Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On The Death Of Cance

Watching the nonfiction authors on book tv is the best television for series for your readers. The. On cspan they can have a longer conversation and delve into their subjects. Book tv weekends. They bringyou author after author after author. Its the work of fascinating people. I love book tvand im a cspan 2 fan. Good evening everybody. Im kelly gruden, on the Program Director at the westportlibrary and im pleased to welcome you to this Evenings Program just a few housekeeping items before we get started. If you could please take a moment to silence your cell phone , we noticed a few cameras in the room and we are pleased to have cspan 2 here to film this Evenings Program. This is an onstage conversation and there will be an opportunity for audience questions at the end and im going to ask you please wait for the microphone and speak into it clearly so the question can be heard after the discussion the authors will be pleased to sign copies of their book. The books are available here and the authors will sign the book here to my right here, if you could please form a line at the table in front of the stage that would be great. And for those with a book in hand already you can jump right into line thank you so much for supporting the library and its programs whether its through your yearly gift or by purchasing a book at tonights program those things all help the library to bring these wonderful programs to you. Tonight, we have pioneering oncologist doctor vincent devita, jr. Whos going to share a personal history of one of the greatest science stories of our time, the fight against cancer. The book the death of cancer after 50 years on the frontline of medicine, pioneering oncologist reveals why the war on cancer is winnable and how we can get there. Its cowritten by journalist elizabeth devitaraeburn and yes, they are related. We are privileged to have the opportunity to have them both here to discuss the book which has received wide praise for its insight, craftsmanship, hope and humanity. Tonight, elizabeth will interview her father about his work and explore his personal stories to go doctor davida arrived at the Cancer Institute in 1963, eventually becoming a director and moving on to top level positions at memorial Sloan Kettering answer center and Yale University where he is currently the amy and Joseph Barela fellow of medicine and professor of methodology. Elizabeth devitaraeburn received a masters degree in Public Health from Columbia University and she writes about science, health and society. Her stories haveappeared in the washington post, self , health, psychology today and Harpers Bazaar among others. Please welcome doctor devita and elizabeth devitaraeburn. [applause] host thank you all for coming. Im a bit of a low talker can you hear me . Ive been asked to interview my father for you which is something ive done a lot of over the course of putting this book together though most of our conversations actually took place over a scotch when we were together but we will do our best in this format put together and try to evoke some of the good stories that came out of that process and before we begin i like to introduce my mother, mary kay hitting in the front row over here who lived through many of these conversations in this book. [applause] and now will begin. So this book is about the war on cancer and your journey through it but most people dont really know that much about how it came to be. Why dont you tell us a little bit about the back story . Guest the war on cancer began in 1971 through the National Cancer act on december 23, 1971, its a Christmas Gift to the nation. It was a grandchild of mary lasker, a very wealthy philanthropist in greenwich nearby, among other places and it was a very Controversial Program for a lot of reasons. One of which is it proposed that the nci, the national Cancer Institute taken out of the National Institutes of health and be given to a separate agency reporting to the president. The proposed the fda control of drugs for shipment to the national Cancer Institute and it was controversial for one other big reason, i asked mary lanser to give a true concert in which she had big influence in the conference, promised to eradicate cancer by the bicentennial. Now no one believed that was true. I dont believe mary believed that was true. Host no scientist believe it was true. Guest the press believed it for about 30 days and afterward we went down after that so it was a very accomplished program. They put 100 billion of tax dollars into Cancer Research and so this book is really about my trek through the war on cancer. Host mary had something in mind for this for a while that she was biding her time. What was she waiting for . Guest she always had an interest in cancer. Mary, we had one version of the book called mary and her machine. She had somebody here in congress. She had and lenders who was part of her operation and when the cancer act was passed she wrote ann landers an open letter to congress saying put this to the american people, tell them your congressman for the bill. Congress was delivered. So she had this big machine that she set in motion and very successful endeavor. We tell the story in the book, theres an ironic twist to it. It was 1969 and i was sitting in my office and the phone rang and it was when i recall from those days from boston Regional Health and she said i have a patient who has gallbladder cancer. He had just been operated on the great claude welch who was the most famous abdominal surgeon in the country and he lived in washington and worked with congress and he wanted to be treated and i was working on lymphoma and we were taking on cases and we also look forward at that time. Host on drug, right . Guest there was one drug, four or five years old so i said