No cure. Or, from a certain point of view, the 'cure' was in the 'chronic'.
I am not looking to trivialize this in any way but in the US at least, people live with HIV by taking a cocktail of medication every day for the rest of their lives. The virus never gets worse but it never gets better. Now considered a manageable disease, it was the new diabetes. A death sentence had become a life sentence of lifestyle management, dietary restrictions, ongoing medical costs and endless prescriptions. Today we don't talk about "curing" AIDS, we talk about "ending" AIDS. The semantics make a difference.
In a similar parallel, I have several young adult friends who live with cancer, taking medicines similar to the HIV cocktail where the cancer lies in stasis, never worsening and never retreating. Is this a cure or the end result of better research, targeted therapies and molecular medicine? Instead of talking about "curing" cancer, should we be talking about "ending" it? Is the 'cure' in the 'chronic'?
With the dawn of the 21st century, it seems time to get with the times.
It should be recognized that the notion of cancer's "cure" has been summarily supplanted with more appropriate and relevant language such as "easing the burden of cancer with a goal of eliminating death and suffering." This was the new directive of the National Cancer Institute when it refocused it's original declarative, "to cure cancer" back in 2003. So, if the focus is now on prevention, early detection, better medical technology and quality of life (e.g. survivorship), where does "cure" fit into this?
It doesn't.
Is cancer the new HIV as HIV was the new diabetes? If so, how do we, as a society, reconcile that notion and reprogram our mindset from a 30 year "Manchurian Candidate"-style inculcation by the establishment that promised, as the old National Cancer Institute mission clearly stated, a "cure" for cancer?
"Cure" has unfortunately become nothing more than a catchy, exploited, arbitrary and abstract health marketing term that has lost all sense of meaning and purpose - and I am not alone in this sentiment. No one wants to lose hope but reality needs to settle in on what's going on in this country with cancer now considered by all measures of public policy to be a chronic condition and manageable disease.
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