Monday, November 05, 2007

Losing The War On Cancer.

This draft was written before the next post (Who Loves Irony). I have made no Changes.

Sunday, November 4th.

2 years ago today, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's IV. Tomorrow I have another full body CT to see how well I'm doing. Here's a great article on "The War". Dani got her book, "The Secret History of the War on Cancer", at a talk she gave recently. The author included a very sweet little personal note to me. Dani rocks. Enjoy. I've got to get back to the bottle. Cheers.

In related news - This weekend was the 2year anniversary of my diagnosis. I have a CT scan today. My 2yr radiation exposure total is:

1 MUGA (Multiple Gated Acquisition Scan) = 8mSv
4 PET scans = 28 mSv
10 full body CT scans = 120 mSv
Total = 156mSv

That's the radiation equivalent of 7800 chest x-rays. This, of course, is on top of the cancer causing agents administered intravenously to me to fight my cancer. Lung, Non-Hodgkin's, & Leukemia are some of my future worries.

And I'm assuming the scan will show what the scan 2 months ago showed. Yippee. Article

Off Target in the War on Cancer

By Devra Davis
Sunday, November 4, 2007; B01

We've been fighting the war on cancer for almost four decades now, since President Richard M. Nixon officially launched it in 1971. It's time to admit that our efforts have often targeted the wrong enemies and used the wrong weapons.

Throughout the industrial world, the war on cancer remains focused on commercially fueled efforts to develop drugs and technologies that can find and treat the disease -- to the tune of more than $100 billion a year in the United States alone. Meanwhile, the struggle basically ignores most of the things known to cause cancer, such as tobacco, radiation, sunlight, benzene, asbestos, solvents, and some drugs and hormones. Even now, modern cancer-causing agents such as gasoline exhaust, pesticides and other air pollutants are simply deemed the inevitable price of progress.

More:

Washington Post

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

People should read this.