thank you very much but i cant take in. 10 minutes later the phone rang and i was sitting and he said to me, he told me about the patient and he said doctor farber, you will take this patient. And i was cocky but i wasnt stupid. So i said yes after farber, ill take the patient so we took the patient and when i examined him, im looking for lymph nodes and so on i felt both armpits and that diseases many things but it doesnt go to lymph nodes in your arms so it turned out he had lymphoma and he taught had a type of lymphoma we were working on, we now had a second drug treatment that we developed for lymphoma and was working well and we treated it and they went into remission and mary lasker, she thought we had provided the missing link to most people dont die from the cancer when it starts, they die from secondary deposits elsewhere. Women in Breast Cancer dont die from the cancer in the breast, they die from metastasis. Once we proved you could treat effectively adults with cancer and mary said we havent seen it. Host we should see how lou quinn is connected to marriage. Guest luke quinn was working for the american cancer society. Mary lasker had paid his salary and he was her eyes and the ears on the hill. He had been a colonel in the air force and was the Armed Forces Liaison with congress so we have a lot of contacts in congress but he basically was a part of her machine. He was her eyes and ears on the hill and would identify congressman who would support whatever effort she was putting out. Those that were neutral and mary would deal with each one of them in a different way so they were important men. Once he was in remission began to put witnesses together and testify before congress and he wrote the National Cancer act and so i followed it as it went through the congress. He never asked me for testimony and he never asked people i suggested to testify. He said he needed somebody was more of a believer to appear before congress and it was a very interestingcharacter. Host i dont think any escutcheon about mary is complete unless you describe what a contradiction she was and the way in which she appeared versus how she acted. Guest there was nobody like mary lasker before and nobody like mary lasker sense. When i first met her she was coming to the National Cancer Advisory Council and she would come and with a mink coat on and drape it over the chair. She had this big bouffant in her hairdo and every 10 minutes sitting at a Board Meeting she would take out her compact and put her makeup on and you would get the impression that maybe she was just frivolous observer but nothing could be further from the truth. She was a very sharp woman and knew what was going on and then i met her when i became the director of the treatment division, one of the first coat phone calls i got was mary lasker. She wanted to become a student and i remember posting to my staff, dont worry. I can take care of mary lasker. She took into my office and 15 minutes later she had me eating out of her hand. She was a logical woman and a smart woman and you couldnt really argue with someone of her logic. So i became a believer and a friend and she used to take me around to congress with her so i got to hear from her, from mary and all of my Life Experiences come from there. Host sometimes she had unorthodox methods to advance her goals so tell everyone about the lunch. One of my favorite stories. Guest in the spring you have the budget hearings in washington so she would come down and stay with her good friend dena blair at a lovely home on foxboro road outside washington and she would visit. And take me some time with her to see congressman if she had dinners and lunches at the house but the dinners we were always sitting next to somebody who needed the information you had to sort of carefully planned. One day i got a call, this is how much detail she went into. From dena blair saying when you come to hodges today. I said, im busy. Ive got plenty of staff and ive got a very stern voice said, mary wants you to come. Please come. So i rearranged my schedule, down there and got in this big blackgovernment limousine sitting in front of the house and i was introduced to Mister Featherstone read. We had lunch had the usual routine. She would tell him about all the things we could do with more money and turned to me and asked me what was going on and about an hour later he got up and said he had to return to congress and he left. Mary took her coffee to the living room and i went in with her and i said mary, whois featherstone read said , hes 90 stryker. Maggie was miss magnuson, the chair of the Senate Appropriations committee, the guy who handled all the money. Show she has seen my shocked look. She put her hands up and said, he drives maggie to work every day. He drives mrs. Maggie around shopping all day and this is maggie is the last person who puts down. Warren magnus and was a friend of hers but she was surrounding him with people who were all apprised of all the information to pass the budget. I said he didnt stand a chance. Host so the war on cancer was a very popular idea in public when it was passed but there were many suckers doctors and scientists who were appalled by it before it was an Unpopular Program in academia. First of all the implication was, that money was going to buy ideas and the mantra for people in academics was money doesnt buy ideas. Ideas spring from the minds of scientists. But thats not true. You get money to good scientists, they go to work, ideas pop out but first of all, you cant pour money into a problem and to make it work. Then the universities want money to go into grants, the small Grant Programs used who support them. Thats the way they support their families and so they were unhappy about the money sifted out from their favorite programs and they didnt want anybody telling them what to do anyways. Doctor