Failure Wrong Diagnosis in War Against Cancer, Say Congress and Medical Writers as American Cancer Research Convention Begins; Bob Weiner, Pat Berg Op-ed in Washington Times

WASHINGTON, April 18 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As 17,000 cancer scientists converge on Washington through Wednesday for the American Association for Cancer Research convention, "their frustration is clear," assert Bob Weiner, former White House Drug Policy spokesman and former Chief of Staff of the House Aging Committee, and Professor Patricia Berg, director of a cancer laboratory at George Washington University Medical Center.  "Mainstream media like the New York Times to books like The Politics of Cancer (and its sequel The Politics of Cancer Revisited) assert that we are 'losing the winnable war against cancer.'  Samuel Epstein, the books' author, says it's a 'myth that there has been any dramatic progress.'  The Times uses negative headlines like 'A Roller Coaster Chase for a Cure', 'Dashed Hopes', and 'Falling Short'."

Weiner and Berg, in an op-ed in Monday's Washington Times, "Failure is the Wrong Diagnosis," contend that "progress is incontrovertible.  The researchers who inhabit the benches of our laboratories have in fact made enormous strides against the nation's second leading killer.  It is true that cancer still kills 560,000 Americans annually.  However, the death rate from all cancers has been dropping 1% a year each year over the past two decades, and there has been a similar 1% annual decrease in the rate of new diagnoses."

Weiner and Berg add that Dr. Francis Collins, the Director of the National Institutes for Health, at the National Press Club talked about a "direct line from NIH research to the life span increases" that have expanded the average life from ending at 62 to 78 just in the last fifty years."

Weiner and Berg, who interviewed Collins, say he "is infuriated by those who claim there is failure in the nation's efforts against cancer."  Collins told them, "We now have smart bombs" -- what he calls the genetic and pharmaceutical attacks against the disease. "The incidence of cancer is falling for the first time.  Is that 'failure'?" he asked.

The authors continue, "The most dramatic indicators that the DC region sees of true progress are the breast cancer survivors who run or walk each year in the Komen Race for the Cure and the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer."

ARTICLE: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/19/failure-is-the-wrong-diagnosis/print/

Contact: Bob Weiner or Patricia Berg 301-283-0821/202-306-1200

SOURCE Robert Weiner Associates