Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies Online

Excellent presentation of a complex disease, or should I say diseases. As a cancer survivor myself and also surviving my brother's loss to colon cancer, this documentary both answered and raised questions for me. It should be a MUST SEE for anyone who has been touched by this dreadful malady. The presentation is a straight-forward look at an unbelievably large subject. Both difficult and hopeful, it makes a confusion of medical and scientific information as understandable as possible. It covers a long history of research, the raised hopes, the pitfalls of over-anxious treatments, and the varied impacts (physical, emotional, financial) that is involved in this malady known as cancer. You may need to watch it with a box of tissues handy or a punching bag to relieve the shared frustrations that comes with cancer, but watch it, indeed. You will not regret it and it will give you a strong education and continuing food for thought.

So I'm watching the 6 hour Ken Burns/PBS, "Cancer: Emperor of all Maladies" and I'm bashing my head against the wall, it's so frustrating to watch.

They interview like 6 Nobel prize winners for cancer research in the documentary, and every time they understand something new about cancer, immediately they discuss working on a "new chemotherapy treatment".

--> **Food quality, air quality, water quality, lifestyle choices, are not discussed in this 6 hour documentary on cancer** <-- I kid you not.

Dr. Sidney Farber found a chemical in the 1940's that helped leukemia kids survive for a couple months longer. People were amazed, a new children's hospital was built, and innumerable chemicals started getting tested on kids, giving us chemotherapy today.

In the 1960's there were 3 schools of thought on the cause of cancer: viruses (e.g. Epstein-Barr), chemicals from the environment, and genes. All have validity.

Eventually they figure out that every cell in the body is capable of mutating into cancer given the right circumstances. In 1971, Nixon announces during the State of the Union address a "war on cancer". Billions of dollars are dedicated to it in the coming years and everyone thinks progress is being made. A statistician comes around in the 1980's and shows, much to everyone's chagrin, that in fact, no, were are not making much progress on cancer.

The first episode describes how the tobacco industry "brilliantly" clouded the issue on cigarette safety 50 years ago...and then this documentary proceeds to do *the exact same thing*.

They say we have no idea what causes cancer: "It's very complicated", "We can't pin anything down". The epidemiologist interviewed about Love Canal, NY couldn't produce any link between the 20,000 barrels of toxic waste in the ground and cancer. Seriously?

Its mind numbing. They identified "chemicals" as a possible cause in the 60's, but there is no follow up. Where is the section identifying carcinogens that cause normal cells to mutate into cancerous ones? Where is the section on clean food (with natural antimutagens) *preventing* cells from mutating?

Not one diet recommendation: "Steer clear of sugar, avoid trans fats, careful with mercury in tuna, watch your red meat intake" -nothing. Its like the entire industry is in denial on food. I would love to know exactly when these doctors stopped believing "we are what we eat".

The medical establishment's approach to and treatment of cancer is completely wrong. Instead of working on prevention through cleaner food and a cleaner environment and researching treatments that compliment the body (primarily diet and lifestyle), they run around like chickens with their heads cut off for the last 40 years looking for crazy chemical drugs to give us.

A big disservice of a documentary. Keeping people in the dark on what causes cancer and then promoting chemotherapy as the best way to develop treatments? Terrible.

A sad chapter in American history. An unconscionable waste of time, money, and effort spent going down the wrong road.

A raging against the dying of the light, but skewed by its pathological worldview: its unswerving focus on symptoms and utter disregard for holistic causes(environmental/nutritional/emotional/spiritual);its treatment of the body as a Petri dish; its utter commitment to a laboratory-cure and indifference to the sanctity of death and dying.

And yet I could not help but marvel at the heroics of it all. I was reminded of my reading of Scott and Amundsen's race for the South Pole ,or Detective Monk's intractable determination to find his wife's killer. But the human body is afflicted by a far worse killer than cancer. It is afflicted by a death sentence lamented by King David in Psalm 90: The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away

The cure for cancer will not do much to lengthen this sentence. If we do not die of cancer or heart disease we may die of something far worse such as Alzheimer's. We must all die of something, and cancer is, for many of us, simply one way the body bids us farewell. It seldom attacks the young (less than 1% of children) and so I wander at our refusal to accept this way of dying.

I have only watched episode 1 so far. It is educational, but difficult to watch. Not for the faint hearted. While I do understand that everything that was done to people with cancer in the past was considered "the best they could" at the time, I still see it as barbaric. Unfortunately the same continues these days, nothing really changed,just looks more sophisticated. We still have no idea how a human body works, let alone understand it on a cellular level. There are 2 modern day children cancer cases included in the episode 1. I wish I had not watched it. What we do to children in my opinion is a crime. No different than medical experiments that were conducted during WWII on prisoners. They too were powerless. We address our own emotions pushing all kind of experimental and extreme s called treatments on the innocent children who can't decide for themselves. While you do want your child to live happily ever after, your decision to subject them to inhumane suffering is beyond cruel. Let them die the most humaine way possible is the way to go. Instead they die in agony. And it is the parents who subject them to that. We must embrace that death is inevitable and don't prolong life at any cost. I just wanted to strangle all the doctors in this documentary. A friend of mine had said thank you,but NO to chemo,radiation and surgery. He lived 5 beautiful years controlling his cancer with his mind only. He would have been dead after his first chemo.