| Photo by National Cancer Institute
Part V of a “Cancer/Medical Moonshot” Series
According to medical reports, as Googled, approximately 40% to 50% of cancer deaths globally, totaling more than 10 million annually, are considered preventable. The patients could have avoided terminal cancer by reducing modifiable risk factors like smoking, alcohol, poor diet, and obesity. Many medical experts also note that other factors include the lack of early detection and immediate medical intervention, which are not readily available in low-income countries or economically depressed U.S. communities. Globally, where indigent residents often do not have medical insurance, cancer or other serious ailments become a death sentence. Local governments lack the resources to provide comprehensive medical care in the absence of national government aid.
In this context, it appears that North Carolina operates a “Medical Debt Relief Program” that mandates an income-screening process for financial assistance to cancer patients or those suffering from other serious, debilitating illnesses. The state requires hospitals to apply on behalf of eligible patients for an effective percentage of financial assistance.
In the U.S. alone, more than 260,000 cancer deaths (around 44%-to-45% of the total cancer fatalities) are linked to said factors annually. Worldwide, 37% of new cancer cases in 2022 (numbering 7.1 million) were attributed to preventable causes.
We ask: “Do policy-and-decision makers have even empathy for cancer victims? And other patients suffering from deadly diseases?” Thus, this columnist is reminded of a film in which national leaders are portrayed as especially adept at the blame game. But not in solving socioeconomic problems, especially in healthcare.
Remember the character Sen. Bob Rumson, played by Richard Dreyfuss? He is the main antagonist in the 1995 romantic comedy-drama film, The American President. He serves as a conservative U.S. senator and presidential candidate who challenges the incumbent President Andrew Shepherd (played by Michael Douglas). The senator attacks the president’s character and personal life, particularly his relationship with a lobbyist—even though the POTUS is a widower in the film.
In a climactic episode in the film, President Shepherd grabs the microphone from his Press Secretary and addresses reporters. The cinematic president said near the end of his remarks: “We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things, and two things only, making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it.”
“Perhaps those who are policy- and decision-makers must stop playing the role of a cinematic version of Bob Rumson. And start battling for actual medical patients, especially those that suffer from any of the country’s top-ten medical causes of preventable deaths.”
This writer, while a journalism student at a Philippine college owned and run by Benedictine monks, learned from his professors about scriptwriting. The mentor told his students that films were frequently described as “both imitations of life (mimesis) and as motivations that cause life to imitate art”. It is a dynamic, reciprocal relationship in which cinema mirrors society and reflects reality while simultaneously shaping human behavior, perceptions, and cultural trends. Our tutors, even in English literature classes, also said that writers who have experienced death in the family could, more often than not, write a poignant death scene wherever it occurs. And, of course, taught was also the adage that one could not write about love unless the writer had fallen in and out of amorous relationships.
It seems that many politicians of almost all parties play the blame game, even in the corridors of power in the nation’s capital, not only in the United States but also in other countries. Perhaps those who are policy- and decision-makers must stop playing the role of a cinematic version of Bob Rumson. And start battling for actual medical patients, especially those that suffer from any of the country’s top-ten medical causes of preventable deaths. Yes, serious problems like cancer, heart attacks, strokes, and other medical maladies must be solved with the help of the healthcare industry and its medical professionals, plus cooperatives of patients and their suffering family members.
The U.S. federal government must stop spending trillions of taxpayers’ money on waging wars by intervening in civil wars in foreign lands and pulling out decades later without establishing peace, international law, and order in said nations. Or budget hundreds of billions of greenbacks trying to colonize the Moon or even Planet Mars. It should dedicate those substantial resources to a feasible “Medical Moonshot”. Yes, beginning with a “Cancer Moonshot”.
