Cancer is the best way to die? Try telling that to sufferers and the people who love them, says PROFESSOR KAROL SIKORA

wyatt1 Sat Jan 03, 2015 11:17 am

Yesterday Dr Richard Smith, a former long-serving editor of the British Medical Journal and now the chairman of a health technology company, caused outrage by claiming in an online blog that cancer is ‘the best way to die’, and that the country should therefore ‘stop wasting billions’ trying to find a cure for the disease.

Adopting highly incendiary language, he said that preventing cancer deaths would just mean that people die of even worse ailments, like dementia or organ failure.
Cancer, he said, allowed patients time to say goodbyes, settle their affairs, ‘visit special places for the last time’, and, depending on their beliefs, prepare to meet their maker.
Dr Smith claimed that his view was a ‘romantic one’. Others — especially cancer patients and their families — might call it highly offensive.

As an oncologist myself, who has spent more than 40 years working in this field, I would say that his deliberately insensitive statement was misguided and bears little relationship to the harsh reality of the suffering endured by cancer patients and their loved ones.
Given the mental and physical anguish that they have to go through, it is absurd to pretend that is the ‘best way’ to die. In a huge number of cases, as I know only too well, there is nothing neat or swift or painless about such an exit.
Equally fallacious has been the spin put on the Baltimore report, with its emphasis on ‘bad luck’, as if that absolves us all of responsibility for our own healthcare.
In fact, for all the high-profile interest the report attracted, there was nothing radical in it. The finding that two-thirds of cancer cases are due to random cell mutation is backed up by a host of other studies. Most oncologists would agree with that conclusion.
But the crucial point is that at least a third of the other cancer cases are indeed influenced by lifestyle choices, from lack of exercise to alcoholic consumption.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2894898/Cancer-best-way-die-Try-telling-sufferers-people-love-says-PROFESSOR-KAROL-SIKORA.html#ixzz3Nkvj5Glm
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"Dr Smith claimed that his view was a ‘romantic one’. Others — especially cancer patients and their families — might call it highly offensive."

If he ever suffers from cancer I hope he is willing to stand by his idiotic claims.