Holistic Cancer

Holistic Cancer

Introduction

For centuries, cancer was part of a pantheon of deadly ailments that threatened human lives. Although the development of vaccines and public health measures helped to conquer traditional enemies such as cholera and tuberculosis during the first half of the twentieth century, cancer remained an obstinate foe. Cancer was a widely inclusive term used to describe abnormal, often malignant growth in various parts of the body: skin, brain, colon, breast, and myriad other areas. The word cancer also became a widely used metaphor for a diseased blight on anything pure. Often it was used to describe some deleterious factor in modern, industrial society. One the basis of several accessed sources, I can assert that traditionally there was not proper cure of cancer; hence, cancer was addressed most successfully by measures of prevention. The U.S. National Institutes of Health estimate the annual cost of cancer diagnosis and treatment at almost $40 billion. Another $70 billion is attributed to lost worker productivity and premature death.

Holistic vs. Moderns Cancer Treatment

In the United States, the American Society for the Control of Cancer was founded in 1913; its battle against cancer was composed mainly of public education to enable early detection of symptoms that might lead to malignant forms of cancer. Such efforts met with only limited success, because health care coverage was not universal, and thus even early detection did not necessarily translate into prevention (American Cancer Society, 2006, 89). By the 1930s, cancer mortality rates were on the rise. The U.S. government attempted to address the problem by funding, in 1937, the National Cancer Institute, to be advised by the National Advisory Cancer Council. The federal government funneled considerable funding into biomedical research in the hopes that scientists would eradicate cancer as they had other diseases. I believe that this early optimism faltered when confronted by many years without a decisive cure.

I accessed several sources to shed light on the issues. Nonetheless, it was revealed that majority of the sources believe that the modern treatment approaches used to cure cancer are more effective than holistic approaches. Surgery is the main type of traditional cancer treatment. In almost all cases, when the condition is treatable, the malignant tumor is surgically removed. Generally, the surrounding tissue is also removed surgically in order to hinder any remaining cancer cells from replication (Parkin, Bray, Ferlay, Pisani, 2005, 74). I believe that traditionally, it was possible for ...