Is Cancer Research Being True to the Legacy of Terry Fox?

by Rick Hendershot, Beat Prostate Cancer Blog For the last couple of years at this time of the year (mid September) I've managed to get into at least one very emotional argument about the objectives and success rate -- or lack-of-success rate -- of cancer research. The reason is that this weekend marks the end of Terry Fox's "Marathon of Hope" that took place in 1980. Terry was the young Canadian who after having his leg amputated because of cancer decided he would run across Canada to raise money for cancer research. After 142 days of running 26 miles a day (a marathon a day), and after 3339 miles, Terry had to end his run near the city of Thunder Bay, Ontario on September 1, 1980. His cancer had returned, and this time it was in his lungs. Several months later while still just 22 years old Terry succumbed to cancer. His initial objective had been to raise roughly 25 millions dollars. That goal was actually met before he died, due to donations and pledges made during his run and during a telethon held shortly after he was forced to quit. In that short spring and summer of 1980 Terry had become one of Canada's most important and inspirational heroes, and the legacy of the "Marathon of Hope" has lived on for more than 25 years. The annual "Terry Fox Run" continues to be held annually across Canada, the US, and other countries around the world. According to Wikepedia, the Terry Fox Run has now raised more than $400 million for cancer research. Are we further ahead after $400 million? For Canadians Terry Fox is the ultimate hero, and this makes it sacreligious to even suggest that all is not well with the Marathon of Hope and the "cancer research" that it fuels. Nevertheless I think Terry himself would be surprised that we are not further along the road to a "cure for cancer" after raising and devoting such an amazingly large amount of money to that cause. Indeed, I think we have good reason to suspect that the cancer research industry may have become a cushy gravy train for a few thousand fund raisers and researchers. Worst case scenario it may be little more than an arm of the pharmaceutical and chemical industries. (For an interesting article that gives some details about the agenda of the America Cancer Society, go to American Cancer Society: The World's Wealthiest "Nonprofit" Institution. At the very minimum it seems to me a perfectly legitimate question to ask "How much 'cure' has this $400 million bought us?" I don't know. But I suspect it is not a lot. I may be hopelessly behind the times, but it seems to me that most of the "cures" being practised these days are pretty much like the ones that were being used back in 1980 -- surgery, chemo, radiation. Of course we are told that cure rates have substantially improved. But these statistics are easily manipulated, and advocates of continuing the current research regime have such a vested interest in pointing to their success that their claims have to be met with at least mild scepticism. One source that confirms this scepticism is this quote from a 1998 article called " Cancer Research -- a Super Fraud?" "My overall assessment is that the national cancer programme must be judged a qualified failure" Dr. John Bailer, who spent 20 years on the staff of the U.S. National Cancer Institute and was editor of its journal. (3) Dr. Bailer also says: "The five year survival statistics of the American Cancer Society are very misleading. They now count things that are not cancer, and, because we are able to diagnose at an earlier stage of the disease, patients falsely appear to live longer. Our whole cancer research in the past 20 years has been a total failure. More people over 30 are dying from cancer than ever before . . . More women with mild or benign diseases are being included in statistics and reported as being 'cured'. When government officials point to survival figures and say they are winning the war against cancer they are using those survival rates improperly." I'm sorry if this all sounds disrespectful to the memory of Terry Fox. But I wonder if a 22 year old trying to run 5,000 miles across Canada with one leg would be happy to learn that his legacy was being used to do little more than enrich corporations and researchers? Would Terry be happy to see that some cancer society branches in the US devote only about 10% of the funds they raise to the actual delivery of cancer services? Would he be pleased to learn that the efforts of researchers and fund raisers might actually be standing in the way of real progress in the fight against cancer? Personally I think he would be pretty pissed.