Harvard Dana Farber Summary

I chose to write an essay about the “Topic of Cancer” by Christopher Hitchens. In this short autobiographical essay, Hitchens discusses his experience with Esophageal cancer. Just one day after lanching his book “Hitch-22” Hitchens was made aware of his illness, where he later describes the news as “taking me from the country of well, to the stark frontier.” It was then he chose to write about his experience for the purpose of documenting the changes that he, and his body were about to go through with chemotherapy, and also for the purpose of contemplating his current situation. The reason that I chose this story is because of my own personal experiences that I have had with many loved ones in my life. There is one case in particular that stands out in my memory, among the rest. It was when my friend of many years discovered that he had a very rare form of brain cancer. Soon after undergoing chemotherapy, he lost his battle. There are many people that believe chemotherapy at any stage is the best, and often times, the only way to cure cancer, yet others claim that chemotherapy is not the answer at all. A close analysis of recent statistics can settle this debate.

When it comes to cancer, so much of the world’s knowledge is based on statistics. For example, each day forty-six children, or more than two full classrooms of kids, are diagnosed with cancer and one out of every three hundred thirty people will develop cancer before the age of twenty. The simplest and most important of these statistics is this, “Cancer is the number one cause of death by disease in children.” Pediatric cancer takes the lives of more people than the number of children who die from asthma, diabetes, cystic fibrosis and pediatric AIDS combined! About one thousand three hundred and eighty children are expected to die from cancer this year alone. Although the cure rate of children with cancer is steadily increasing for most childhood cancers over the past five years, the number of children who will die is overwhelming and unacceptable.

From the beginning, Engelberg shows the struggle between the life threatening nature of cancer and dealing with

The prime condition of success ,the great secret ,is to concentrate my energy , thought ,and capital exclusively upon business in cancer .Having begun in research ,resolve to fight it out , to lead in it , adopt every improvement ,have the best machinery, and know the most about it .Two passions ,simple but overwhelmingly strong ,has governed my life : the search for knowledge and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.I have sought knowledge . I have wished to understand the causes of cancer . I have wished to know why people die . And I have tried to apprehend the breakthrough in cancer treatment written by Gleevec who discovered the approach was to target the disease at the cellular and subcellular level .A little of this ,but not much , I have achieved.I long to alleviate the pain of cancer . As the mathematician Jules Henri Poincare said, Science is built with facts just as a house is built with bricks .I would take approaches as many scientists do .Scientist start an investigation by finding out what other scientists have learned about a particular problem.After known the facts have been gathered , the scientist come to the part of the investigation that requires considerable imagination . Possible problem are formulated. The scientists plans experiments,performs calculations,and makes observations to test hypotheses.When hypotheses are confirmed ,they are incorporated into theories. If I become a scientist

Cancer, Is a disease that has claimed the lives of millions. This disease has no known cure at this time, this disease as many forms, breast cancer, ovarian cancer and even lung cancer. Cancer can be caused from someone’s diets,smoking, or other disease they could have like certain sexual transmitted disease. People’s health habits and how they take care of their self could determine if they would end up with cancer, and the discovering of Henrietta Lacks cancer relating to a disease changed the way cancer was viewed.

Children all around the world have cancer.Most of them survive because of treatment.Today more people are trying to find ways to cure cancer and every day we are getting better at finding the cure.

II. Thesis: Today I have the opportunity to inform you all about the number one childhood cancer, Leukemia, and also the new technologies we are using to help combat this disease.

