The cure for cancer

Submitted by Chris Hiley on Thu 10 Jun 10 - 09:58
in

For a while now I have been pondering the meaning of the phrase ‘the cure for cancer’. Personally, I find it a hollow banality which, whilst appearing to describe a useful concept, doesn’t have any real substance. The public have been fed on it since Edwardian times, possibly earlier and having been brought up on it are not going to let it go. 

'Cure' is only a legitimate expression in relation to infections but, even then, it is not true for all of those. Cancer has more in common with long term conditions, unless you get one of the really nasty ones or are diagnosed late. 'Cure' implies simple and single. We know cancer is neither simple, nor just one thing, so where does this half baked construct come from? It's for children, being a cross between a 21st century Fairy Tale and something we are supposed to whistle in the dark to keep our spirits up.

Nowadays, claims for cure-alls and panaceas are discussed dismissively, with figurative eye rolling for the naive fools who buy the remedies and quackery on offer. Somehow this doesn't extend to those who may buy into the idea of 'the cure for cancer'. That could be because it is a powerful fundraising message in cancer research. Inviting the public to question what it actually means, based on current knowledge and expectations could have major financial consequences. Or, maybe, it has merely achieved a special status in public consciousness over the last hundred years which has put it beyond questioning.

It certainly isn’t any form of professional expression. If ever uttered by cancer scientists, doctors or nurses, it is clearly said with audible ‘quotation marks’. I have no clear idea how the general public commonly understands 'the cure for cancer' and I suspect it means different things to different people, though everyone assumes a shared meaning. It is as ambiguous as ‘beating cancer’ and the ‘all clear’, its stablemates in popular and equally tiresome figures of speech.

The ‘cure for cancer’ does enthral the public. It is, according to the rhetoric, one of the biggest challenges to humanity, as it is still largely resistant to application of our considerable knowledge, resources and imagination. One day we will overcome it, so the story goes. We know the high profile of cancer also attracts charlatans with miracle cures, expensive alternative treatments, diets, fads and most invidiously the moral blackmail method where, if the treatment fails, it is not the treatment that was ineffective, but you. It was your fault for not doing it right or not believing hard enough.
 
Fundraisers for cancer research may like 'the cure for cancer' and sell their nostrum of 'research' for it. I, on the other hand, neither believe in nor like 'the cure for cancer'.
 
Cancer research, though, is another much more interesting, much more meaningful ambition.