Brandon Ingram Biology 1090 Salt Lake Community College Taking Sides Readings Issue Number 4 Title of Issue:

Are We Winning the War on Cancer

1. John R. Seffrin, the American Cancer Society president, believes that we are winning the war against cancer and that it is possible to eliminate the disease as a major public health problem. 2. Reynold Spector, a physician and professor of medicine, believes that the gains made against cancer have been limited and that overall there has been very little progress in the war on cancer. 3. A. Two facts presented by the Yes side. a. In the battle against lung cancer, more than 2,200 communities across the United States have enacted laws preventing the use of tobacco products inside public buildings. b. 131 Countries across the globe, as of June 20, 2006, have ratified the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. 3. B. Two facts presented by the No side. a. In the year 2006, 559,888 deaths were due to Cancer. This total accounts for 23.1% of all of the deaths that occurred. b. The most common cancer is Lung Cancer, which is the cause of 28% of cancer deaths. 4. A. Two opinions presented by the Yes side. a. They believe that we know what needs to be done and what it will take in order to win the war on cancer. b. They continuously claim that if the right things are done, cancer can be eliminated from being a major health problem here in the US within this century. 4. B. Two opinions presented by the No side. a. The author states that in his view, the main problem facing us in the war on cancer is that we dont understand what causes most cancers. b. The author also says that we cannot make any real progress on curing cancer until we know what mechanisms, of items we know to cause cancer, cause cancer. For example, we know that smoking causes lung cancer, but we dont know why smoking causes cancer. 5. My biggest issue with the yes argument was the qualifier If we do the right things. I dont recall reading his clarification of what the right things are anywhere in the article. For example, towards the beginning of the article when he lists his four facts of life that form the core of his message. 2. We can eliminate cancer as a major health problem in the US in this century, if we do the right things. I feel that his article would have had a greater impact on me if, instead of using if we do the right things, he had written, If we adhere to completing the following tasks. Then let us know what his ideas are, and, if necessary, expand on it in paragraphs that follow. The author makes statements such as, They continue to experience unnecessary suffering and death not because we dont know how to prevent it or detect it early or treat it, but because we refuse to ensure that all people in all nations including our own have equal access to lifesaving cancer advances, the author then makes no reference to where any of his information comes from. The author seems to be trying to play more towards the emotional side of the argument, rather than showing any kind of data to support his argument.

6. One problem I noticed right at the start of this article was that the author focuses on adult cancer, and claims that child cancer makes up less than 1% of all diagnosed cancers. He does not say where this statistic comes from, and while could be true, how am I as a reader supposed to know that, unless I now go and look it up? In this article there is a paragraph titled Where Should We Go from Here? In this section of his article, he gives his view on what he thinks would be the best way to go in finding a cure for cancer. This could be a great solution to the problem, but he does not provide any data to support his views. 7. Overall, I feel that Reynold Spector and his article supporting the no side of the issue was more empirical in presenting his thesis. While there were a few instances that I felt he could have provided more support for his article, he was very thorough in providing where he got his statistical information from. In almost all of his tables he would say where the information for the table came from, and he would refer the readers to the tables when presenting the information in the article. 8. The main reason that I can see as to why one of the writers would be biased, would be if they had a friend or family member that might have survived or died from cancer. One other bias that might be present is due to the author of the article supporting the Yes side being the president of the American Cancer Society 9. I feel that this is a tough subject to choose one side over the other. I do feel that we have made several great strides in this war against cancer, but I would have to say that I do believe that we are still a long way away from curing cancer. There are still too many variables that we have to account for in finding a cure. As was stated in the no side of the issue there are still many causes for cancer that we do know of, and I agree that we do need to discover these causes before we can cure them.