Siddhartha Mukherjee: The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

In November 2010, NPR’s Fresh Air featured a story, “An Oncologist Writes a Biography of Cancer.” Oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee was treating one of his patients, a woman with advanced abdominal cancer who had relapsed multiple times, when she asked him what seemed like a simple question. "She said, 'I'm willing to go on, but before I go on, I need to know what it is I'm battling,' " Mukherjee tells NPR's Terry Gross. But, as Mukherjee explains, describing his patient's illness wasn't so simple. Defining cancer, he says, is something doctors and scientists have been struggling to do since the disease's first documented appearance thousands of years ago. Mukherjee's new book, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, grew out of his desire to better understand the disease he treats, through examining the way cancer has been described and treated throughout history. He chronicles the ways therapies evolved, particularly in the 20th century, as more treatment options became available and scientists worked to understand the underlying genetic mutations that caused the disease.

“A breast cancer might turn out to have a close resemblance to a gastric cancer. And this kind of reorganization of cancer in terms of its internal genetic anatomy has really changed the way we treat and approach cancer in general.”

- Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of the book: The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

“What does it mean to be an oncologist? It means that you get to sit in at a moment of another person’s life that is so hyper-acute, and not just because they’re medically ill. It’s also a moment of hope and expectation and concern. It’s a moment when you get to erase everything that’s irrelevant and ask the most elemental questions — about survival, family, children, legacy.”

- Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of the book: The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

In November 2010, The Economist published “With hope, farewell fear: The long struggle to understand cancer.” It is said that when the good burghers of Amsterdam were first presented with a rhinoceros—armored, horned, three-toed, with a prehensile lip—spectators shook their heads in disbelief. Cancer provokes a similar bafflement. So protean are its forms and so varied its features that even specialist prognoses of aggressiveness, invasion and response to treatment have typically generated more exceptions than rules. Apparently, identical cancers in two patients may behave so unlike as to appear utterly different diseases. Siddhartha Mukherjee’s “The Emperor of All Maladies” tells of the search for a “unifying theory” of cancer, the common attribute of all types of malignant cell growth that might reveal its cure. The arc of this rich and engrossing book matches Mr. Mukherjee’s personal evolution as an oncologist, beginning on the first day of his hospital residency. It seems that the diversity of this implacable, shape-shifting foe will defeat him. He is faced with dead-end discoveries, therapeutic disasters and revelations that lead only to more mysteries. But with the perceptiveness and patience of a true scientist he begins to weave these individual threads into a coherent and engrossing narrative.

“If there's a seminal discovery in oncology in the last 20 years, it's that idea that cancer genes are often mutated versions of normal genes. And the arrival of that moment really sent a chill down the spine of cancer biologists. Because here we were hoping that cancer would turn out to be some kind of exogenous event — a virus or something that could then be removed from our environment and our bodies and we could be rid of it — but as it turns out, cancer genes are sitting inside each and every one of our chromosomes, waiting to be corrupted or activated.”

- Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of the book: The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

Antonio Damasio: Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain

The study of the evolution of emotions dates back to the 19th century. Charles Darwin famously applied the theory of evolution and natural selection to the study of human communication in his 1872 work, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Charles Darwin researched the expression of emotions in an effort to support his theory of evolution. He proposed that much like other traits found in humans and animals, emotions, also, evolved and were adapted over time. His work looked at not only facial expressions in both humans and animals, but attempted to point out parallels between behaviors in animals and in humans. It’s this area of science that author and neuroscientist Antonio Damasio has focused on for much of his life. As he has done previously, Antonio Damasio (Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain) explores the process that leads to consciousness. Moreover, as he has also done previously, he alternates between some exquisite passages that represent the best popular science has to offer and some technical verbiage that few will be able to follow. Antonio Damasio draws meaningful distinctions among points on the continuum from brain to mind, consciousness to self, constantly attempting to understand the evolutionary reasons why each arose and attempting to tie each to an underlying physical reality. Antonio Damasio goes to great lengths to explain that many species, such as social insects, have minds, but humans are distinguished by the "autobiographical self," which adds flexibility and creativity, and has led to the development of culture, a "radical novelty" in natural history. Antonio Damasio ends with a speculative chapter on the evolutionary process by which mind developed and then gave rise to self. In the Pleistocene, he suggests, humans developed emotive responses to shapes and sounds that helped lead to the development of the arts.

"The time will come when the issue of human responsibility, in general moral terms as well as on matters of justice and its application, will take into account the evolving science of consciousness."

