ONE IN THREE by ADAM WISHART

REACTION TO MONKEYS, RATS AND ME

Previews:
"[an] outstanding documentary... a fine piece of TV." The Observer.
"Riveting and revealing" The Sunday Times.
"Excellent documentary... Thoughtful television." The Guardian
"An intelligent and thought-provoking film." The Daily Telegraph
"[a] riveting documentary" Radio Times

In the News:
What Felix the Monkey Taught Me About Animal Research, Mail on Sunday Review
Father of Animal Activism Backs Monkey Testing, Sunday Times
Animal Guru Gives Tests His Blessing, The Observer

Reviews:
An outstanding documentary... One of the many triumphs of Adam Wishart's film was that it showed Broughton to be a skilled, passionate, articulate and charismatic leader..... the documentary remained clear-eyed and carefully unsentimental - about the rights of animals, about the rights of people, about the difficulty of engaging in rational debate with fanatical anti-vivisectionists and of drawing rational boundaries around the privileging of human comfort over animal. Lucy Mangan, in The Guardian.

Wishart brilliantly caught the essence of his “characters”: Broughton’s unyielding activism, Professor Aziz’s innate eccentricity, and the spooky steeliness of Laurie Pycroft, a teenager incensed by the antis, who having started a pro-testing website, went on to lead a march, the first of its kind in more than 100 years, through the streets of Oxford in favour of the new lab. In a wonderful moment, Wishart captured Pycroft being primed by one of his spotty teenage cohorts turned spin doctor. There was lots of sharp detail. Tim Teeman, The Times.

Monkeys, Rats and Me was a neat piece of work. The Telegraph

The Web:
"That Scottish lass I found particularly repugnant. Although I think actual violence would harm our cause, I wouldn't lose any sleep if a "lone nut" was stupid enough to... well, do nasty stuff in her environ. I am someone who genuinely loves rats - rats are god's creatures, sacred animals, the most humble of all beings - and consider people who cause them harm to be the worst sort of scum."
and
"I personally hope that aziz and pro-test 3*$*%^%( get harmed, violently by an ARA. And die a slow painful death. If I had a gun, and the location of their whereabouts and transport, I'd do it right fucking now."
LINK

The Battle for the Oxford Animal Lab

My film has now got a slot. Here it is.

Monkeys, Rats and Me: Animal Testing
BBC2, 9pm, 27 November, 80 minutes

This year, the building of the Oxford animal lab has triggered the most important conflict between scientists and the animal rights movement for a century.

Red Meat and Breast Cancer

More bad news for red meat eaters. Not only is it bad for cancers of the gut, but it also seems to increase breast cancer risk.

Women who eat red meat every day are almost twice as likely to develop certain types of breast cancer, a long-term study published today has found.

Scientists who monitored 90,000 women for more than a decade found that those who ate a high meat diet were much more prone to developing the hormonally reactive breast cancers, which account for more than half of all breast cancers.

The scientists suggest that synthetic hormones used in meat production could be behind the trend.

The message is getting clearer and clearer.

Link.
Original Article.

PSA test - PROSTATE SPECIFIC ANTIGEN

My Dad always had a low PSA score. It meant doctors never thought he had a life threatening illness. At last there seems to be some hope that the PSA test is being refined.

TESTICULAR CANCER - email of the month

I just received this rather lovely email from a patient, called Kenneth Bulger. I'm grateful for the feedback, and also that the book can be useful to those who are younger than my father, and whose precise cancer is not described within it.

I am a 27-year-old cancer patient currently approaching the end of my chemotherapy. I had my diagnosis with testicular cancer in late May of this year only to find the cancer had spread to the back of my stomach. The prognosis is good with an excellent chance of ‘cure’ and my long-term outlook is fantastic.

I am writing to you as, I have read your book One in Three and want to thank you for providing me with a text that dispelled the myths, distortions and falsehoods that surround this disease. You’ve written a thoroughly comprehensive book that it is easily accessible, cool and collected in its approach to this emotive subject. The book has given me a good understanding of the history and science of cancer, which has definitely helped towards my feelings of empowerment over my illness. I would like to applaud your message that we desperately need to talk about cancer, without it being a dirty word. The taboo only encourages the suspicion and ignorance that surround the disease. The eventual defeat of cancer cannot just be a scientific milestone, but one of social inclusion. I’ve experienced the gob-smacking insensitivity of individuals who feel obliged to off-load their self-opinionated wacky theories, as to why I have cancer and to cure. There are a lot of well-meaning souls out there; who are actually quite dangerous, One in Three has been a fabulous anchor, when confronted by madness. I fully support any public discourse about cancer that will elevate the patient from modern day leper to a first class citizen. The prejudice surrounding cancer is just, if not more of an obstacle to its defeat, as it is a medical conundrum.

A Lung Cancer Breakthrough? - annual CT scanning

My contention is that it is rare to see in the newspapers a proper cautious approach to the dilemmas of prevention. Truth is, that the balancing of risks and benefits doesn't make that great storytelling, its too equivocal, and its too cautious for great journalism. But these careful judgements are the truth. I talk about one such story in a latter chapter in my book.

But here is a rare example. The good old New York Times in an editorial about a new lung cancer study.

Some cancer experts and advocates for lung cancer patients are hailing the dawn of a new era in which lung cancer will move from a disease that is usually fatal to one that is usually curable. So why do many experts have misgivings about recommending widespread CT scan screening?

For once it seems that the newspaper is offering the proper analyis, whilst the New England Journal of Medicine is offering a much less rigorous view.

Conclusions Annual spiral CT screening can detect lung cancer that is curable.