right perspective, and of course - it's from Canada. I don't know why organizations here can't publish thoughtful, realistic perspectives on the War on Cancer; it seems as though every article is just a promotion for drug companies, or fund raising for organizations looking for the "Cure".

There isn't going to be a single "Cure". There isn't going to be a cancer vaccine. There will be many ways to attack cancer - there already are many ways to attack cancer, many cancers respond to this, and many don't. We just need to move toward identifying the paths that will help us fight more and more cancers. Getting rid of cancer is going to be a long and slow process - but hopefully, with the right emphasis, it will be steady progress in the right direction.

But most important, for any of us who live outside the lab, and who aren't actively researching the 'cure' for each of these cancers, the point that was made - that we could cut cancer in HALF through prevention - is better than any treatments that are discovered for any particular type of cancer.

The article continues to list several lifestyle changes that can help prevent cancer - we also need to consider environmental causes and try to minimize that as well.

Begin with yourself, and your family, and your immediate environment to cut cancer rates. Then let's expand to our communities - reduce toxins from local industry, provide healthier foods in schools. And as a country we could do more - proper labeling or banning of GM foods, reduce (or eliminate) BPA packaging.

To me, this sounds more like a 'War on Cancer' than all the hundreds of targeted therapies we have yet to discover.

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