Hive Health

From this January onward, the Hive writing team produces a monthly review on a key text. First in the series is the 2011 Pulitzer non-fiction winner – a vivid biography of humanity’s  greatest mortal dread.

At the conclusion to his extraordinary history of cancer, Siddhartha Mukherjee, an Indian-born, US-based cancer specialist, posits that ‘as the fraction of those affected by cancer creeps inexorably in some nations from one in four to one in three to one in two, cancer will, indeed, be the new normal – an inevitability. The question will not be if we will encounter this immortal illness, but when.’

That Mukherjee’s book is so compelling isn’t due solely to the drama of the story he tells, but because he is alive to the efficacy of art as well as science. ‘Normal cells are identically normal,’ he writes, ‘malignant cells become unhappily malignant in unique ways.’ His repurposing of Anna Karenina’s opening line is more than a rhetorical flourish: it’s indicative of the intelligent and illustrative way he approaches his material. Like all well-executed ideas, the question it raises is “Why hasn’t anyone done this before?”

The Emperor of All Maladies follows cancer from the palaces of ancient Persia to the R&D campuses of modern pharmaceutical companies. The majority of the story, however, takes place in the mid-to-late 20^th century, when increased life expectancy in the western world saw the prevalence of cancer skyrocket (in third world countries cancer doesn’t even make the top 10 causes of death).

Mukherjee’s story centres on two figures who defined the post-war struggle against cancer. Sidney Farber was a paediatric pathologist who became the father of chemotherapy. Mary Lasker was a wealthy socialite and fearsome lobbyist who believed that if enough money was aimed at it, cancer could be vanquished. In 1971, after nearly 20 years of their campaigning, President Nixon declared the ‘War on Cancer’: legislation that devoted millions of dollars in federal funds to finding a cure.

Farber and Lasker’s achievement was of mixed worth. ‘Cancer,’ Mukherjee writes, ‘a shape-shifting disease of colossal diversity, was recast as a single, monolithic entity’. Scientists competed to find cures, theories of prevention were all but non-existent, and misguided treatments such as megadose chemotherapy did more harm than good.

Mukherjee’s recreation of the ambitions, disappointments and, occasionally, triumphs at each stage of the fight against cancer is one of his book’s greatest achievements. He successfully places the reader in whichever era, lab or ward he describes. He also renders cancer itself in a way that’s both horrifying and gripping. Of leukaemia he writes, ‘Its pace, its acuity, its breathtaking, inexorable arc of growth forces rapid, often drastic decisions; it is terrifying to experience, terrifying to observe, and terrifying to treat.’

The book’s final section is its most optimistic and most complex. Harold Varmus and J. Michael Bishop won the Nobel Prize in 1989 for proving the link between cancer and genes, which led to the subsequent identification of many oncogenes (genes with cancer-causing potential). ‘Having wandered in the darkness for decades,’ writes Mukherjee, ‘scientists had finally reached a clearing in their understanding of cancer. Medicine’s task was to continue that journey toward a new therapeutic attack.’ This came with development of drugs such as Herceptin, which targets an oncogene in a particular type of breast cancer.

But Mukherjee is too knowledgeable about cancer to be swept up in an optimism that has, time and again, proved false. Other gene-targeted therapies like Herceptin and Glivec may emerge over time, but that’s a forecast quite different to the ‘cure for cancer’ that has been dreamed of for so long. ‘This War on Cancer,’ he cautions, ‘may best be “won” by redefining victory.’

Mukherjee says the idea for his book was hatched when a patient asked him the simple question, ‘“What is it, exactly, that I am battling?”’ His answer, all 500 pages of it, is fascinating, depressing and exhilarating, and his writing on lung cancer is so affecting that, after 24 years of smoking, I haven’t had a cigarette since finishing the book six weeks ago.

Have you read this book? We’d love to have your comments.

