Curing Cancer: a grumble

[forestofglory]

I wish so much anti-cancer activity (charity drives, research etc.) wasn't framed around curing cancer. I think curing cancer is too narrow a goal. Our goal should be to prevent death an suffering caused by cancer, and so cancer research and charities should more actively pursue prevention. By prevention I don't mean early detection (though early detection is great and saves lives) I mean understanding environmental causes of cancer and working to eliminate them. This would mean more toxicology research on low exposes of long periods of time, and on chemical interactions in the body. This would mean stricter chemical oversight in the US. Cancer isn't something that just happens to random people. There are things we can do so that there will be less cancer in the world, and focusing on a cure reduces the relative visibility of those things.