157 “A pathological paper may perhaps be thought”: Hodgkin, “On Some Morbid Appearances,” 96.
157 In 1837, after a rather vicious political spat: Marvin J. Stone, “Thomas Hodgkin: Medical Immortal and Uncompromising Idealist,” Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings 18 (2005): 368–75.
157 In 1898, some thirty years after Hodgkin’s death: Carl Sternberg, “Über eine eigenartige unter dem Bilde der Pseudoleu Kamie Verlaufende Tuberkuloses des Lymphatischen Apparates,” Ztschr Heitt 19 (1898): 21–91.
158 more “capricious,” as one oncologist put it: A. Aisenberg, “Prophylactic Radiotherapy in Hodgkin’s Disease,” New England Journal of Medicine 278, no. 13 (1968): 740; A. Aisenberg, “Management of Hodgkin’s Disease,” New England Journal of Medicine 278, no. 13 (1968): 739; A. C. Aisenberg, “Primary Management of Hodgkin’s Disease,” New England Journal of Medicine 278, no. 2 (1968): 92–95.
158 the plan to build a linear accelerator: Z. Fuks and M. Feldman, “Henry S. Kaplan, 1918–1984: A Physician, a Scientist, a Friend,” Cancer Surveys 4, no. 2 (1985): 294–311.
159 In 1953, he persuaded a team: Malcolm A. Bagshaw, Henry E. Jones, Robert F. Kallman, and Joseph P. Kriss, “Memorial Resolution: Henry S. Kaplan (1918–1984),” Stanford University Faculty Memorials, Stanford Historical Society, http://histsoc.stanford.edu/pdfmem/KaplanH.pdf (accessed November 22, 2009).
159 The accelerator was installed: Ibid.
159 “Henry Kaplan was Hodgkin’s disease”: George Canellos, interview with author, March 2008.
159 Rene Gilbert had shown: R. Gilbert, “Radiology in Hodgkin’s Disease [malignant granulomatosis]. Anatomic and Clinical Foundations,” American Journal of Roentgenology and Radium Therapy 41 (1939): 198–241; D. H. Cowan, “Vera Peters and the Curability of Hodgkin’s Disease,” Current Oncology 15, no. 5 (2008): 206–10.
160 Peters observed that broad-field radiation could: M. V. Peters and K. C. Middlemiss, “A Study of Hodgkin’s Disease Treated by Irradiation,” American Journal of Roentgenology and Radium Therapy 79 (1958): 114–21.
160 The trials that Kaplan designed: H. S. Kaplan, “The Radical Radiotherapy of Regionally Localized Hodgkin’s Disease,” Radiology 78 (1962): 553–61; Richard T. Hoppe, Peter T. Mauch, James O. Armitage, Volker Diehl, and Lawrence M. Weiss, Hodgkin Lymphoma (Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2007), 178.
160 “meticulous radiotherapy”: Aisenberg, “Primary Management of Hodgkin’s Disease,” 95.
160 But Kaplan knew that a diminished relapse rate was not a cure: H. S. Kaplan, “Radical Radiation for Hodgkin’s Disease,” New England Journal of Medicine 278, no. 25 (1968): 1404; H. S. Kaplan, “Clinical Evaluation and Radiotherapeutic Management of Hodgkin’s Disease and the Malignant Lymphomas,” New England Journal of Medicine 278, no. 16 (1968): 892–99.
161 “Fundamental to all attempts at curative treatment”: Aisenberg, “Primary Management of Hodgkin’s Disease,” 93.
An Army on the March
162 Now we are an army on the march: “Looking Back: Sidney Farber and the First Remission of Acute Pediatric Leukemia,” Children’s Hospital Boston, http://www.childrenshospital.org/gallery/index.cfm?G=49&page=1 (accessed November 22, 2009).
162 The next step—the complete cure: Kenneth Endicott, quoted in the Mary Lasker Papers, “Cancer Wars,” National Library of Medicine.
