Devra Davis
By
Shipra Shukla
According to the National Cancer Institute, an estimated two-thirds of all cancer cases are linked to environmental causes. While the overall rate of deaths from cancer has declined, due to fewer smokers and better detection and treatment, about half a million Americans die from cancer each year.
Award-winning author Devra Davis, PhD, MPH, a professor of epidemiology in the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh and director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, thinks that more can be done to prevent these deaths.
Davis will speak about her recently published book,
The Secret History of the War on Cancer, during a lecture from noon to 1 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 29 in Herbst Hall at UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion. The event is free and open to the public. To RSVP or for more information contact the UCSF Women's Health Resource Center at 415/353-2668 or email
Baylee DeCastro.
Davis will talk about how efforts in the war on cancer are focused on detecting, treating and curing the disease, with less emphasis on analyzing the causes of cancer. She estimates that millions of cancer deaths could have been prevented if more focus had been directed to discovering what causes the disease.
"We want to believe we can cure cancer -- throw a lot of money at it and solve the problem," Davis said in an interview. "It hasn't worked because we want to kill the disease, but we don't look at what causes it."
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Davis links the current approach to fighting cancer back to 1971, when President Richard Nixon declared a "war on cancer." Davis explains that many factors known to cause cancer were left untouched, including tobacco, radiation, asbestos and an examination of the global environment. Davis concludes that information was either overlooked or suppressed.
"We're surrounded by potentially cancer-causing products that we should be paying attention to," said Davis. "Like the tobacco companies, the chemical industry has managed to obfuscate the carcinogenic dangers of how their own products might be causing the disease."
Davis is a regular commentator on NPR, her books are often found in the
New York Times Book Review section and Bloomberg.com refers to her as a "cancer crusader."
Davis holds a PhD degree from the University of Chicago and a master's degree in public health from John Hopkins University. Over the years, she has held multiple advisory roles in national and international agencies, including the World Health Organization. Her 2002 book,
When Smoke Ran Like Water: Tales of Environment Deception and the Battle Against Pollution, was selected as a finalist for the National Book Award.
The lecture on November 29 is sponsored by the UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment, UCSF Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, UCSF National Center of Excellence in Women's Health, Commonweal and the Collaborative on Health and the Environment.
Related Links:
Devra Davis: Chemicals, Cancer and You, NPR, Oct 4, 2007
University of Pittsburgh, Center for Environmental Oncology
