CHICAGO — In 1971, after well-orchestrated appeals from representatives of the National Cancer Institute and from the world's wealthiest nonprofit, the American Cancer Society, Congress passed the National Cancer Act, which authorized a national cancer program. President Nixon quickly announced his "War Against Cancer," and the country was off and running.
Since then, we've been repeatedly assured that breakthroughs are imminent. In 1984, the NCI promised that cancer mortality would be halved by 2000. In 1998, we were assured by both the NCI and the American Cancer Society that the nation had "turned the corner" in the war. Just this year, NCI Director Andrew von Eschenbach pledged to "eliminate the suffering and death from cancer by 2015."
But after spending 30 years and some $50 billion, we are further from winning this war than when it was first declared. A recent government analysis of leading causes of mortality in the U.S. from 1973 to 1999 revealed that, although the percentage of the population dying from heart disease decreased by 21 percentage points during the period, cancer deaths increased by 30 percentage points. Some 1.3 million Americans are found to have cancer each year, and more than half a million die from it.
Paradoxically, it seems that the more we spend on cancer research, the more cancer we get. The steep rise in disease comes alongside a far steeper rise in the NCI's budget, which has shot up from $150 million in 1970 to its current $4.6 billion. Today, more than 40% of men and more than 1 in 3 women develop cancer during their lifetimes. Cancer has become a "disease of mass destruction." Incidences of breast, testicular, thyroid and lymph gland cancers have all risen sharply, as have cancer rates in African Americans and in children.
So how can we be spending more and still be losing ground? Because the cancer establishment's focus remains fixated on damage control -- screening, diagnosis, treatment and related basic research -- rather than on preventing cancer in the first place. The things on which we're spending money are important and fully deserve substantial funding. But much less spending on cures would be needed if more cancers were prevented.
