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From Whispers to Shouts: The Ways We Talk About Cancer

08/30/2024
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Title: From Whispers to Shouts: The Ways We Talk About Cancer.

Author: Elaine Schattner.

Publication info: Columbia University Press, 2023.

Location: Academic eBook Collection.

Description: It's hard today to remember how recently cancer was a silent killer, a dreaded disease about which people rarely spoke in public. In hospitals and doctors'offices, conversations about malignancy were hushed and hope was limited. In this deeply researched book, Elaine Schattner reveals a sea change—from before 1900 to the present day—in how ordinary people talk about cancer. From Whispers to Shouts examines public perception of cancer through stories in newspapers and magazines, social media, and popular culture. It probes the evolving relationship between journalists and medical specialists and illuminates the role of women and charities that distributed medical information. Schattner traces the origins of patient advocacy and activism from the 1920s onward, highlighting how, while doctors have lost control of messages about cancer, survivors have gained visibility and voice. The book's final section lays out provocative questions facing the cancer community today—including distrust of oncologists, concerns over financial burdens, and disparities in cancer treatments and care. Schattner considers how patients and their loved ones struggle to make decisions amid conflicting information and opinions. She explores the ramifications of so much openness, good and bad, and asks: Has awareness backfired? Instead, Schattner contends, we need greater understanding of cancer's treatability.

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Book Highlight: Stitching a Revolution
05/07/2024
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Title: Stitching a Revolution.

Author: Cleve Jones and Jeff Dawson. 

Publication info: HarperOne, 2000. Memoir, 304 pages. 

Available: For checkout at our Rancho Cordova campus library.

Topics: AIDS Epidemic, LGBTQIA+ history, activism, San Francisco, CA. 

Description: "Against the turbulent backdrop of politics and sexual liberation in San Francisco during the seventies, Jones recounts his coming-of-age alongside friend and mentor Harvey Milk--and, later, Milk's assassination and the ensuing riots that threatened to tear down all they had accomplished. But Jones's political aspirations were put on hold after the emergence of an insidious, unexplainable "gay cancer" that would soon become known throughout the world as AIDS. Demoralized by the tide of death and despair sweeping his community, brutally assaulted by gay-bashing thugs, and faced with the specter of his own positive diagnosis, Jones sought a way to restore hope to a world falling apart beneath his feet.

What started out as a simple panel of fabric stitched for his best friend now covers a space larger than twenty-five football fields and contains over eighty thousand names. The Quilt has affected the lives of many people, bridging racial, sexual, and religious barriers to unite millions in the fight against AIDS.

Stitching a Revolution is a compelling, dramatic tale with a cast of memorable characters from all walks of life. At times uplifting, at times heartwrenching, this inspiring story reveals what it means to be human and how the power of love conquers all--even death." 

Medicine, Health sciences, Social science, History, Literature
Mary Amdur's remarkable story of research ethics
02/17/2023
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Left: Mary Amdor. Middle: The deadly fog in Donora, Pennsylvania. Right: Woman walking through the fog in Donora. 

In late October of 1948, a combination of temperature fluctuations and deadly emissions from two U.S. Steel plants created a dense, yellow fog that hung over the city of Donora, Pennsylvania, killing 70 people and injuring 6,000 others. The fog, which contained sulfuric acid, nitrogen dioxide, fluorine, and other poisonous gases, remained in the city for several days until it rained on October 31st. Doctors and firefighters shared bottled oxygen with Donora residents and urged those with pre-existing lung and breathing issues to leave, but the density of the fog made driving and transportation nearly impossible.

Dr. Mary Amdur, a biochemist with a PhD from the University of Pittsburgh, was recruited soon after to research the role that American Smelting and Refining Company (AS&R) emissions played in the casualties observed in Donora. AS&R wanted to prove that their emissions had a minimal effect on the deaths and injuries incurred, and they even requested that Dr. Amdur not study one of the gases released into the atmosphere. Dr. Amdur's research instead indicated that citizens of Donora were injured and killed as a direct result of the gases released: "She had demonstrated the irritancy potential of sulfur dioxide and its ability to interact with water-soluble metal salts to further oxidize the sulfur in the particle, which travels to the deep lung, where its potential for irritation would be magnified" (Mary O. Amdur, Oxford Academic). Dr. Amdur gained and lost funding multiple times because her research interfered with the interests of AS&R, which she didn't accommodate into her research. Additionally, she wasn't able to rise above the title of "associate professor" at the different universities where she worked.

For her work and her strength to stick to her own ethical principles, Dr. Mary Amdur became known as the "mother of air pollution toxicology." And in 1961, the United States adopted the Clean Air Act, which "regulates air emissions from stationary and mobile sources," in order to prevent dangerous air pollution events like Donora's. (Summary of the Clean Air Act). 

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Medicine, Health sciences, Biology, Chemistry, Environmental science, History, Politics & law
Advancements in oncology: Dr. Jane Cooke Wright
11/30/2022
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Happy birthday to Dr. Jane Cooke Wright! 

           

Left: Dr. Wright in 1967. 

Middle: Dr. Wright using a microscope, unknown date. 

Right: Dr. Wright in 2011 with the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). 

Jane is remembered for her achievements in oncology. She worked with her father, who was also a doctor, on using folic acid antagonists as a viable treatment to stop tumor growth. She also found that a medication called methotrexate made chemotherapy a less life-threatening treatment option. And she invented a catheter that allowed doctors to get tumor-fighting drugs to areas of the body that were previously unreachable, including the kidneys and the spleen.


Jane was raised in a family of pioneering doctors: her grandfather was born into slavery and became a doctor after the Civil War, her step-grandfather was the first black person to graduate from Yale Medical college, and her father was the first black doctor in a New York City hospital. Jane had two daughters, one who became a psychiatrist and the other who became a clinical psychologist.

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Watch: (Pharmacology video on "Methotrexate," the medication that improved chemotherapy)

 

Pharmacy, Medicine, Pharmaceutical sciences