ONE IN THREE by ADAM WISHART

The Reviews.

“ONE IN THREE shines like a good deed in a world full of unnecessary books…… Wishart has produced a book that is informative, balanced, accessible, and absolutely riveting.” David Lodge's Pick of 2006 in the Guardian, author of Changing Places, Small World.

"For clinicians, this book may be a useful source of information to recommend to patients, or it may serve simply as an interesting read into how contemporary cancer research and treatment came into being." LANCET ONCOLOGY

“Adam Wishart's extraordinary book will be indispensable to anyone dealing with cancer, because it is so clear-eyed, so measured, so informative, and so quietly moving. He elegantly integrates the history of cancer research with the story of his father's illness. In doing so, he makes abstract science accessible and dignifies a human story with the insights of medicine. After reading this book, you have not only more knowledge, but also more insight and compassion.”
Andrew Solomon, author of Noonday Demon, a New York Times bestseller

“Wishart succeeds brilliantly in constructing a narrative that is a tribute both to his father and the scientists who have partly unpacked the mystery of cancer” Simon Singh, Sunday Telegraph

“An imaginative fusion of anecdotal detail, medical science and poignant, elegiac narrative marks every chapter of this unusual book.....Wishart’s book inhabits a remarkable genre of its own.” John Cornwell, The Sunday Times

"Wishart seamlessly weaves together the personal, the historical and the scientific threads of his narrative to tell the story of cancer" The Guardian

“[An] immaculately researched tale of medicine's struggle with cancer..” Lindsay Banham, The Lancet.

“ONE IN THREE offers real hope.” British Medical Journal.

“From one family’s cancer fight comes a book to help us all.’ Brian McIver, Daily Record

“ONE IN THREE is a consuming read. Part history lesson, part sociological study, part scientific journey, Wishart artfully serves up the right mixture of technical terminology, explanation and personal story….. Moments are beautifully described … and it is a privilege to be given such access to the workings of the human heart.” Jacqueline Burton, Sunday Business Post.

“Calm, factual, beautifully written, intelligent and moving. ... this book brings understanding, and most of all it also brings some hope.” Literary Review

“A neat and moving blend of science and the intensely personal.” Mary Braid, Sunday Times in Scotland

“Perhaps the most readable and comprehensive account out there of our battle with the big C." Michael Bond, New Scientist

“An amazing book - it stands out as being an intelligent, balanced review of a complex and emotive subject. It's simply the best in its class today. Essential reading for anyone who has cancer or loves someone with the disease." Karol Sikora, Professor of Oncology, Imperial College London, advisor to WHO Cancer Program

"This emotionally charged account distinguishes itself not simply in the way it gracefully meshes together complex, competing theories about the disease, but in its generous use of a loved one as a case study." Kim Hjelmgaard, Scotland on Sunday

BREAST CANCER INCIDENCE DROP

The sharp drop in breast cancer rates in the United States reported last week is astonishingly good news. It is the first major reduction in the incidence of a malignancy that strikes more than 200,000 American women every year — and kills some 40,000 annually.

This is extraordinary news. For the first time incidence in breast cancer is declining massively, by 7 per cent. It seems likely that is linked to the declining use of hormone replacement therapy. Which all goes to show that if we can understand the causes, then we can begin to tackle this disease.

Link: A big drop in breast cancer.

Picks of the Year

ONE IN THREE has been pleasingly picked in some of the pre-christmas roundups.

In the Observer.

Some words of praise for Adam Wishart's One in Three. Subtitled 'A son's journey into the history and science of cancer', the book interweaves two very different narratives: the history of cancer research and the story of how Wishart's father contracted and finally succumbed to the condition. The former sections are models of scientific clarity, the latter are powerfully written - and profoundly moving.

Link.

In the Sunday Times:

Although it enters a crowded field, Wishart’s account of his father’s death from cancer is moving, medically informed and exceptionally well written. Multiplying cancer cells are likened to “useless hotel bellhops passing on every bit of foyer gossip as a genuine message”. The aim, to dispel the “blind terror” that the c-word still evokes, is generously fulfilled, while he never shrinks from describing the irreparable loss of a parent’s death.

Link: Blowing their own trumpets .

And by David Lodge in the Guardian:

Adam Wishart's One in Three (Profile) interweaves a moving, but unsentimental, account of his father's last illness and death from cancer with a history of the disease and its treatment from classical to modern times. Informative, balanced, accessible, and absolutely riveting.

Link: Take a leaf out of their books .

Please do not try this at home

If ever anyone needs any reminder that we've come a long way in cancer medicine since the 19th century, just look at this strange patent. Its intention was to stop breast lumps, in the hope that preventing them growing. It just looks bonkers.

LINK

Another Breast Cancer Gene

Today the Guardian announces that

"Cancer specialists will announce today that they have discovered a gene which may hold the key to a treatment for up to 10% of all breast cancers. The development could - in time - lead to treatments that would make chemotherapy unnecessary."

I have very mixed feelings about the spate of these kind of stories. On the one hand this is clearly a great triumph for science. At last we are beginning to understand all of the piece of the cancer puzzle. Are ability to do so will definitely make it easier to design specific therapies in the future. Just our ability to unravel the complexity of cancer amazes me.

And yet these stories often come with a promise of an imminent therapeutic intervention. In the last few years, there have been all manner of these stories. Yet in fact the drugs have been much slower in arriving than they promise. Its not surprising, both Herceptin and Gleevec too about a decade from the identification of the gene to the discovery of the drug. But there is another point in all of this, and that is that stories like this seem to characterise cancer as the problem of a single gene. Now that is not true. And the real problem for researchers will be trying to identify and treat the clusters of genes that go to causing a single cancer. Its going to be complicated stuff, much more complicated than these kind of news stories make out.

Link: Scientists find genetic key to some breast cancers.

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.