Sidney Farber being alive seemed to have affected much of the cancer world miraculously and reading about such an intelligent individual who has impacted much of cancer and medicine world surprised me. Nevertheless, what surprised me and left a remarkable memory in my mind was how Farber’s death affected cancer. In detail, I felt surprised due to wondering how one man’s death could have caused a slowing to the discovery of a cure for cancer, “Theories were shattered; drug discoveries stagnated; trials languished; and academic meetings degenerated in all-out brawls.” (Mukherjee 193). Notably, Farber’s death made me realize how

Cancer. We all know someone who has suffered from it or has passed away because of it. Cancer now affects one in every three people, and is the second highest cause of death in the United States. For decades, the medical community has been on the hunt for a cure for cancer, and have been subjected to intense ridicule from the public because of a lack of progression toward a possible cure. In recent years, many scientists, doctors, researchers, and the general public have come to believe that the cure for cancer is being suppressed because of this lack of progress. Those who say it is suppressed claim that the drugs used to treat cancer actually cause cancer, making a patient sicker and sicker. As a result, the patients are forced to spend

Imagine that you are a detective, and you have just been assigned the most challenging murder mystery case. Everyone is depending on you to solve this mystery that has cost dozens of people their lives. However, there is a catch: you do not have any evidence, clues, or an overall starting place. Your job has now become nearly impossible. This arduous scenario is similar to that of finding a cure for cancer without scientific research. Finding a cure for cancer is thought of, by many, as infeasible and nearly impossible. Finding a cure to cancer is an extremely rigorous task, and without scientific research the job is even more challenging. Scientific research is the clue to solving the mystery of cancer. Research brings you closer and closer to the ultimate goal of curing cancer.

The cure would be the Holy Grail of the 21st century, the ultimate goal of humanity, its most noble cause. In 1971, the then President of the United States Richard Nixon, called scientists in the country and declared the famous "war against cancer." American banks, pharmaceutical companies, Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) and governments all over the world invested tens of billions of dollars on cancer research. Since then, the number of deaths from cancer increased, impacting more than just economic factors, it also had a huge impact on society. People started to learn more about self-care, things they could do such as using sunscreen, healthy eating habits and the importance of fitness, the danger of cigarettes and many other changes that could help prevent cancer. Therefore, the search for a possible cure for cancer has been motivating people in the

Many men and women are facing what we call the era of cancer. Cancer is now one of the most deadly diseases in world, without proper treatment, someone can die within just a couple weeks, month or years. Cancer cannot be labelled as one disease because there are many different assortments with this sickness. The world’s oldest documented case of cancer is 3500 years old, it was recorded on a papyrus, documenting eight cases of breast cancer. With this discovery, physicians could all join hand in hand to help find a solution for this disease. Throughout the years of finding, what is now one of the most deadly diseases in the world, doctors and scientist are working day and night around the clock to make sure patients are being

One of the many of the world's problems is sickness, but some diseases have no cure which can result in death. Cancer is a code we just can’t seem to crack and it has taken hundreds of thousands of lives. Everyone knows of someone who has died of or had cancer in their life. It’s a hard sickness to beat but many strong people do beat it, some being children. I have personally seen my family members go through this and of course, some didn’t make it out alive. If you have seen anyone who has cancer, you’ll see how it can take over your body, how that person doesn’t even look like themselves anymore.

Jack woke up one morning not feeling well. He felt very weak and could not get out of bed. His mother decided to take him to the doctors. The doctors took many tests to figure out what was making him feel that way. After about an hour or two the doctors got the results back from a blood test. Results that would change Jack’s childhood for the worse. Jack has been diagnosed with Leukemia, a blood cancer. Of course, Jack was not sure what that meant but, his parents became worried beyond belief with the long road ahead of them. Scientists and researchers were all involved in the discovery of Leukemia cancer, which increased knowledge of this cancer, decreased deaths and discovered treatments, and started charity groups to fund research.

Cancer, one of the most feared words in our vocabulary of this time, especially in childhood (Druker 1). Most people when thinking of “childhood cancer” envision very young children, although a “Nation Institute of Health Policy concerning inclusion of children in clinical research defines children as being younger than twenty-one years of age while the Food and Drug Administration considers children to be fifteen years and younger” (Ries 158). That being said, most cancers incidence peak among children occurs during the first year of life (Gurney 149). Some of the most well-known nationwide childhood cancers are leukemia, brain cancer, and other central nervous system cancers (oeconline 1). In conjunction, “the side effects of treatment,