False Hope And Cancer Cures

Why it matters when hope isn't really hope at all (and tips on reading articles about cancer research).

BY Martha Carlson

PUBLISHED February 09, 2019

Martha lives in Illinois and was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in January 2015. She has a husband and three children, ranging in age from 12 to 18, a dog and a lizard.

Hope is a tricky thing. Sometimes it serves a person with cancer well. It can make it possible to continue to go to treatments when physical symptoms are hard to live with, it can provide a moment of ease in otherwise difficult health diagnoses, and, in my experience, it also makes living with metastatic cancer slightly easier. When people ask why I call myself lucky and have hope, I point out the facts of my diagnosis and explain how fortunate I am that not only are HER2-targeted drugs available to me but that I have been responding well to them.

For me, key among the attitudes that help me live well with cancer are: 1. living with hope for my continued good response; 2. gratitude for the presence and development of drugs that work; and 3. appreciation for all the scientists and oncologists using their myriad skills and intellect to make my life, and the lives of every person with cancer, longer and better.

So, when someone or something steps into that space of hope and spreads false hope far and wide, it is disappointing and dangerous. It is dangerous because false hope minimizes and disrespects the patient experience, leading to distrust of scientists and doctors. It is disappointing because as much as I like to think the many players in the field of oncology want to do and say the right thing, too many times click-bait style quotes and statements make it into the public consciousness. Sometimes these statements are from people I wouldn't pay much attention to anyway, but other times they have the standing of respectable scientists and businesspeople behind them.

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