- Antonio Damasio, Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain

"Emotions proper are merely an integrated crown jewel of life regulation."

"In a generation that has grown up multitasking, in the digital age, the upper limits of attention in the human brain are being rapidly raised, something that is likely to change certain aspects of consciousness in the not-too-distant future, if it has not done so already. Breaking the glass ceiling of attention has obvious advantages, and the associate abilities generated by multitasking are a terrific advantage; but there may be trade-off costs in terms of learning, memory consolidation, and emotion. We have no idea what these costs may be."

- Antonio Damasio, Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain

"Which kind of consciousness is primordial? Is the self fundamental for consciousness, as Damasio suggests? Or does awareness come when we take in information without having to do anything about it, and is the attending and planning self merely an elaborate construction on top of that, as the Buddhists or David Hume would argue?"

- Alison Gopnik, Slate.com

In November 2010, Alison Gopnik wrote “How Weird Is Consciousness? Scientists may not even be asking the right questions.” for the Slate.com: Antonio Damasio is a neuroscientist who has done illuminating research on emotion, decision-making, and our perception of our own bodies. He was also one of the brave early researchers who tackled the problem of consciousness head-on, and he was rewarded by several successful popular books. Unfortunately, in Self Comes to Mind, Antonio Damasio seems to have jumped the shark. The book doesn't include either the new scientific research of the last 10 years or new philosophical clarity—although the style is readable, if a bit high-flown, it's often hard to make out the arguments. Instead, the book is a rather wandering and digressive restatement, with some minor variations, of Damasio's earlier views on consciousness. […] The trouble with Damasio's hypothesis, as with all the hypotheses about capital-C Consciousness, is figuring out how you could test it. There is only one organism that I'm sure is conscious (namely, me), and there are only a few more organisms that tell me they are also conscious (namely, my fellow humans), though I'm pretty sure that my other fellow animals are conscious, too. Just to make things worse, the more you think about it, the less sure you are about the nature of your own consciousness, let alone that of other organisms. The philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel has collected many examples that shake your belief that you always know about your own experiences. For example, were you conscious a moment ago of the feeling of your feet in your shoes? You are now, of course, but were you before I made you think about it?

"As humans debate the benefits or perils of cultural trends, and of developments such as the “digital revolution,” it may help to be informed about how our flexible brains create consciousness."

- Antonio Damasio, Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain

Daniel Callahan: Taming the Beloved Beast: How Medical Technology Costs Are Destroying Our Health Care System

Daniel Callahan is Senior Research Scholar and President Emeritus of the Center. He was its cofounder in 1969 and served as its president between 1969 and 1996. He is also co-director of the Yale-Hastings Program in Ethics and Health Policy. Over the years his research and writing have covered a wide range of issues, from the beginning until the end of life. In recent years, he has focused his attention on ethics and health policy. He has served as a Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Medical School and is now a Senior Scholar at Yale. He received his B.A. from Yale and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard. He has honorary degrees from the Charles University, Prague, the Czech Republic, the University of Colorado, Williams College, Oregon State University, the State University of New York and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.





Dr. Callahan is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences; a former member of the Director’s Advisory Committee, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and of the Advisory Council, Office of Scientific Responsibility, Department of Health and Human Services. He won the 1996 Freedom and Scientific Responsibility Award of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

He is the author or editor of 41 books, including Taming the Beloved Beast: Why Medical Technology Costs are Destroying Our Health Care System (Princeton University Press, August 2009); Medicine and the Market: Equity vs. Choice (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006); The Research Imperative: What Price Better Health? (University of California Press, 2003); False Hopes (Simon & Schuster & Rutgers University Press, 1998); The Troubled Dream of Life: In Search of a Peaceful Death (Simon & Schuster, 1993); What Kind of Life: The Limits of Medical Progress (Simon & Schuster, 1990); Setting Limits: Medical Goals in an Aging Society (1987); The Tyranny of Survival (1973); Abortion: Law, Choice and Morality (1970); Ethics in Hard Times (1982); and, with his wife, Sidney Callahan, Abortion: Understanding Differences (1984). He has contributed articles to Daedalus, Harpers, The Atlantic, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, The New Republic, Health Affairs, and other journals.

