Kristian Hemb

Dr. Green
Taking Sides
3/4/15

The War on Cancer

1. The author John Seffrin states that we are winning the war on Cancer as soon we
can eliminate Cancer from the list of major health problems.
2. Reynold Spector writes in his article, The War on Cancer: A Progress Report for
Skeptics, that the gains against
Cancer are very limited and that overall there has been very little progress in the
war on cancer.
3. Two facts saying the war on cancer is going well are stated by Seffrin. He claims
that that the remarkable mapping of the human genome is a major feat in curing
cancer. He also claims that the FDA approved a HPV vaccine which can prevent
some cancers for women.
4. Spector feels the war on cancer is not going well. He claims that few metastatic
cancers can be cured with chemotherapy/radiation therapy, and that there are only
a small amount of cancers that this works with. He also makes the point that little to
no advancements to treating pancreatic cancer have been made since 1975.
5. Seffrin has two opinions that he uses as arguments. One opinion of his is that we
must promote and elevate prevention into public policy and standard practice
nationwide. He also asserts another opinion that we must drive delivery of state-ofthe-art cancer care and control at the community level.
6. Spector makes opinions on the war on cancer as well. He claims that the reason
for stomach cancer declining may be due to changes in food preservation; it is not
due to treatment. He also claims that the benefits of breast cancer screening
slightly outweighs the harm.
7. There is a fallacy in Saffrons article. He says that as I speak the cancer burden
is actually getting worse-not better. This is a fallacy because he provides no ethos to
support for this claim, he could have used a table or sited a fact from a medical
journal.
8. It seems to be misleading that Spector claims that the war on cancer has not
gone welldeath rates from stroke[contrasted to cancer] has decreased but his
data says the reports were adjusted for age and size of population. Its a fallacy to
say the data was adjusted by age and not explain why the data was adjusted; to me
it sounds like he skewed the numbers for his benefit.
9. I find Spectors side on the war on cancer to be more valid. It is because Spector
uses facts, table, and statistics to back up his argument more so then Seffrin does in

his paper. If Seffrin used more outside sources, I would totally agree with his
opinions.
10. As stated in 9. Spector relies heavily on scientific findings, whereas Saffrin just
seems happy and hopeful, but he fails to back his opinions with enough hard data.
In fact it was much harder to find opinion statements from Spector then Saffrin,
because Spector would use a quote or study then elaborate on the findings.
11. Its my opinion that because Saffrin is the president of the American Cancer
Society he is not only biased to say that we are beating cancer, but he is obligated
to say so. If Saffrin wasnt the president of the ACS he might have different views,
but he most likely published his article to try and raise funding and to ensure
current funders that he is making headway on research.