During the summer REU the other students and I are reading The Emperor of all Maladies book which covers a general biography of cancer. We are also participating in a weekly book club to discuss what we are learning from the book, how it relates to our research in the program, and how we can continue to improve cancer research based on what has already been done. This book does a good job tying the history of cancer research into patient and doctors’ stories to give a more personalized account on how the war on cancer affects us all.
This week we discussed the first few sections of part 1 of the book. In this discussion we talked about the importance of disease naming, mental health in patients with complex disease, changes in ethics codes throughout the past century, and the politics of science.
In disease naming we talked about ensuring that no discrimination is brought about by the naming of a disease. Most recently with people calling COVID-19 the “Chinese Virus” we have seen racist actions toward Asian communities in our nation. This is a prime example of the importance of naming a disease in an inclusion non-discriminatory way that ensures clear communication about what the disease is.
We also discussed the importance of doctors providing resources for mental health options and support groups when battling complex diseases such as cancer. Mental health and optimism have a great impact on overall outcome of the patient, so it is important that these resources are discussed and are not stigmatized.
Our group also communicated about how in the past scientists could immediately test their theories on actual patients and even children, but today we have much stricter codes of ethics and laws to protect patients and require lots of lab testing and clinical trials before making a treatment available to the public. These codes and laws have changed the way we improve treatment and while it is much slower to get a form of treatment out to patients it ensures safety and patient protection. In politics of science, we discussed how these lab tests and clinical trials are funded and how science is much more political than one would imagine as much of science is government funded. If a certain administration does not think that researching cancer is of the utmost importance, they can choose to move that funding toward something else. In the 1940s when cancer research funding was becoming important in America, WWII hit and funding for cancer was put into the war effort. It took a long time for cancer funding to start back up again after the war and this stall could have resulted in us being behind in the war against cancer.
All of these discussion topics will continue to be important for each of us in our scientific and engineering careers as we work to bring equitable, life-saving treatment and innovations to patients and civilians throughout the world. I am looking forward to continuing to read The Emperor of all Maladies and our future group discussions about the history of cancer, complex disease, and patient care and outcomes.
-Leah Gutzwiller | University of Tennessee Knoxville