Atul Gawande: Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance

In 2009, the author wrote this in the New Yorker: McAllen has another distinction, too: it is one of the most expensive health-care markets in the country. Only Miami—which has much higher labor and living costs—spends more per person on health care. In 2006, Medicare spent fifteen thousand dollars per enrollee here, almost twice the national average. The income per capita is twelve thousand dollars. In other words, Medicare spends three thousand dollars more per person here than the average person earns. See that New Yorker piece here. In the video below, the author's giving a talk that involves the topics and subjects of his book, at large, at Google's corporate campus (part of the company's "Authors @Google" series). The second video is of an interview of the author by Charlie Rose.

Wendell Potter: Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans

In "Killing health care and deceiving Americans," Linda Greene at the Bloomington Alternative, a progressive media outlet, recently wrote: “About 45,000 people die in America every year because they have no health insurance. I am partly responsible for some of the deaths making up that shameful statistic.” Those two sentences open a book by Wendell Potter called Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans. Part expose and part memoir of the author’s experience in the health care industry, the book’s as dramatic and suspenseful as a good novel.

The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health

In March 2010, The Boston Globe mentioned the book, "The China Study," this way:

Eric Faulkner, a professional in high tech, is baking a batch of vegan cookies in his Lowell loft. He minces few words to explain why he became a vegan. “I’m scared to death of cancer,’’ says the lanky 42-year-old. After reading “The China Study’’ (Benbella Books), which purports that animal protein can accelerate the growth of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, Faulkner ate his last cheeseburger. For the past eight months meals in his household have been healthy remakes of meaty standbys. “I make a great avocado Reuben sandwich, a faux meat loaf, roasted butternut squash soup, and lots of pasta,’’ says Faulkner, whose wife and 8-year-old daughter have also converted.

Read the rest of that Boston Globe piece, here. There's plenty criticism about the book, however. Take Chris Masterjohn at Cholesterol-And-Health.Com as an example:

The generalization from the milk protein casein to all "nutrients from animal-based foods" is clearly unwarranted. If Campbell took caution to study the issue further before generalizing from casein to all proteins, why didn't he take the same caution before generalizing from casein to all animal proteins or all animal nutrients? Indeed, in later pages of The China Study, Campbell acknowledges that he is making this generalization: ". . . casein, and very likely all animal proteins, may be the most relevant cancer-causing substances that we consume."16 Why this generalization is "very likely" to be true is left unexplained. Campbell is aware that casein has been uniquely implicated in health problems, and dedicates an entire chapter of The China Study to casein's capacity to generate autoimmune diseases.17 Whey protein appears to have a protective effect against colon cancer that casein does not have.18 Any effect of casein, then, cannot be generalized to other milk proteins, let alone all animal proteins. Other questions, such as what effect different types of processing have on casein's capacity to promote tumor growth, remain unanswered. Pasteurization, low-temperature dehydration, high-temperature spray-drying (which creates carcinogens), and fermentation all affect the structure of casein differently and thereby would affect its physiological behavior.

Read that full article here.

Michael Pollan: Food Rules: An Eater's Manual

Austin 360 recently wrote:

In his most recent book, "Food Rules," Pollan doles out 64 guidelines that are as easy to remember as his most well-known mantra: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. (His second most-repeated rule? "Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.") "I really don't want people to have to count calories and to read labels," he says. How we eat has changed so much in the past 50 years that we all could use the reminders: "Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk." "Always leave the table a little hungry." (One of his personal favorites is "The whiter the bread, the sooner you'll be dead.") Pollan says that one of the biggest problems is that we've been conditioned, primarily by food marketers and manufacturers, to think that we're supposed to spend as little time as possible shopping for, cooking and eating our meals.

Find the rest of that article here.

PRI's The World: Global Health Podcast: The Challenge of Global Health from PRI's The World: Global Health Podcast [Originally posted March 16, 2008]

Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with Laurie Garrett, Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations, about funding strategies for helping the world's sick and poor. Her article, "The Challenge of Global Health," appears in the upcoming issue of Foreign Affairs. It challenges the notion of putting money toward specific diseases.

That article can be found here. Download the podcast here. Recently, the author was quoted as hypothesizing that cholera was actually imported to Haiti, a place that is absolutely ravaged by the disease currently. Human Events, a conservative website, said this:

Earlier this month, Laurie Garrett, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, told The Washington Post that cholera was clearly imported to Haiti, but couldn’t pinpoint the exact source. “It has to be either peacekeepers or humanitarian relief workers, that’s the bottom line,” she told the Post.

