Ovarian Cancer Study

Progress within the medical sciences is often incremental, and sometimes it really is a case of one step forward and two steps backwards.  

Ovarian cancer kills approximately 13770 women annually in the United States, 4000 women in the UK and 1590 women in Canada.  Ovarian cancer is typically not diagnosed until it is in the late stage of development and thus harder to treat.  It would be intuitive that early and frequent screening for ovarian cancer would help with diagnosing the cancer sooner, thus leading to more lives saved.

Sadly this new study from the UK, which took place over 16 years, found that screening did not in fact significantly reduce ovarian cancer deaths, and thus it recommends against general population screening of ovarian cancer.

Cheers, 

Colin

New Paper Forthcoming

picture:  Alex Comfort, 1920-2000

Head of UCL’s MRC’s Group of Ageing 

I was very pleased to learn that my Opinion article titled "Responsible Biology, Aging Populations and the 50^th Anniversary of the “War on Cancer” has been accepted for publication in the science journal Biogerontology.  

The catalysts for writing this paper were three-fold:  

(1) this year is the 50th anniversary of Nixon's "war on cancer" and as such the time for taking stock of the pros and cons of prioritizing "disease elimination" in medical research is apt;

(2) I recently came across a real historical gem of an article by Alex Comfort (1969, "Longer life by 1990?" New Scientist 11: 549-551) which was written before Nixon's declaration of a war on cancer, so I wanted to link Comfort's article to the debate on what the priorities of scientific research ought to be in an aging world; and

(3) I also recently came across an article by Kitcher on "responsible biology" which maintains that scientists have an obligation, individually and collectively, to reflect on the ends—not just on the means— of scientific research and that they should conceive of themselves as artisans working for the public good.  So it provided a theoretical anchor for linking Comfort's argument to the ongoing disease-elimination strategies we currently prioritize.  

My article canvasses how, in the early 20th century in the US, the fixation on identifying and mitigating the proximate causation of disease was an integral part of responsible biology.  However by the late 20th century the goal of eliminating the chronic diseases of late life (like cancer) was yielding diminishing diminishing health dividends for aging populations.  Comfort's insight that tackling rate (of aging) control and striving to improve the quality of life for older persons was, sadly, neglected.  And this neglect must  be redressed if we are to improve the human healthspan vs continue down the untenable path of extending the amount of time humans survive by managing disease, frailty and disability. 

Here is the abstract:

The 50^th Anniversary of the National Cancer Act of 1971 is the opportune time to critically reflect on the determinates of what the philosopher of science Philip Kitcher calls “responsible biology”.  Responsible biology entails that scientists have an obligation to reflect on the ends, and not just the means, of scientific research and to conceive of themselves as artisans working for the public good.  Taking stock of the successes and limits of the half a century “war on cancer” reveals the importance of attending to the most significant risk factor for cancer and other chronic diseases- aging itself.  The case is made for considering the biology of aging, and the aspiration to slow the rate of biological aging, as critical components of responsible biology in an aging world.  As growing numbers of humans survive into late life, the primacy the goal of disease elimination occupies within biomedical research must be revised, and greater effort should be directed towards the goal of increasing the human healthspan and delaying and compressing disease, frailty and disability in late life.

Cheers, 

Colin

 

Summer Projects

The year of online teaching for me has (finally!) come to an end. I taught 4 courses fully online this year, servicing approximately 570 students over the two semesters.  It was an exhausting endeavour, as I decided not to simply record my talking over power point slides, but to actually design video lectures using Camtasia, with embedded videos and new slides as well as adding new substantive content to the course this year (e.g. anarchism and Black political thought).

With the teaching term wrapped up I am looking forward to (a) some downtime!  and (b) making some serious headway on the new projects I have lined up.  I have two immediate short-term projects to complete momentarily- the first is a new paper on the ethics of life extension for an edited volume, the second an R&R submission to a science journal on aging.  Once those are completed my research efforts will be focused exclusively on the following two projects:

1.  I signed a book contract for a new book on the classics of political philosophy for today.  This will cover thinkers from Plato to Franz Fanon and makes the case for engaging (in a critically, inquisitive fashion) with the history of Western political thought.  The preparatory work for this book draws on over 12 years of teaching a year-long course on this subject at Queen's.  But there are new thinkers, topics, criticisms, and empirical insights I want to blend into the mix.  So I still have to undertake some substantive research and writing to make serious headway on this project.  This will preoccupy most of my writing for the remainder of this year.  

2.  The second major project I am undertaking over the next 6 months is designing a new 4th year undergraduate seminar on "The Politics of Pandemics".  I am researching topics as varied as the ethical and social, as well as scientific and policy-related, predicaments that arise in our efforts to prevent, detect and treat different types of infectious diseases (e.g. dysentery, HIV/AIDS, smallpox, TB, malaria, SARS-CoV-2, etc.).  This research will help lay the foundations for writing a new book, over the course of the next 3 years, on pandemic justice.  I had hoped to write this book in a shorter period of time, but the current pandemic revealed many new insights and problems I think need to be addressed by a much deeper dive into the mistakes/successes of the past, as well as with the current predicament. 

These two projects will permit me to pursue two quite disparate (though related) intellectual pursuits- (1) canvassing the political theories advanced in the past for grappling with topics like democratic governance, human nature, statism vs anarchism, feminism, conservatism, racial inequality, utilitarianism, Marxism, etc.  And (2) exploring the perils and successes of our attempt to mitigate the risks posed by inhabiting a planet with over 1400 different infectious organisms that cause disease in humans.  Both are projects I am passionate about, and they should help keep me engaged and productive for the foreseeable future. 

Meanwhile, I am hopeful that some warmer weather will soon be on the horizon, as well as a lifting of the current lockdown restrictions and hopefully something resembling "normality" can return this year.

Cheers, 

Colin 

New Study on the Effects of Shelter-In-Place Policies

This study on how (in)effective shelter-in-place policies have been this pandemic was published in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.   A sample from the study: 

We study the health, behavioral, and economic effects of one of the most politically controversial policies in recent memory, shelter-in-place orders during the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous studies have claimed that shelter-in-place orders saved thousands of lives, but we reassess these analyses and show that they are not reliable. We find that shelter-in-place orders had no detectable health benefits, only modest effects on behavior, and small but adverse effects on the economy. To be clear, our study should not be interpreted as evidence that social distancing behaviors are not effective. Many people had already changed their behaviors before the introduction of shelter-in-place orders, and shelter-in-place orders appear to have been ineffective precisely because they did not meaningfully alter social distancing behavior.

Cheers, 

Colin