Politics, Science And Cancer

Politics, Science And Cancer

Author: Gerald E. Markle

Publisher: Routledge

ISBN: 9781000307573

Category: Social Science

Page: 208

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At no time in U.S. history has there been a more effective challenge to medical expertise and authority than that mounted by the contemporary Laetrile movement. The efficacy of Laetrile has been debated for over twenty-five years, but despite vigorous opposition from the medical community, support for the purported cancer treatment continues to gro

The Cancer Wars

The Cancer Wars

Author: Robert N. Proctor

Publisher:

ISBN: STANFORD:36105012406505

Category: Science

Page: 376

View: 950

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If cigarettes cause up to 30 percent of all cancer, why has so little been done to discourage their production? And why does the National Cancer Institute spend only 3 percent of its budget on antitobacco efforts?

The Art and Politics of Science

The Art and Politics of Science

Author: Harold Varmus

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

ISBN: 9780393073560

Category: Biography & Autobiography

Page: 256

View: 129

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A Nobel Prize–winning cancer biologist, leader of major scientific institutions, and scientific adviser to President Obama reflects on his remarkable career. A PhD candidate in English literature at Harvard University, Harold Varmus discovered he was drawn instead to medicine and eventually found himself at the forefront of cancer research at the University of California, San Francisco. In this “timely memoir of a remarkable career” (American Scientist), Varmus considers a life’s work that thus far includes not only the groundbreaking research that won him a Nobel Prize but also six years as the director of the National Institutes of Health; his current position as the president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; and his important, continuing work as scientific adviser to President Obama. From this truly unique perspective, Varmus shares his experiences from the trenches of politicized battlegrounds ranging from budget fights to stem cell research, global health to science publishing.

The Politics of Breast Cancer Screening

The Politics of Breast Cancer Screening

Author: Alison Hann

Publisher:

ISBN: UOM:39015035773616

Category: Breast

Page: 184

View: 117

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This book looks at the national breast cancer screening programme in the UK and examines the policy–making process from the standpoint of political science.

Hiding Politics in Plain Sight

Hiding Politics in Plain Sight

Author: Patricia Strach

Publisher: Oxford University Press

ISBN: 9780190606879

Category: Political Science

Page: 224

View: 292

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As late as the 1980s, breast cancer was a stigmatized disease, so much so that local reporters avoided using the word "breast" in their stories and early breast cancer organizations steered clear of it in their names. But activists with business backgrounds began to partner with corporations for sponsored runs and cause-marketing products, from which a portion of the proceeds would benefit breast cancer research. Branding breast cancer as "pink"--hopeful, positive, uncontroversial--on the products Americans see every day, these activists and corporations generated a pervasive understanding of breast cancer that is widely shared by the public and embraced by policymakers. Clearly, they have been successful: today, more Americans know that the pink ribbon is the symbol of breast cancer than know the name of the vice president. Hiding Politics in Plain Sight examines the costs of employing market mechanisms--especially cause marketing--as a strategy for change. Patricia Strach suggests that market mechanisms do more than raise awareness of issues or money to support charities: they also affect politics. She shows that market mechanisms, like corporate-sponsored walks or cause-marketing, shift issue definition away from the contentious processes in the political sphere to the market, where advertising campaigns portray complex issues along a single dimension with a simple solution: breast cancer research will find a cure and Americans can participate easily by purchasing specially-marked products. This market competition privileges even more specialized actors with connections to business. As well, cooperative market activism fundamentally alters the public sphere by importing processes, values, and biases of market-based action into politics. Market activism does not just bring social concerns into market transactions, it also brings market biases into public policymaking, which is inherently undemocratic. As a result, industry and key activists work cooperatively rather than contentiously, and they define issues as consensual rather than controversial, essentially hiding politics in plain sight.

Cancer and the Politics of Care

Cancer and the Politics of Care

Author: Linda Rae Bennett

Publisher: UCL Press

ISBN: 9781800080737

Category: Social Science

Page: 274

View: 979

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This timely volume responds to the epic impacts of cancer as a global phenomenon. Through the fine-grained lens of ethnography, the contributors present new thinking on how social, economic, race, gender and other structural inequalities intersect, compound and complicate health inequalities. Cancer experiences and impacts are explored across eleven countries: Argentina, Brazil, Denmark, France, Greece, India, Indonesia, Italy, Senegal, the United Kingdom and the United States. The volume engages with specific cancers from the point of primary prevention, to screening, diagnosis, treatment (or its absence), and end-of-life care. Cancer and the Politics of Care traverses new theoretical terrain through explicitly critiquing cancer interventions, their limitations and success, the politics that drive them, and their embeddedness in local cultures and value systems. It extends prior work on cancer, by incorporating the perspectives of patients and their families, ‘at risk’ groups and communities, health professionals, cancer advocates and educators, and patient navigators. The volume advances cross-cultural understandings of care, resisting simple dichotomies between caregiving and receiving, and reveals the fraught ethics of care that must be negotiated in resource-poor settings and stratified health systems. Its diversity and innovation ensures its wide utility among those working in and studying medical anthropology, social anthropology and other fields at the intersections of social science, medicine and health equity.

Epigenetics and Public Policy: The Tangled Web of Science and Politics

Epigenetics and Public Policy: The Tangled Web of Science and Politics

Author: Shea K. Robison

Publisher: ABC-CLIO

ISBN: 9781440844706

Category: Political Science

Page: 365

View: 167

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The exciting field of epigenetics offers novel and unanticipated science-based insights into human origins and development. This book presents one of the first detailed examinations of the political implications of epigenetics. • Focuses on the latest developments in epigenetics, a subject that is attracting increased attention among scientists and researchers yet is practically unknown among policymakers and members of the general public • Explains how epigenetics works, how it is related to genetics, how it differs from conventional genetics, the different kinds of epigenetic mechanisms, and the political history of genetics and epigenetics • Addresses the latest research on epigenetics within the context of hot public policy topics such as cancer, obesity, and the environment and identifies potential policy recommendations