Conquering Cancer
At a Los Angeles convention last week, world cancer specialists unveiled dazzling new cancer drugs that promise to take treatment far beyond the scattershot chemotherapies that kill good cells and bad ones alike. The drugs range from Herceptin, which attacks the genetic defects that cause many breast cancers, to Angiostatin, which deprives tumor cells of the nutrients they need to survive.
Genentech hopes to have Herceptin on the market by fall, but most of the other new treatments have yet to be tested on people. The history of cancer research is riddled with drugs that have saved mice but failed humans.
In the excitement surrounding cancer treatment, legislators in Washington are lining up to champion new research funding. In its enthusiasm, Congress should be careful not to put too many strings on the funds or to slight promising areas of research like environmental epidemiology in favor of trendy biotechnology.
For instance, Minnesota Rep. James L. Oberstar’s call for $200 million more for the National Breast Cancer and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program makes sense because the incidence of both cancers is growing and early detection pays off in cures. But at least some of the $500 million that Democrat Oberstar and other legislators want to earmark for breast cancer research may be better spent studying the common genesis of all cancers.
The biggest problem with the “war on cancer” that former President Richard Nixon declared in 1971 is that while it put billions of dollars into genetic and drug research, it slighted what many leading scientists regard as a significant cause of rising cancer rates in the developed world: environmental toxins.
More than 75,000 pesticides, detergents, solvents and other synthetic chemicals have been introduced into the environment since World War II, yet epidemiologists say that more than 95% have never been tested for cancer-causing properties. Some of these chemicals, scientists believe, may account for recent growths in cancer rates that cannot be explained by the fact that people are simply living long enough to contract more cancers. Since 1950, for instance, the incidence of childhood cancers, particularly of the brain, has increased by over 20%. Similarly, the incidence of breast cancer is 1 in 8 today compared with 1 in 20 in 1940; the increase is too dramatic to be explained by an aging population and better detection. Moreover, numerous studies have shown that when women migrate to the United States from countries with low cancer incidence, such as Korea, they rapidly acquire the higher U.S. cancer rate.
Nevertheless, even the most ardent supporters of cancer funding increases tend not to support research or regulation of general environmental toxins--the things we all eat and breathe, as opposed to unhealthy choices like smoking. The Clinton administration, for instance, pledged in 1993 to reduce the use of carcinogenic pesticides in food production because of the risks to children. But levels of higher-risk pesticides on fruits and vegetables heavily consumed by U.S. children have actually increased since then.
Cancer research has indeed taken a significant step forward; as Johns Hopkins researcher Bert Vogelstein puts it, “The black box that was the cancer cell has been opened.” But most treatments are still experimental and Congress should fund efforts not only to repair genetic defects and kill tumors, but to investigate the environmental factors that may trigger those biological mishaps in the first place.