You can find that Human Events article here. See also: The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance, Charlie Rose with Laurie Garrett; David Denby, Peter Travers & Janet Maslin; Susan Eisenhower (June 9, 1995), Great Minds of Medicine:Cancer [VHS]

Oliver Sacks Discusses Vision and 'The Mind's Eye' from NPR Podcast Science Friday

Normally the eyes and brain work together in a seamless, intricate system. But what happens when the brain can no longer make sense of visual information? Neurologist Oliver Sacks talks about his new book, The Mind's Eye, and what visual disorders reveal about how the brain processes sight.

Download the podcast here. See also: The Mind's Eye, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Revised and Expanded Edition, Migraine

Oliver Sacks Discusses Vision and 'The Mind's Eye' from NPR: Science Friday Podcast

Normally the eyes and brain work together in a seamless, intricate system. But what happens when the brain can no longer make sense of visual information? Neurologist Oliver Sacks talks about his new book, The Mind's Eye, and what visual disorders reveal about how the brain processes sight.

View the webpage for this particular Science Friday show, here. See also: The Mind's Eye, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Revised and Expanded Edition, Migraine

'Pot Book' Explores History And Science Of Marijuana from NPR Podcast Science Friday

Next month, voters in four states will consider whether to change laws regulating marijuana use. But how much is known about marijuana's effects on the body? Ira Flatow talks with psychiatrist Julie Holland, editor of a new collection of essays titled The Pot Book, about the plant.

Download the podcast here. Check out this Cannibus Culture blog post. See also: Marijuana Horticulture: The Indoor/Outdoor Medical Grower's Bible, Grow Great Marijuana: An Uncomplicated Guide to Growing the World's Finest Cannabis, Marijuana Grower's Handbook: Your Complete Guide for Medical and Personal Marijuana Cultivation, Marijuana Cooking: Good Medicine Made Easy

New Book From The AGA Helps Patients Achieve Greater Freedom From IBS from Medical News Today

A new book from the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) offers patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) a variety of strategies to lessen the burden that IBS puts on their everyday lives. IBS is a common disorder of the intestines that leads to crampy pain, gassiness, bloating and changes in bowel habits; there is no cure. The new book, "Master Your IBS," includes a variety of strategies to help patients learn how to manage their IBS symptoms and achieve greater freedom from IBS.

Read the full article here.

Excerpt: 'Mayo Clinic Book of Home Remedies' from ABCNews.com - Breaking news, politics, online news, world news ...

The Mayo Clinic is the largest integrated, not-for-profit group practice in the world. It recently was named one of the top hospitals of 2010 by US News & World Report. Mayo Clinic doctors from every specialty work together to care for patients, united by one philosophy: "The needs of the patient come first." Now, the Mayo Clinic has released a book designed to keep you out of the hospital. "The Mayo Clinic's Book of Home Remedies" shows you how to treat illness and injury on your own until you are able to see your doctor. This book can help you nip an illness in the bud, keep your condition from getting worse and avoid costly medical bills. It also tells you when it's time to put down the chicken soup, and get to the office of a medical professional.

Read the full excerpt of the book here.

The Age of Autism from WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show by listenerservices@wnyc.org (WNYC, New York Public Radio)

Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill trace the long overlooked history of mercury poisoning. In their book, The Age of Autism: Mercury, Medicine, and a Man-made Epidemic, they write about how mercury has been used in medicine, and why it's one of the earth's most toxic substances. They present their findings about the link between mercury and illness, and investigate how chemical and environmental clues may be overlooked by medical experts.

Listen to the podcast here.

New book examines how ordinary women revolutionized health care in America from PhysOrg.com - latest science and technology news

As 40th anniversary celebrations get underway surrounding the book, 'Our Bodies Ourselves,' a new history examines the battles of ordinary women in demanding equality, choice and respect in medical treatment and education about their own bodies.

Read the full PhysOrg story here. See also: Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth, Our Bodies Ourselves For The New Century (A Touchstone book), Our Bodies, Ourselves: MenopauseOur Bodies, Ourselves: Menopause

Teaching Doctors To Be Better Listeners from NPR Podcast Science Friday

If doctors listen more carefully to patients' conversations about work and family life, they can pick up clues that lead to better treatment, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Author Dr. Alan Schwartz talks about training doctors to be better listeners.

Download the podcast here.