162 The role of aggressive multiple drug therapy: R. C. Stein et al., “Prognosis of Childhood Leukemia,” Pediatrics 43, no. 6 (1969): 1056–58.
162 George Canellos, then a senior fellow at the NCI: George Canellos, interview with author, March 2008.
163 “A new breed of cancer investigators in the 1960s”: V. T. DeVita Jr., British Journal of Haematology 122, no. 5 (2003): 718–27.
164 “maniacs doing cancer research”: Ronald Piana, “ONI Sits Down with Dr. Vincent DeVita,” Oncology News International 17, no. 2 (February 1, 2008), http://www.consultantlive.com/display/article/10165/1146581?pageNumber=2&verify=0 (accessed November 22, 2009).
164 As expected: See Vincent T. DeVita Jr. and Edward Chu, “A History of Cancer Chemotherapy,” Cancer Research 21: 8643.
164 The MOPP trial: Vincent T. DeVita Jr. et al., “Combination Chemotherapy in the Treatment of Advanced Hodgkin’s Disease,” Annals of Internal Medicine 73, no. 6 (1970): 881–95.
166 A twelve-year-old boy: Bruce Chabner, interview with author, July 2009.
166 “Some of the patients with advanced disease”: Henry Kaplan, Hodgkin’s Disease (New York: Commonwealth Fund, 1972), 15, 458. Also see DeVita et al., “Combination Chemotherapy in the Treatment.”
167 “no track record, uncertain finances, an unfinished building”: Joseph V. Simone, “A History of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital,” British Journal of Haematology 120 (2003): 549–55.
168 “an all-out combat”: R. J. Aur and D. Pinkel, “Total Therapy of Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia,” Progress in Clinical Cancer 5 (1973): 155–70.
168 “in maximum tolerated doses”: Joseph Simone et al., “‘Total Therapy’ Studies of Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia in Children: Current Results and Prospects for Cure,” Cancer 30, no. 6 (1972): 1488–94.
168 it was impossible to even dose it and monitor it correctly: Aur and Pinkel, “Total Therapy of Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia.”
168 senior researchers, knowing its risks: “This Week’s Citations Classic: R. J. A. Aur et al., “Central Nervous System Therapy and Combination Chemotherapy of Childhood Lymphocytic Leukemia,” Citation Classics 28 (July 14, 1986).
169 “From the time of his diagnosis”: Jocelyn Demers, Suffer the Little Children: The Battle against Childhood Cancer (Fountain Valley, CA: Eden Press, 1986), 17.
170 In July 1968, the St. Jude’s team published: Donald Pinkel et al., “Nine Years’ Experience with ‘Total Therapy’ of Childhood Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia,” Pediatrics 50, no. 2 (1972): 246–51.
170 The longest remission was now in its sixth year: S. L. George et al., “A Reappraisal of the Results of Stopping Therapy in Childhood Leukemia,” New England Journal of Medicine 300, no. 6 (1979):269–73.
170 In 1979, Pinkel’s team revisited: Donald Pinkel, “Treatment of Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia” Cancer 23 (1979): 25–33.
170 “ALL in children cannot be considered an incurable disease”: Pinkel et al, “Nine Years’ Experience with ‘Total Therapy.’”
The Cart and the Horse
171 I am not opposed to optimism: P. T. Cole, “Cohorts and Conclusions,” New England Journal of Medicine 278, no. 20 (1968): 1126–27.
171 The iron is hot and this is the time: Letter from Sidney Farber to Mary Lasker, September 4, 1965.
171 In the late fifties, as DeVita recalled: Vincent T. DeVita Jr. and Edward Chu, “A History of Cancer Chemotherapy,” Cancer Research 68, no. 21 (2008): 8643–53.
171 “A revolution [has been]”: Vincent T. DeVita Jr., “A Selective History of the Therapy of Hodgkin’s Disease,” British Journal of Hemotology 122 (2003): 718–27.
