The book offers a detailed account by one of the
nation’s leading cancer researchers of developments in chemotherapy over the past several decades, as well as
the recent history of surgical and radiation treatments in the “war on
cancer”—a term he resisted at first but finally embraced with full
understanding of its implications. The narrative touches on many of the writer’s
own struggles over economic, political, and moral implications of
what a NYT reviewer described as a “take-no-prisoners” approach to cure. He also includes stories about disagreements
with other researchers that give some insight into the acrimony that is part of high-stakes science. At
the NIH and later as head of the National Cancer Institute, DeVita faced many
decisions about distribution of resources, how much to put patients at risk,
and whom to include in clinical trials.
He provides his own point of view on those controversies frankly. Not much mention is made of the causes of
cancer, of nutritional or other complementary approaches, or the environmental
factors in the spread of cancer. The strong focus on the book is on the
development of chemotherapeutic treatments that have succeeded in raising
survival rates, though few current statistics are cited.
