Colton Chacon

Taking Sides ePortfolio

November 30, 2015

Are We Winning the War on Cancer?

In this Taking Sides reading assignment, the topic at hand is that of Cancer. The articles
in the reading are of opposing viewpoints on our progress thus far, in finding a cure. Each article
gives their arguments on whether or not we are ahead, or behind, of someday winning the war
with this disease.
The first article is from the viewpoint that, yes, we are in fact progressing significantly in
our efforts of detection and healing, and are on the brink of ultimately finding a cure for Cancer.
This article is from a speech given by John R. Seffrin, who is the president of the American
Cancer Society.
Seffrin argues that there is now enough research that has been done over the many years
of studying cancer to provide us with the evidence needed to suggest that we are close to finding
a cure. He also states that it is not only the actual research of the disease and development of new
ways to manage and cure it, but that there has also been a major increase in the awareness that
has been brought to the public in ways to live healthier lifestyles to help decrease our overall
chances of ever being diagnosed with it. Seffrin believes that the combination of science, public
health, and the involvement of government and public policy procedures, is the key combination
of ensuring major advancement and, possibly, a cure for cancer. He goes on to highlight the lack
of effective actions being taken in ways to manage and cure patients, despite the amount of
evidence that has been gathered over the last 60 years, as well as mentioning how over 2,200
communities nationwide now have smoke-free laws which contribute to public health, but that
the U.S., overall, has failed to ratify a public health treaty, which, as of 2006, 131 other countries
have already done.
The second article, which is for the opposing opinion from the first, comes from Reynold
Spector, who is a physician and professor of medicine. Spectors view of the our progress in
cancer research is one that weighs heavily on the length of time that we have been studying
cancer overall, and compares that to a number of statistics showing where we now stand in terms
of available and effective treatments that are being offered, as well as the amount of money
spent both for research and the cost to the patients, for the drugs, and treatments.

Colton Chacon

Taking Sides ePortfolio

November 30, 2015

Spector argues that the research being done and statistics being provided, for the
argument that we are, in fact, winning this ongoing battle with cancer, are done with a lot of bias,
and even the reports of the statistics, are only that of successes, and not of any failures or short
comings. So it may be easy to say that we are doing very well in our efforts, but that is only
because we are only being given a small portion of what is being seen.
A second, very large, part of Spectors argument is the statement that, despite all of our
findings, both good and bad, we still do not know much of anything about the actual causes of
cancer or even the specific characteristics of developed cancer cells. There is simply too much of
the unknown still, to say that we are almost in the realm of overcoming, especially because, as
Spector states, the drugs and treatments that we do currently have, although sometimes can be
highly successful in rare cases, are not even specific type treatments. Meaning that they are not
formulated to target the exact cells that are causing the cancel but are, more or less, just killing
off everything in sight in hopes that the cancerous cells will die off with everything else. So we
are not even able to make a specific drug for some of the types of cancers which we claim to
know a whole lot about.
I am on the fence, as they say, on the idea of where we stand in terms of progress
for finding a cure, mostly because the optimistic part of me wants to think that we are close to
finding a cure for and possibly ending a disease that takes the lives of so many people each year.
Also, because I know, or know of, so many people that have been diagnosed with some form of
cancer and have seen it successfully treated.
Unfortunately, for my optimistic side, I am going to stand firm with the side of me that
thinks along the same lines as Reynold Spector. Based on the some of the reasons that he
provided, along with some of what I have read this semester from my biology textbook about
cell replication, and recent cases of cancer, that people I know have been diagnosed with, I just
dont, that we currently understand enough about cancer to say that we are close to finding a cure
for it.

Colton Chacon

Taking Sides ePortfolio

November 30, 2015

There are simply too many different types of cancer, all of which we do not know what
the cause is. The cause for all of these types of cancer cells could be the same thing, but it easily
could all be something completely different. And if we do find what it was that caused one
persons specific type of cancer, who is to say that if that same type of cancer showed in another
person that the same cause would be revealed, at which point there is no correlation in the
causation between the two, nor would it be a move forward in determining how best to treat it,
and we are back at square one.
As Spector states in that article there are over 500 identifiable genetic abnormalities in
some cancers, all of which could be, or could not be the one that causes the disease, and in the
situation mentioned above, if we find which one did, and then another comes along and that
same one is not even present or is simply not the cause, then it has almost no relevance based on
the amount of possible combinations.
For a lot of cases of cancer diagnosis, it does not come about with any warning signs.
One day you could feel perfectly normal and the next day you could have a little stomach pain,
in which you only decide to go get checked out on a whim, only to find out that you have
metastatic carcinoma with signet ring features, which is very developed already and comes with
a low rate of survival. At this point we are already ten steps behind our enemy in this fight
against it, and therefore we may be simply playing catch up for a very long time, before we gain
any ground.
For all of these reasons, I think that, while we have advanced our position so much in
even the last decade and we are making strides in the quest to find a cure, cancer is simply too
vast a subject and varies too much for us currently to comprehend how it works, and therefore
are a long way from any type of actual cure.