Evans: Ken Burns takes on cancer
With his usual genius for focusing in on what defines the U.S. as a nation, Ken Burns has made a fascinating documentary about the country’s multi-generational effort to defeat cancer. Sharing the title of the book by Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, “Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies” ran on PBS last week.
Burn’s documentary reveals how cancer’s deadly toll prompted a national effort to discover a cure. President Richard Nixon declared a War on Cancer in 1971, committing $100 million in federal funds and promising on-going government support for cancer research.
By 1972, total funding for cancer had reached $1.4 billion. This huge infusion of money and public interest attracted some of the nation’s top scientists, many with innovative ideas about how to find a cure.
One of the first important clues came from drug trials to treat childhood leukemia patients, including some in Mississippi under the care of Dr. Jeanette Pullen at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. No one drug can stop cancer by itself. Cancer cells quickly adapt to any drug’s threats, so a tailored regimen of drugs works best.
Medical researchers determined by the 1970’s that cancer is basically a genetic disease. Genetic mutations in human DNA increase the risk of most if not all kinds of cancer. Actress Angelina Jolie educated the world about the risks of the BRCA mutation with her decision to first have a preventative double mastectomy, and this year to have her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed to avoid the risk of ovarian cancer.
President Bill Clinton gave cancer research another boost in the 1990’s by promoting the mapping of our genetic make-up in the Human Genome Project. The result was a kind of Google map for normal human DNA, which made the gene mutations linked to cancer easier to spot. Unfortunately, the genetic complexity of cancer turned out to be more complex than anyone had guessed. Scientists found most cancers were linked to several genetic mutations; there was no one event that caused cancer.
At first, new drugs regularly followed research discoveries about cancer and how it works. But as it became apparent, treatment must be tailored not only to the particular cancer but also to genetic makeup, the development of new drugs has slowed.
The cost of new drugs has shot up from around $5,000 to $10,000 a year in 2000 to about $100,000 a year in 2012. Many health insurance plans will not cover the full costs of these drugs; instead they raise co-pays until they become next to unaffordable for many cancer sufferers. The result is that cancer can be a financial as well as a medical catastrophe for families.
Preventing cancer in the first place can mean reducing cancer triggers like smoking and obesity. Yale researchers estimate 8 million lives have been saved over the past 50 years as the nation’s attitudes about smoking and other tobacco use have changed.
Today two-thirds of the people diagnosed with cancer will beat the disease. Many will learn to live with treating cancer like any other chronic disease. Nationwide, cancer mortality is down over 20 percent over the past 20 years. The newest research on ramping up the patient’s own immune system response to cancer promises that more lives will be saved.
While the War on Cancer has not found the anticipated single Cancer Cure, it has led to better understanding of this Emperor of All Maladies and to better treatment. Most cancer patients can now be restored to good health and again lead normal lives.
The Great War on Cancer reminds us just what our nation is capable of when we put a combination of significant tax dollars and some of our top minds to work.
Lynn Evans is a past Jackson School Board Member and a contributing columnist.