rick edelson sitting over there smiling at me, he succeeded me as the director of the Cancer Center and i think you could agree that it was not terribly Popular Program but in fact until recently it hasnt been a Popular Program. I would say last two years. Host so you edited a textbook on cancer and i was going to bring the stone because its 11 and a half pounds but i couldnt get it in mybackpack. You wrote this relatively slim volume by comparison to the layperson. What compelled you to go from writing for doctors to writing for lay people about this . Guest she probably wouldnt say it. She said it was clever of us to develop a mock Treatment Program so we would have somebody to chronicle what wedid. Having this to work with made it easier. Thatsthe reason the book is readable , she made it readable but theres another reason. One is first of all, i think 100 billion is a lot of money and the people who put it up i think should know something about it and should know something about it the way it actually happened, not the imaginary flowery language. Second is, there was nobody, im very fortunate. I was there at the Cancer Institute before the act was signed. The work we did in part led to it. Became director of the Cancer Institute so i ran it then i went to the biggest Cancer Center in the country as position in chief then i went to elite university and then i was president of the american cancer society. I had cancer myself as if i didnt know enough about it. So im in the unique position to describe the whole thing and bracket the program and i thought given the fact that i think the public needs to know and i have a unique opportunity that i should do it. In fact weve been talking about it for 20 years knowing that at some point in time we really should do the book and as i said, if you, if anybody whos read it enjoyed it, thats the reason right there. Host there are some things in the book that some might construe as being inflammatory and in fact youve gotten a lot of emails saying how courageous it is for you to have said the things you said. Did anyone caution you about writing the things that you did or tell you not to do it . Guest yeah, i guess five or six years ago i went down to mount sinai for a sabbatical for four months and my good friend jim collins, one of the pioneers in the chemotherapy field was there so we went out and had lunch, a little Italian Restaurant down the street and i cant describe him. Hes a guy, wears loud ties, its really fun being around him and i told him about the book and he got very serious. I expected hail and well met, go ahead and do it. Instead he looked down at me he said vince, people dont really need to know the story. You really shouldnt do it and i said, i was a little shocked. I didnt say i wasnt going to do it but in the front of the book i mentioned thestory. Ive not yet heard from jim collins so, hes a wonderful man andone of the pioneers in the field but it was so out of character from him that we did put the story in the book. Guest host were you concerned about any response that you might get when this came out . Guest yeah, we do tell stories about people and people seem surprised. I mention names and institutions and tell the truth. I think everything inthe book is truthful as i can remember. As one person said to me, if people complain tell them to write their own book and i would say, find yourself in the limited. Host what criticism do you think has been the hardest and how would you respond to it . What criticism has come out since the book has come out and has been the hardest and how would you respond . Guest we been reviewed twice in the New York Times and one was wonderful, the other one was not bad. He said he liked the book but. Host the second to the last paragraph. Guest he said he would have liked to see more retaliation which the medicine is wonderful. I believe in it wholeheartedly but i was writing the book about the whole field, i was writing about my experience. And then he said, i described a friend of mine we took care of, a patient named lee and how i moved him from institution to institution to get access to new drugs to keep them alive and he said at the last, i forgot to mention the nextnew drug would only improve median survival by 3. 9 months. Its one of my favorite depictions of this is what i call median disease. He suffered from median busy. I was trying to get him into a study with the Survival Program was like this. So median disease, half the people at this point survived and if you look at the survival. Of one year and two year and 25 percent of the people were surviving and responding. I was shooting for that and he was worried about median diseases. Median is what we use at a fish network of many years who would tell you more. We did statistical tools where we compare studies but he suffered from median disease. And laboratory science, wonderful scientists, doctor edmonds in london wrote a review and he said you know, its good. Look, we dont know enough. My responses, you dont know enough. But we know enough and the reason that is, Laboratory Scientists can, people who spend all their time in a laboratory tend to want to know everything before you do anything and in the cancer field you dont have to do tha. What you have to do is fix critical parts of the cancer cell during the time its exposed to a treatment and in the book we describe the hallmarks of cancer. If you can jimmy them so you can get them back to where they were before during the period of time, you dont have to know everything. You can direct the cancer otherwise we wouldnt have been able to do what we did with some of the other treatments so those are the two i think bothered me the most. Their understandable and we got very good reviews so i cant really complain but. Host early in the book, you start a chapter with a scene from a party and your ne