171 The next step—the complete cure: Kenneth Endicott, quoted in “Cancer Wars,” Mary Lasker Papers, Profiles in Science, National Libraries of Medicine. Also see V. T. DeVita Jr., “A Perspective on the War on Cancer,” Cancer Journal 8, no. 5 (2002): 352–56.
172 “The chemical arsenal,” one writer noted: Ellen Leopold, A Darker Ribbon: Breast Cancer, Women, and Their Doctors in the Twentieth Century (Boston: Beacon Press, 1999), 269–70.
173 “one cause, one mechanism and one cure”: “Fanfare Fades in the Fight against Cancer,” U.S. News and World Report, June 19, 1978.
173 Peyton Rous: Heather L. Van Epps, “Peyton Rous: Father of the Tumor Virus,” Journal of Experimental Medicine 201, no. 3 (2005): 320; Peter K. Vogt, “Peyton Rous: Homage and Appraisal,” Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology 10 (1996): 1559–62.
173 Peyton Rous’s work on sarcomas in chickens: Peyton Rous, “A Transmissible Avian Neoplasm (Sarcoma of the Common
Fowl),” Journal of Experimental Medicine 12, no. 5 (1910): 696–705; Peyton Rous, “A Sarcoma of the Fowl Transmissible by an Agent Separable from the Tumor Cells,” Journal of Experimental Medicine 13, no. 4 (1911): 397–411.
174 “I have propagated a spindle-cell sarcoma”: Rous, “A Transmissible Avian Neoplasm.”
174 Richard Schope reported a papillomavirus: Richard E. Shope, “A Change in Rabbit Fibroma Virus Suggesting Mutation: II. Behavior of the Varient Virus in Cottontail Rabbits,” Journal of Experimental Medicine 63, no. 2 (1936): 173–78; Richard E. Shope, “A Change in Rabbit Fibroma Virus Suggesting Mutation: III. Interpretation of Findings,” Journal of Experimental Medicine 63, no. 2 (1936): 179–84.
174 Denis Burkitt, discovered an aggressive form of lymphoma: Denis Burkitt, “A Sarcoma Involving the Jaws in African Children,” British Journal of Surgery 46, no. 197 (1958): 218–23.
175 “Cancer may be infectious”: “New Evidence That Cancer May Be Infectious,” Life, June 22, 1962. Also see “Virus Link Found,” Los Angeles Times, November 30, 1964.
175 “Is there something I can do to kill the cancer germ?”: Letter from Mary Kirkpatrick to Peyton Rous, June 23, 1962, Peyton Rous papers, the American Philosophical Society, quoted in James T. Patterson, The Dread Disease: Cancer and Modern American Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), 237.
175 the NCI inaugurated a Special Virus Cancer Program: Nicholas Wade, “Special Virus Cancer Program: Travails of a Biological Moonshot,” Science 174, no. 4016(1971): 1306–11.
175 the cancer virus program siphoned away more than 10 percent: Ibid.
176 “Relatively few viruses”: Peyton Rous, “The Challenge to Man of the Neoplastic Cell,” Nobel lecture, December 13, 1966, Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine, 1963–1970 (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1972).
176 “Relatively few viruses”: Peyton Rous, “Surmise and Fact on the Nature of Cancer,” Nature 183, no. 4672 (1959): 1357–61.
177 “The program directed by the National Cancer Institute”: “Hunt Continues for Cancer Drug,” New York Times, October 13, 1963.
177 “The iron is hot and this is the time”: Letter from Sidney Farber to Mary Lasker, September 4, 1965, Mary Lasker Papers, Box 171.
177 “No large mission or goal-directed effort”: Mary Lasker, “Need for a Commission on the Conquest of Cancer as a National Goal by 1976,” Mary Lasker Papers, Box 111.
177 Solomon Garb, a little-known professor of pharmacology: Solomon Garb, Cure for Cancer: A National Goal (New York: Springer, 1968).
177 “A major hindrance to the cancer effort”: Ibid.
178 At 4:17 p.m. EDT on July 20, 1969: “The Moon: A Giant Leap for Mankind,” Time, July 25, 1969.
178 “magnificent desolation”: Buzz Aldrin, Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon (New York: Harmony Books, 2009).
