My friend Dr. Toby Jenkins, a brilliant and highly energetic professor at George Mason University in Virginia, has breast cancer. I had not spoken to her in awhile, and only learned of her health challenge when she posted it on Facebook. I immediately emailed Toby, asking if there was anything I could do. While awaiting her reply, I thought long and hard about the people I know who've died of cancer, who are cancer survivors, who are young like Toby (she is only 34) and battling this life-threatening disease.
And I repeated to myself a very simple question, one that has been ringing in my head for many years: Why doesn't America want to cure cancer?
Moreover, do we Americans even think a cure for cancer is possible in our lifetimes, in this new century? Or have we resigned ourselves to the idea that cancer will be a constant in our lives, just like Thanksgiving, the Super Bowl, and having a Starbucks and a McDonald's in every 'hood?
But we can solve cancer. I know we can, and I am confident that the cure lies with our children and our educational system. We've had many great hurdles in American history and those hurdles have brought out the best of American genius. Yet sometimes that American genius needs to be prodded to action, and that is what I am proposing in 2010.
This would not be the first time for such a stirring of the American soul and mind. On November 13, 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued a national alarm after the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik:
"The Soviet Union now has -- in the combined category of scientists and engineers -- a greater number than the United States. And it is producing graduates in these fields at a much faster rate. Recent studies of the educational standards of the Soviet Union show that this gain in quantity can no longer be considered offset by lack of quality.
"This trend is disturbing. Indeed, according to my scientific advisers, this is for the American people the most critical problem of all."My scientific advisers place this problem above all other immediate tasks of producing missiles, of developing new techniques in the Armed Services. We need scientists in the ten years ahead.
"They say we need them by thousands more than we are now presently planning to have.
"The Federal government can deal with only part of this difficulty, but it must and will do its part. The task is a cooperative one. Federal, state and local governments, and our entire citizenry must all do their share."
This alarm, this urgent call to educational arms, not only sent Americans to the moon under President Kennedy, but the science and math behind it also spurred countless innovations, including the very item making this discussion possible: the personal computer. In fact, one could say Sputnik, a small, unmanned satellite, may have been the most important innovation of the last century as it galvanized American education in a way not seen since, empowering us all to defeat the Soviet Union by hitting the books. Together.
The threat of the Soviet Bear is long gone, but a more dangerous and deadly enemy lurks among us now -- in our water, our cosmetics, our food, our genes, our very lifestyles. Cancer. The World Health Organization estimates that 12 million people will die of cancer in the year 2030, up from 7.9 million in 2007. Here in the U.S., cancer kills approximately 1 out of every 4 people. We all have lost loved ones to cancer. We all know someone with cancer, like my friend Toby. We all stand a good chance of having cancer ourselves. Cancer is very, very real and very, very powerful.
However, I know something else that's even more powerful: the American educational system and the children in it. Every single day I am amazed at the brilliance of children. Just last week I played basketball with Aaron Golembiewski, Policy Director for my Congressional campaign, and two eleven-year-old boys from The Bronx, New York. These kids were savvy, smart and driven. One wants to be a United States Senator, according to his mother, who was present. I have no doubt he will be.
The boy's mother also explained that she wanted him to transfer to a private school as his public school wasn't getting the job done. He didn't feel all that motivated because his school does not have the necessary resources and classes to allow this bright young man to excel. I hear this story again and again as I trek through my home city of New York and the rest of the country, and it breaks my heart every single time. I've had enough. Meanwhile, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently told us that he will cut 6,400 New York City schoolteachers next year -- that is not going to help my new friend from The Bronx or our children through my city. One of these students might be the one to cure cancer -- if given a shot at a quality education. But that cannot happen if there are no quality teachers.
In the meantime, all sorts of educational experts keep arguing and pointing fingers here and there: Charter schools. School vouchers. Private schools. Repeal No Child Left Behind. A national curriculum. Pre-K. Local control. More funding. More accountability. Higher standards. Teach for America. Experienced teachers. Smaller schools. Larger schools. Technology in the classroom. Web-based learning.
But here is the problem: the American educational system has no lodestar, no goal, no anchoring vision. I have been speaking with educational gurus for years now and not one of them has been able to articulate just what, precisely, our schools are supposed to be doing. We're striving, but for what? To take more and more tests? To obtain good jobs?
What is the point of an educational system if not to change, heal, or empower the world, and its people, in some meaningful and life-altering way?
That is why I'm posing a new challenge to the educational system of the United States: cancer. I believe we can cure cancer. If we re-direct all of our resources to defeating cancer once and for all by demanding that every child develop the math, science and technology skills necessary to become an oncologist, to become a researcher, to become the genius she or he was meant to be, we're going to cure cancer. If we defied the odds and made it to the moon, I know America can cure cancer, too, before the end of this century.
