Fighting a Smarter War

We are quickly coming up on the 40th anniversary of the War on Cancer: Nixon signed the National Cancer Act on December 23, 1971. This act strengthened the National Cancer Institute and increased funding for cancer research. In signing the act into law, Nixon used the phrase "War on Cancer," making the search for a cure into a big ol' battle.

The war has, of course, had mixed results. (Don't they all?) We've certainly made a ton of progress in 40 years, though we're still far from wiping out all cancer.

Medscape.com, a service which publishes and promotes medical research, has a nice video previewing a symposium taking place next month in Washington, DC. The symposium is called "Fighting a Smarter War Against Cancer: Linking Policy to Patient," and will get at some of the policy issues (political, economic, and cultural) that have complicated the War on Cancer.

The symposium will be chaired by Dr. John Marshall, who is the subject of the Medscape video interview. He previews some of the issues in the current version of the War on Cancer: differences in emphasis in cancer research; the problems of implementing personalized medicine; and, perhaps greatest of all, the cost of cancer treatment.

The video doesn't solve any problems (and I'm guessing the 3 day symposium won't either, given how big the problem is), but it does bring up some interesting issues. It's nice to see that so many people are interested in the Big Issues surrounding cancer, in addition to all of those who fight the day-to-day battles.