Drawing the Map of Life: Inside the Human Genome Project from Forum Network | Book Tour Podcast Podcast

Science writer and founder the Knight Science Journalism Fellowships at MIT, Victor McElheny, for a look into the workings of the Human Genome Project and his new book, Drawing the Map of Life. Drawing the Map of Life is the dramatic story of the Human Genome Project from its origins, through the race to order the three billion subunits of DNA, to the surprises emerging as scientists seek to exploit the molecule of heredity. It's the first account to deal in depth with the intellectual roots of the project, the motivations that drove it, and the hype that often masked genuine triumphs. Victor McElheny offers profiles of key people, such as David Botstein, Eric Lander, Francis Collins, James Watson, Michael Hunkapiller, and Craig Venter. McElheny also shows that the Human Genome Project is a striking example of how new techniques (such as restriction enzymes and sequencing methods) often arrive first, shaping the questions scientists then ask. Drawing on years of original interviews and reporting in the inner circles of biological science, Drawing the Map of Life is the definitive, up-to-date story of today's greatest scientific quest.

Download the podcast here. This is what Salon.com had to say about the book:

But these days, the popular excitement surrounding the project has largely abated: The sequencing of the genome hasn't led to the rollout of any game-changing new drugs; we've yet to discover the genes responsible for Alzheimer's or Huntington's, among many other diseases, and the era of mass personalized medicine — in which doctors can tailor treatments to people's specific genetic code — has yet to come. But as Victor McElheny, a longtime science reporter and the founder of the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT, points out in his new book about the tumultuous evolution of the Human Genome Project, "Drawing the Map of Life," the widespread impact of genome sequencing is only now beginning to be felt, and a new era of genetically informed medicine is just around the corner.

Read the full Salon.com piece here. See also: Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters (P.S.), A Short Guide to the Human Genome, Inside the Human Genome: A Case for Non-Intelligent Design, The Genome War: How Craig Venter Tried to Capture the Code of Life and Save the World

Please Explain: Caffeine from Lopate - Underreported by listenerservices@wnyc.org (WNYC, New York Public Radio)

This week's Please Explain will answer all of our caffeine-related questions, from whether or not we should drink coffee before we run a marathon to how caffeine differs from other stimulants. Bennett Alan Weinberg, co-author of the book The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World's Most Popular Drug, explains how the world's most popular drug affects us.

Download the podcast here. None other than the New Journal of Medicine had this to say about the book:

This book covers the history and social effects of the principal beverages that contain caffeine, notably coffee and tea. Products of cacao, chocolate that is eaten and drunk, and the soft drinks that contain caffeine (principally colas) are also covered. The historical origins of coffee, tea, and cacao are described, as are the various fascinating ways they made their way into world culture. Some of the main features of this story are told with a theme of geographic spread and with a description of effects of the arrival of “the drug,” as the authors often refer to caffeine, on existing cultures. How the different beverages were received (or rejected) by different cultures and by different strata and segments of each culture makes a rich and exciting story. Insights emerge as to how the various civilizations worked. The pleasure of reading is enhanced by the authors' eye for beauty and the many appropriate half-tone illustrations. The scholarship is impressive; many of the most famous figures of the past 500 and more years make brief appearances. Among them are Chinese emperors, Zen Buddhist monks in Japan, nameless Olmecs of Mesoamerica, and then Cortés and Montezuma and Charles V. The conquest of Europe by the drug from Turkish and African sources is also covered. The familiar names of great historical figures appear on almost every page, tying this account in with our knowledge of history and making it more real. The text is rich with information, yet it is easy and pleasant to read.

The full article is here. See also: Caffeine for the Creative Mind: 250 Exercises to Wake Up Your Brain, Caffeine for the Creative Team: 150 Exercises to Inspire Group Innovation, Buzz: The Science and Lore of Alcohol and Caffeine

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks from WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show by listenerservices@wnyc.org (WNYC, New York Public Radio)

Rebecca Skloot discusses the life and legacy of Henrietta Lacks, a poor Southern tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. Her book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of the Lacks family, the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the what we are made of.

Listen to the WNYC podcast here, or download the show here.

Some Books Considered - Program 016 from TPR: Some Books Considered

The search for Immortality has fascinated humanity for ages. Dan Skinner talks with Greg Critser about his book Eternity Soup: Inside The Quest to End Aging. Critser is a science and medical journalist who has written for the LA Times, the Times of London and the New York Times. In his latest book, he examines the sociological impact of a growing elderly population and reviews current research on aging including work being done at the Barshop Institute in San Antonio. Comments from Dr. Steven Austad about research at the Institute are also featured in the interview.

Listen to the show here, or download the podcast here.