Otis W. Brawley, MD, MACP

A month after reporting to work in the top job at the University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center, Taofeek K. Owonikoko reflected on the obligations that come with being a Black director of an NCI-designated cancer center.

Those of us interested in the health of Americans of all races write to support the FDA ban on menthol flavoring in tobacco products. Such a ban will potentially prevent thousands of deaths per year from cancer, lung disease, as well as cardiovascular disease.

Those of us concerned about health disparities agree that the time has come to ban menthol. 

Worta McCaskill-Stevens, MD, died on Nov. 15 from complications from a sarcoma.  She was 74.

This week came word of the passing of Franklyn Prendergast, professor emeritus of the Mayo College of Medicine and Science and director emeritus of the Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center. 

Peter Boyle, FRSE, FFPH, FRCPS(Glas), FRCP(Edin), FMedSci, died after a long illness on July 23 at his home in Lyon, France. He was 71.

Forty-nine years and a few days after the signing of the National Cancer Act of 1971, we launched the Cancer History Project. One year and 11,894 articles later, we have built a shared, collaborative, and unprecedented resource.

First published in 1977, Cancer Crusade: The Story of the National Cancer Act of 1971, is a dispassionate legislative history—a book you can trust.

“A document in perspective” is a new feature of the Cancer History Project.The objective is to take a noteworthy document—be it prescient or naive—and illuminate it by placing it in proper historical and scientific context.

Emil J Freireich was a big man in stature, with a booming voice. He was one of the last of the 60 original members of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

In a succession of high-powered day jobs, Joseph V. Simone shaped modern oncology. Then, presumably at night, Joe did a little writing. “Simone's Maxims” is his chef-d'œuvre.

In histories of oncology, Charles Gordon Zubrod is a name that flashes by quickly, someone who did something important a long time ago.

Historical documents have a way of vanishing. Manuscripts, letters, and photographs end up in city dumps. Memories become less granular, insight is lost. The documents that do get preserved often require a trip to the archives.

Like a laser, COVID-19 traced the shocking contours of inequality in America's health system—demonstrating that science and health equity have always been inseparable.

The past ten days have seen an outpouring of emotions as American society, devastated by the tragic murder of George Floyd by four Minneapolis police officers, plunges into a crisis of conscience.

Nicole Kuderer and colleagues are to be congratulated for their report—in The Lancet and at the ASCO 2020 Annual Meeting—on the impact of COVID-19 on a cohort of patients with cancer.

As I look through just-published tables of age-adjusted cancer mortality, I recognize an unprecedented development:

Paul Godley died after a brief illness on March 31. He was the Rush S. Dickson Distinguished Professor of Hematology and Oncology in the School of Medicine, a professor of epidemiology at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, and senior fellow at the Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

The publication by Ian M. Thompson and colleagues in last week's New England Journal of Medicine regarding long term follow-up of patients in the NCI-sponsored Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial (PCPT) marks a good opportunity to review and reflect on the history of the trial and the past 30 years of prostate cancer medicine.

This week, the USPSTF issued its draft guidelines for prostate cancer screening. They propose shifting from task force's recommendation against routine prostate cancer screening to a recommendation for informed and shared decision-making in which the physician and patient discuss the real risks of harm and the potential for life saving benefit before deciding on screening.

Charles Aubrey “Mickey” LeMaistre, a former president of MD Anderson Cancer and a pioneer of cancer prevention, died Jan. 27. He was 92.

Greg Curt died last Sunday. For us in oncology, this one was especially personal. He was a wonderful, generous young man. Greg was a beloved friend and colleague. He was an accomplished cancer researcher and leader in oncology who died of the disease we treat.

THE DEATH OF CANCER After Fifty Years on the Front Lines of Medicine, a Pioneering Oncologist Reveals Why the War on Cancer Is Winnable–and How We Can Get There. By Vincent T. DeVita, Jr. and Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn; Illustrated. 336 pp. Sarah Crichton Books, Farrar, Strauss & Giroux. $28.00“The Emperor of All Maladies” was a history of oncology, and a good one. “The Death of Cancer” is a memoir of one of the greats of medical oncology. It is a history from someone who was there, making history.

This week the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued a proposed rule stating that the scientific evidence was sufficient to support reimbursement for counseling on the risks and benefits of lung cancer screening as well as lung cancer screening with low dose computed tomography in high risk individuals and once per year. CMS will pay for such services when provided to beneficiaries at high risk for lung cancer and when provided by physicians and centers with specific qualifications.

From left to right: Eddie Reed, then-NCI Director Sam Broder, and Brawley in 1991. Reed was receiving an award for his role in developing Taxol.Reed, 60, had liver cancer. Many of us will remember Eddie for his achievements. They were many and spectacular. In the late 1980s, I was the other and younger Black doctor in the Medicine Branch at NCI. I will remember him as a cancer doc, an intense man with high standards.

Studies assessing the merits of cancer screening tend to get a lot of play in the news media. It seems every six months or so a new study makes a big splash.