And when I say every child, I mean every single child, from East New York, Brooklyn, to Kokomo, Indiana, to Oakland, California. From Obama's Hawaii to Palin's Alaska, and everywhere in between. Because we can't guess which child is going to be the one to save 12 million lives in 2030, we have to educate them all with the same sense of urgency President Eisenhower had on November 13, 1957. One of those 12 million lives might be yours. Or your spouse's of life partner's. Or your child's. Or your friend's. Like my friend Toby.
So if you had a chance to cure cancer, to eliminate 1 out of every 4 deaths here in the United States, would you take it? We must have the courage, now, to tell every single leader and every single educator who represents you or your children or your children's children that it is time for a new Sputnik. It is time to cure cancer. For Toby's sake, and for the sake of our nation and our world.
Kevin Powell is a 2010 Democratic candidate for the U.S. Congress in Brooklyn, New York. You can reach him at www.kevinpowell.net
Follow Kevin Powell on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kevin_powell
There are methods of causing such cells to return to aerobic functionality, but they happen at the cellular level as a result of nutritive changes, not medical (or surgical or radiative) ones. Cancer has been cured numerous times by numerous methodologies but the general public will never hear about such cases because the methods used don't involved patented drugs or technologies.
For those interested in actually learning something about this, Google "Joannah Budwig cancer", and "Coenzyme Q10 cancer Richard A. Passwater, Ph.D" to see information about just two such methodologies. Cancer is a multi-billion dollar industry and those who are currently profiting from it have ~very~ little incentive to embrace a "cure". Rather, they would prefer to "treat" and "manage" the condition, extracting money every step of the way. While this is reprehensible, it would be naive to imagine it's not true.
Kennedy's moon goal misled a generation of politicians. For problems like cancer, "the vision thing" is not enough. You need enough grasp of the issues at hand to try to form a plan that is actually relevant to the technical aspects of the problem.
This is the medical analog to the politician's belief that "some smart guy" will "invent" a new source of cheap, clean energy. Only an understanding of physics can help you grasp the odds against that happening, and only an understanding of biochemistry can help you understand why cancer isn't "a" disease, and just how unlikely "a" cure is in our lifetimes (along with all the other more likely and still beneficial possible future outcomes).
It's hard to argue against increased education, but trying to turn all the smart kids into oncologists smacks of "if one woman can give birth in 9 months, then 9 women can give birth in one month!" I hope Mr. Powell will keep his noble goal but spend time with experts to arrive at a better understanding of current limitations and more plausible strategies for decreasing the suffering caused by cancer. His current proposal is almost embarrassingly, well, uneducated.
In short, how do we get more US students to go onto get advanced degrees? I think that you're points are well taken, but there are additional things to consider. One in particular, If greater than 60% of the population believes in Creationism, how do we expect any of them to make a competant scientist?
I have a criticism and a comment for you. First off the criticism: We will never be able to cure cancer because there is no such thing as "cancer" in the singular. Each type of cancer differs; therefore, each different cancer needs it's individual treatment. The factors that cause colon cancer will be different than the factors leading to breast cancer. Even within one cancer, like breast cancer, you can have many different causes.
Saying that we need to cure cancer does not paint a clear picture of how the disease is caused. Frankly, it's not as simple as saying that we need to cure it. Cancer is multifactorial, and by simplifying it so much, you're hurting the cause.
People need to understand that there will never be a single solution for "cancer." Once they understand that it's not so simple, maybe they'll get off their asses and learn more about the disease. If they learn more, maybe they'll do more.
Prevention is pretty simple really: don't smoke and avoid other carcinogens (and just because something is 'natural' it can be a carcinogen, like tobacco); eat a healthy diet (best bet is the Mediterranean diet), DON'T get fat and get enough exercise. If everyone did this the rates of cancer, heart disease and diabetes would plummet.
Part of the problem, are people who weave kooky conspiracies or some profit motive, or hucksters and nitwits that sell useless nostrums like bee pollen, yoga and coffee enemas as cancer cures. It just doesn't work that way, you can't hide evolving medical knowledge away in a box. It is an insult to people who dedicated their lives to relatively difficult and low-paid careers in cancer research. Yes, business may do seamy things for profit, but "hiding" a cure for cancer is not one of them. It is a laughable notion, physicians and executives die from cancer too, do you think they are THAT greedy?
But Kevin Powell is right about encouraging the next generation to go into medical research. Many people in medicine and medical research went into it because of their personal tragedy and everyone else should be educated about this problem --hello, we lose about a million people a year to this scourge. They should be inspired to join the war on cancer as a career, otherwise most young people are just unaware of the magnitude of the problem.
Children are taught to avoid failure. They are bundled up and padded and slathered with anti-bacterials. These are symptoms of our risk-aversion, but they show that risk and failure are not options.
Scientists scramble for grants, and must show results to continue to get them. As long as we only award small, short-term victories, we will never achieve long-term greatness. In our effort to avoid failure, we lose our ability to create great things, like a cure for cancer.
A cure? Vote for NO INCUMBENTS!!!
That is all.