The Week
– “Journalism with a Human Touch” – March 10, 2013 has the front-cover and
back-cover adorned with cancer survivors’ smiling pictures. The front cover
is a beaming Reema Sengupta: “Cancer Couldn’t Hold Her Down.” The back-cover
is a proud Suresh Dandekar: “Cancer Lost Against Me.” Elsewhere, there are
ads for bariatric pictures fail to camouflage the rank propaganda indulged
in by Fortis surgery, and all the foregoing is credited to the Swiss Giant
Fortis. The verbiage and the pictures fail to camouflage the rank propaganda
indulged in by Fortis.
The Time (USA) of
April 1, 2013
has its cover with a gigantic cancer cell overlaid by equally gigantic
letters HOW TO CURE CANCER* , the * declaring “Yes, it is now possible –
thanks to new cancer dream teams that are delivering better results faster”.
The report is prepaged by THE CONSPIRACY TO END CANCER – A team-based,
cross-disciplinary approach to cancer research is upending tradition and
delivering results faster.” The 8-page coverage is replete with photographs
of procedures, scientists and scary-schemata, with a launching statement THE
HERO SCIENTIST WHO DEFEATS CANCER WILL LIKELY NEVER EXIST.
| A column of 5 photos is captioned: “One tumour five labs,” The entire presentation looks like convincing senators, donors and whatever powers that be, that all is well with cancer research and breakthroughs, of course through team-work, is only a matter of time. Jane Goodfield, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, and the author of the reportorial book The Siege of Cancer was told, in 1975, more or less the same thing by Robert Good, the then big name in cancer and immunology: “Just keep the faith, baby. Give us time.” A flow of 2500 years, from the time of Sushruta and Charaka, has made no dent on the impenetrable face that cancer has offered to the oncogists. |