178 “It suddenly struck me”: “Space: The Greening of the Astronauts,” Time, December 11, 1972.
178 “It was a stunning scientific and intellectual accomplishment”: “The Moon,” Time.
178 When Max Faget, the famously taciturn engineer: Glen E. Swanson, Before This Decade Is Out: Personal Reflections on the Apollo Program (Washington, DC: NASA History Office, 1999), 374.
179 In her letters, Mary Lasker began: Lasker, “Need for a Commission.”
179 Lister Hill, the Alabama senator: “Two Candidates in Primary in Alabama Count Ways They Love Wallace,” New York Times, May 27, 1968.
179 Edward Kennedy, Farber’s ally from Boston: “Conflicted Ambitions, Then, Chappaquiddick,” Boston Globe, February 17, 2009.
179 “We’re in the worst,” Lasker recalled: Mary Lasker Oral History Project, Part II, Session 5, p. 125.
“A moon shot for cancer”
180 The relationship of government: William Carey, “Research Development and the Federal Budget,” Seventeenth National Conference on the Administration of Research, September 11, 1963.
180 What has Santa Nixon: Robert Semple, New York Times, December 26, 1971.
180 On December 9, 1969, on a chilly Sunday: Advertisement from the American Cancer Society, New York Times, December 17, 1971.
181 in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Cancer Ward: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Cancer Ward (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1968).
181 in Love Story: Erich Segal, Love Story, DVD, directed by Arthur Hiller, 2001.
181 Bang the Drum Slowly, a 1973 release: Mark Harris, Bang the Drum Slowly, DVD, directed by John D. Hancock, 2003.
181 Brian’s Song, the story of the Chicago Bears star: Al Silverman, Gale Sayers, and William Blinn, Brian’s Song, DVD, directed by Buzz Kulik, 2000.
181 “plunged into numb agony”: Richard A. Rettig, Cancer Crusade: The Story of the National Cancer Act of 1971 (Lincoln, NE: Author’s Choice Press, 1977), 175.
181 “Cancer changes your life,” a patient wrote: “My Fight against Cancer,” Chicago Tribune, May 6, 1973.
182 “A radical change happened to the perception”: Renata Salecl, On Anxiety (London: Routledge, 2004), 4. Also Renata Salecl, interview with author, April 2006.
182 The “Big Bomb,” a columnist wrote: Ellen Goodman, “A Fear That Fits the Times,” September 14, 1978.
183 “To oppose big spending against cancer”: James T. Patterson, The Dread Disease: Cancer and Modern American Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), 149.
183 Nixon often groused: For Nixon’s comments, see National Archives and Records Administration, Nixon Presidential Materials Project, 513–14, June 7, 1971, transcribed by Daniel Greenberg. See I. I. Rabi, quoted in Daniel S. Greenberg, The Politics of Pure Science (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 3.
184 Mary Lasker proposed that a “neutral” committee: Rettig, Cancer Crusade, 82.
184 The commission, she wrote, should “include space scientists”: Mary Lasker, “Need for a Commission on the Conquest of Cancer as a National Goal by 1976,” Mary Lasker Papers, Box 111.
184 Sidney Farber was selected as the cochairman: Rettig, Cancer Crusade, 74–89.
184 Yarborough wrote to Mary Lasker in the summer of 1970: Letter from Ralph W. Yarborough to Mary Lasker, June 2, 1970, Mary Lasker Papers, Box 112.
184 The panel’s final report: The report was published in two documents in November 1970 and reprinted in December 1970 and April 1971. See Senate Document 92–99, 1st sess., April 14, 1971. Also see Rettig, Cancer Crusade, 105.
185 “Not only can we afford the effort”: Benno Schmidt, quoted by Alan C. Davis (interview with Richard Rettig) in Rettig, Cancer Crusade, 109.
