Cancer patients and their families often must endure endless suffering, broken promises and astronomical bills. But a groundbreaking series by Reporter Liz Szabo of Kaiser Health News shows that’s not all that goes horribly wrong. Many cancer drugs, most in fact, are abject failures. They are overhyped, overmarketed, and fraudulently advertised. They cost so much that patients often quit taking their medicines, foregoing treatment until death. And doctors who treat victims are either so poorly skilled, or financially compromised, that patients are left clueless about how long they might survive. Szabo’s powerful four-part series, “Treating Cancer: Hope Vs. Hype,” was the most sophisticated and penetrating examination of these life-threatening issues ever done.
Michael Jacobs of Health News Review wrote: “If you read one piece of writing on cancer this year, make it this gem of investigative journalism by a veteran correspondent who has taken on an incredibly complex and important issue.”
o Part 1 of the series revealed that two-thirds of the cancer drugs approved the past two years don’t extend survival one bit.
o In Part 2 focusing on “sticker shock,” Szabo showed that hundreds of thousands of patients are delaying treatment, cutting pills in half, or skipping medicines completely, because cancer drugs cost too much.
o Part 3 zeroed in on all the marketing hype that engulfs the industry, and misleads patients. “We’re starting to believe our own bullshit,” admitted Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.
o In Part 4, Szabo explained why so many patients have no idea how long they’ll live, or whether their conditions are even treatable or curable.
Szabo’s series combines sound medical evidence and expert quotes with the stories of real patients, caregivers and family members. She showed how cancer patients are being misled by hospital and drug marketing, and that false hope has real consequences, as people hoping to survive a fatal illness travel cross-country in search of a therapy to improve very slim odds. We found that patients are sacrificing quality of life and time with family in order to chase cures that don’t exist, and that family members are often left with prolonged grief for the loved ones they couldn’t save.