Around 2,000 teenagers and young adults in the UK are diagnosed with cancer every year. These vulnerable patients often feel isolated, bitter, confused and afraid as they struggle to come to terms with and overcome a life-threatening disease.

In recognition of the difficulties young cancer patients face, eyeforpharma are hosting their first annual Mobile Health Competition. Applicants must submit an idea for a phone application that will help teenage cancer patients manage their condition and make their lives easier. To help pick the winning idea eyeforpharma have created their very own super panel, comprised of teenage cancer survivors and charitable bodies.

The competition is open to anyone working for a pharmaceutical company, advertising agency, healthcare organisation, as well as patients themselves. The winner will have the opportunity to develop their application and see it launched. They will also win $5,000, which they can donate to a cancer charity of their choice.

The Teenager Cancer Trust, PatientsLikeMe, LIVESTRONG Young Adult Alliance, and a host of other charitable, patient, and mobile specialist companies have partnered with eyeforpharma for the competition.

Here at Hive we welcome any initiatives aimed at improving patient care and engagement, so we urge you to get involved and spread the word.

The closing date for entries is January 3rd 2012. 

http://www.eyeforpharma.com/mobilehealth/

A couple of months ago Tom, an eBee intern, gave a very interesting presentation on why men aren’t as health conscious as women. Although men are more likely to be overweight and to drink and/or smoke more than woman, 36% of men will only go to the doctor when they’re extremely sick. It seems that men have more of a repair than maintenance approach to their health.

So how do you motivate men to maintain their health? Or, even more challengingly, how do you get them to check for prostate, bowel and testicular cancer before they’re extremely sick? In 2008 prostate cancer was the second most common cause of cancer death in men (10,168 deaths), accounting for 12% of all male deaths from cancer. Colorectal cancer caused 8,758 deaths in men in the same year, accounting for 11% of all male cancer mortality.

The Male Cancer Awareness Campaign (MCAC) is trying to get more men to take a maintenance approach to cancer by educating them on how to detect early stage symptoms. The campaign is about cancer, but it’s also about culture. In addition to providing specific information, it also aims to reduce the embarrassment that surrounds men’s attitudes towards their health.

While MCAC has created some great campaigns, such as the Near Naked Man, they recently created a viral video that makes checking for cancer sexy. JWT London teamed up with world famous photographer Rankin and model Rhian Sugden to create a video that goes a little further than your run-of-the-mill cancer campaign.

The black and white video is intimate and elegant, and the ending might just leave you stunned. It’s a smart little video because it takes what some might find embarrassing or uncomfortable and makes it seductive. I’ve already sent it on to most of my male friends, and while their reactions have been mixed none of them failed to mention it when they next saw me. And many of them, in turn, have forwarded it on to their friends.

The ad’s executed so well that if I were a man, it would make me want to put my thumb and index finger between my balls and massage them—to check for cancer of course.

A couple of weeks back I went on a D&AD course called Taking Ideas for a walk. The course tutor was an extremely enthusiastic graphic designer called Malcolm Kennard, who proceeded to do the obligatory ice breakers and then talk in depth about his experiences and the ways in which he tackles a typical brief. All very enlightening, especially when he spoke about finding inspiration by observation, sometimes in the least likely places! I appreciate that going to galleries aren’t the most original places to go for inspiration, but I’d never dreamed about finding it in a Turkish bath in Budapest!

The day progressed with a number of small uni style briefs, with few restrictions and constraints but a whole lot of scope – lovely! The aim here being to get us back into that early mindset we all use to have, before the commercial world took a firm grip and creative expression became more of a challenge to channel through all the rules, regulations and pressured clients!

Our final task of the day presented us with a mop and bucket and the brief headline Work, Play and Rest! A mop and bucket already works, so it was how I reflected the latter two aspects in my creation that would be assessed. My solution is pictured above.

Being a kid for a day again was truly inspiring. Tapping back into that freedom of expression was really refreshing, and is something that I’ll be aiming to do a lot more often!