Cancer: Why We're Losing the 'War'

Since President Richard Nixon signed the Conquest of Cancer Act in 1971, the “war on cancer” in the U.S. has become a series of losing battles. Through taxes, donations, and private funding, Americans have spent almost $200 billion on cancer research since 1971. However, more than 500,000 Americans die of cancer every year, a 73 percent increase in the death rate since the “war” began.

Prevention Is Possible
Dr. John R. Seffrin, president of the International Union Against Cancer, said, “Cancer is potentially the most preventable and most curable of the major life-threatening diseases facing humankind.”  Both the International Union Against Cancer and the World Health Organization estimate that at least 2 million lives could be saved by 2020—and 6.5 million lives by 2040—if “immediate action” were taken to prevent and treat cancer.

Clinical studies have proved that smoking and consuming food that’s high in fat or animal protein are leading causes of cancer. The number one recommendation in the American Cancer Society’s “Guidelines on Nutrition and Physical Activity for Cancer Prevention” is to eat a diet “with an emphasis on plant sources.”  Researchers have found that vegetarians are between 25 and 50 percent less likely to suffer from cancer, even after taking smoking and other factors into account.

Of Mice and Men
Millions of mice (referred to as “preclinical models”) have suffered and lost their lives to futile cancer research. According to Massachusetts Institute of Technology biology professor Robert Weinberg, “[I]t’s been well known for more than a decade, maybe two decades, that many of these preclinical human cancer models have very little predictive power in terms of how actual human beings—actual human tumors inside patients—will respond. . . . [H]undreds of millions of dollars are being wasted every year by drug companies using these models.”  The New York Times reported that following preclinical tests on animals, only “one in 20 prospective cancer cures used in human tests reaches the market, the worst record of any medical category.”  Dr. Richard Klausner, former director of the National Cancer Institute (which has an annual budget of more than $6 billion for cancer research), was quoted as saying, “The history of cancer research has been the history of curing cancer in the mouse. We have cured mice of cancer for decades and it simply didn’t work in human beings.” , 

Ninety-four percent of cancer drugs that are shown to be safe and effective in animal tests fail in human clinical trials because they prove to be toxic or ineffective.

Critical Differences
Those who profit from animal experimentation claim that animals are physiologically similar to humans—similar enough to persuade us to believe that what happens in a rat, mouse, dog, cat, or nonhuman primate will occur in humans.

Although most animal cancers arise in the bone, connective tissue, or muscle (sarcomas), most human cancers arise in living membranes (carcinomas). Furthermore, animals who are confined to small laboratory cages, repeatedly manipulated, and otherwise subjected to pain and stress make very poor “models” of human cancer patients. These animals may be given highly concentrated doses of substances that a human being would never be exposed to or heavily irradiated to form cancerous tumors, or they may have human tumors grafted to their bodies (see our factsheet on Xenografts for more information).

Animal experimenters want a disposable “research subject” who can be manipulated as desired and killed when convenient, but their artificially created “animal models” can never really reflect the human condition.

Technologies and Treatments
Much of the research conducted in the name of curing cancer misses the mark: What kills human cancer victims 90 percent of the time is metastasis—when aggressive cells spread to other areas of the body. According to Fortune magazine’s investigation of the National Cancer Institute’s grants since 1972, only an alarming 0.5 percent of study proposals were dedicated to research on metastasis.

Alternatives to animal testing include replacing animal tests with non-animal methods, such as 3-dimensional in vitro models in which scientists grow actual human tumors surrounded by actual human tissue, allowing for controlled laboratory testing in an exact replica of in vivo human cancer. Comparative studies of human populations allow doctors and scientists to discover the root causes of human diseases and disorders so that preventive action can be taken. Epidemiological studies led to the discoveries of the relationship between smoking and cancer and to the identification of heart disease risk factors.  Microdosing is another promising alternative: Human subjects are given a drug dose that is one-hundredth of what would be expected to have an actual effect on the body, but sensitive measuring equipment is able to monitor the metabolism of the drug and allow scientists to predict the dangers or benefits of a full dose.

Of the three basic treatment methods available to people who are diagnosed with cancer today—surgical removal, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy—not one is guaranteed to be effective. If a cancer does go into remission following one of these treatments, there is no assurance that it will not reappear. Because radiation and chemotherapy treatments irradiate or poison normal tissues as well as cancerous ones, both can cause additional cancers and unbearable side effects. Animal testing has not helped these patients; if anything, it has held back progress in treatments.

What You Can Do
Take responsibility for your health by avoiding carcinogens. Stay away from animal-based foods (meat, eggs, and dairy products), tobacco, excessive radiation, artificial food additives and colorings, and pesticides in order to lower your risk of getting cancer.

Encourage medical charities and research agencies to develop and use clinical, epidemiological, and other non-animal research methods. If you donate to medical charities, write, “Not to be used for animal studies,” on your check because some organizations––including the March of Dimes, the American Cancer Society, the Canadian Cancer Society, and countless others—use donations to fund experiments on animals. Compassionate, modern charities, such as the National Children’s Cancer Society, Cancer Care, and the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade, know that non-animal methods are the best way to fight cancer. Visit HumaneSeal.org to find out which charities do and which do not fund research on animals.

References

1) Clifton Leaf, “The War on Cancer: Why We’re Losing the War on Cancer—and How to Win It,” Fortune 9 Mar. 2004.
2) International Union Against Cancer, “Concerted Global Action Is the Only Answer to Rising Cancer Deaths,” 3 Jun. 2003.
3) World Health Organization and International Union Against Cancer, Global Action Against Cancer 2005.
4) American Cancer Society, “Cancer Prevention and Early Detection: Facts and Figures, 2004,” 2004.
5) J. Chang-Claude et al., “Mortality Pattern of German Vegetarians After 11 Years of Follow-Up,” Epidemiology 3 (1992): 389-91.
6) Leaf.
7) Gardiner Harris, “New Drug Points Up Problems in Developing Cancer Cures,” The New York Times 21 Dec. 2005.
8) Andrew C. von Eschenbach, “The Nation’s Investment in Cancer Research: A Plan and Budget Proposal for FY 2006,” National Cancer Institute, Oct. 2004: 54.
9) Jerome Burne, “Danger Mouse,” The Times [U.K.] 30 Jul. 2002.
10) Susan Okie, “Access Before Approval—A Right to Take Experimental Drugs?” The New England Journal of Medicine 355 (2006): 437-40.
11) Leaf.
12) Christopher Anderegg et al., “A Critical Look at Animal Experimentation,” Medical Research Modernization Committee, 2002.
13) Kerri Smith, “The Human Guinea Pigs,” The Times [U.K.] 17 Dec. 2005.