185 On March 9, 1971, acting on the panel’s recommendations: Ibid.
185 she persuaded her close friend Ann Landers: “Mary Woodard Lasker: First Lady of Medical Research,” presentation by Neen Hunt at the National Library of Medicine, http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/TL/B/B/M/P/ (accessed January 6, 2010).
185 Landers’s column appeared on April 20, 1971: Ask Ann Landers, Chicago Sun-Times, April 20, 1971.
186 “I saw trucks arriving at the Senate”: Rick Kogan, America’s Mom: The Life, Lessons, and Legacy of Ann Landers (New York: Harper Collins, 2003), 104.
186 An exasperated secretary charged with sorting: “Ann Landers,” Washington Post, May 18, 1971.
186 Stuart Symington, the senator from Missouri: Ann Landers and Margo Howard, A Life in Letters (New York: Warner Books, 2003), 255.
186 “Cancer is not simply an island”: Philip Lee. Also see Committee on Labor and Public Welfare Report No. 92–247, June 28, 1971, p. 43. S. 1828, 92nd Cong., 1st sess.
186 “An all-out effort at this time”: Patterson, Dread Disease, 152.
186 James Watson, who had discovered the structure of DNA: See James Watson, “To Fight Cancer, Know the Enemy,” New York Times, August 5, 2009.
186 “Doing ‘relevant’ research”: James Watson, “The Growing Up of Cancer Research,” Science Year: The Book World Science Annual, 1973; Mary Lasker Papers.
&nb
sp; 187 “In a nutshell”: “Washington Rounds,” Medical World News, March 31, 1972.
187 “I suspect there is trouble ahead”: Irvine H. Page, “The Cure of Cancer 1976,” Journal of Laboratory and Clinical Medicine 77, no. 3 (1971): 357–60.
187 “If Richard Milhous Nixon”: “Tower Ticker,” Chicago Tribune, January 28, 1971.
187 “Don’t worry about it”: Benno Schmidt, oral history and memoir (gift and property of Elizabeth Smith, New York).
187 In November 1971, Paul Rogers: For details of Representative Rogers’s bill, see Rettig, Cancer Crusade, 250–75.
188 In December 1971, the House finally: Iwan W. Morgan, Nixon (London: Arnold, 2002), 72.
188 On December 23, 1971, on a cold, windswept afternoon: “Nixon Signs Cancer Bill; Cites Commitment to Cure,” New York Times, December 24, 1971.
188 $400 million for 1972: “The National Cancer Act of 1971,” Senate Bill 1828, enacted December 23, 1871 (P.L. 92–218), National Cancer Institute, http://legislative.cancer.gov/history/phsa/1971 (accessed December 2, 2009). Frank Rauscher, the director of the National Cancer Program, estimated the real numbers to have been $233 million in 1971, $378 million in 1972, $432 million in 1973, and $500 million in 1974. Frank Rauscher, “Budget and the National Cancer Program (NCP),” Cancer Research 34, no. 7 (1974): 1743–48.
188 If money was “frozen energy”: Mary Lasker Oral History Project, Part 1, Session 7, p. 185.
188 The new bill, she told a reporter, “contained nothing”: Ibid., Part 2, Session 10, p. 334.
188 Lasker and Sidney Farber withdrew: Ibid., Part 1, Session 7, p. 185; and Thomas Farber, interview with author, December 2007.
189 “Powerful? I don’t know”: “Mary Lasker: Still Determined to Beautify the City and Nation,” New York Times, April 28, 1974.
189 “A crash program can produce only one result”: Chicago Tribune, June 23, 1971, p. 16.
189 On March 30, 1973, in the late afternoon: Denis R. Miller, “A Tribute to Sidney Farber—the Father of Modern Chemotherapy,” British Journal of Haematology 134 (2006): 20–26; “Dr. Sidney Farber, a Pioneer in Children’s Cancer Research; Won Lasker Award,” New York Times, March 31, 1973. Also see Mary Lasker, “A Personal Tribute to Sidney Farber, M.D. (1903–1973),” CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians 23, no. 4 (1973): 256–57.