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The Truth In Small Doses: Why We're Losing The War On Cancer-and How To Win It (2013)

by Clifton Leaf(Favorite Author)

4.22 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1476739986 (ISBN13: 9781476739984)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Simon & Schuster

review 1: Clifton Leaf's "The Truth in Small Doses: How We're Losing the War on Cancer - and How to Win It" deals with a topic that has touched many people's lives, including mine (my father passed away from cancer). Mr. Leaf discusses how funds have been misspent in cancer research, how the nation's most promising young scientists pursue work in other areas, how scientists are reluctant to share information and collaborate enough, and how pharmaceuticals are expensive yet usually ineffective. He points out that many in the 'cancer culture' are more interested in publishing than achieving breakthroughs. Unfortunately, members of my family witnessed that first hand. My father had been diagnosed with a rare cancer that most in his medical team did not have any experience with. Some on... more this team seemed more interested in 'studying' him than treating him. Hopefully works like Mr. Leafs raises awareness of many of the problems surrounding the current war on cancer and inspires change. I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the subject. This book was won from the Goodreads.com website in exchange for a review.
review 2: The "War on Cancer" fizzled from it's beginning in 1971. That is the premise of Leaf's book on Cancer and why we have such little progress even today as other areas in Medicine are advancing rapidly (say, Cardiology). The number of cases keeps mounting, and if it were not for earlier detection, the incidence of cancer would also be growing. This book is a diagnosis of what went wrong and what can be done about it. The dysfunction appears to be in the poor management of the "war" and the growth of a cancer research system that actually resembles the growth of cancer in the body...rapid and aimless. The mushrooming system of grant, grant applications, grant evaluations, the narrow target-drug strategy, etc, literally sucks the resources from the actual scientific effort! The 'publish or perish' mentality, the endless clinical trail process, the lack of standardization of nomenclature and tissue collection...all of these contribute to the dysfunction. So, the system needs a pretty radical change. Leaf lists "7" changes that need to happen now. They all address the issues listed above, but his most salient point is that this war needs some professional management, some command and control, some engineering mentality. I enjoyed this read almost as much as I was troubled by it. After all, now that I am 65, the diagnosis of Cancer is probably just around the corner. I would like to think someone is taking the cancer war seriously. less

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