Written By: Chelsea Hoenes, Staff Writer
The American Cancer Society and Susan G. Komen for the Cure have been the forerunners of cancer awareness in America, spearheading Breast Cancer Awareness Month since its creation in 1985. The entire month of October is awash with pink ribbons and breast cancer awareness banners for the purpose of raising both the morale of breast cancer survivors, and increasing awareness of the beginning stages of breast cancer, in hopes of more easily facilitating early detection and prevention.
The moral significance of such organizations is incontestable, bringing together cancer survivors and those affected by cancer under a banner of devotion to a worthy cause indeed changes lives. In addition, prevention assures that cancer will not develop into a problem for you or your loved ones.
Both the American Cancer Society and Susan G. Komen for the Cure make no claims that finding a cure for cancer is at the forefront of their organizational agendas. Cancer prevention and awareness and not research in finding cures for cancer have been the focal points of funding by both organizations, according to information available on both of their websites.
Indeed, both have been criticized for what has been suggested as disingenuous marketing in their respective “For the Cure” campaigns. An enormous degree of funding rolls into both establishments, yet such incredible monetary funding has not yet proven an operational measure of developing a cure for cancer.
“All in all, I believe there is a cure for cancer, but big medical makes more money off of your suffering archaic treatment plans than off of you alive and healthy,” says Zachary Lilliston-Courtright, a modeling and simulation major here at Old Dominion University.
In 2007, University of Alberta scientists had uncovered an extremely promising new treatment for cancer involving DCA, dichloroacetate, that considerably decreased the growth of cancer tumors in animal subjects.
The journal article was published in the Multidisciplinary Journal of Cancer Research in Dec. 2007, but has curiously not received significant attention by the American Cancer Society or Susan G. Komen for the Cure. DCA is extremely cost-effective and has been used successfully on human subjects for many years.
It seems so peculiar that this research, with such colossal implications for the treatment of cancer, has been dutifully ignored by large-scale drug industries and cancer research foundations.
DCA has very limited toxicity and is such a simple molecule that it requires no patent. Perhaps, then, it does not seem so implausible that Breast Cancer Awareness Month was founded by a partnership of both the American Cancer Society and Imperial Chemical Industries which is known these days as AstraZeneca.
This being the case, we may ask ourselves if we are being fooled by the drug industry into neglecting more viable opportunities for research.
It would seem more advisable to make out donation checks to small-scale, private organizations and universities that have verifiable and noted research, published in peer-reviewed journals, instead of huge corporations that have strong ties within the drug industry.
“I think if more public attention was directed towards researching the search for a cure, a greater good would be served,” says Jesse Bueno, an ODU junior.
Cancer prevention is and will remain a cornerstone in saving lives from the disease, but to those currently suffering from cancer, the best hope lies outside the scope of mere prevention, and with those studies that provide viable hope for a real cure.
