CANCER: HYPE VS. HOPE

My father died of cancer in 1963. a cancer cure was "just around the corner" [May 18]. My mother died of cancer in 1972. A cancer cure was "just around the corner." Today, after billions of dollars spent on cancer research, the cure is still "just around the corner." I'll put my trust in a daily regimen of healthy, natural foods, quality antioxidant and nutritional supplements and exercise. For good measure, I'll keep my home and garden chemical free. Prevention has to be the better alternative for those of us who are still healthy.
KLAUS KEUNECKE
London, Canada

It has not escaped me, a registered nurse for more than 20 years, that the majority of patients with cancer and other chronic illnesses subscribe to the classic American diet. It is increasingly difficult to support diets that are meat, dairy and egg based. The scientific literature is full of reports by unbiased researchers not funded by any special interests who recommend little to none of these.
ROBIN KIRSCHNER, R.N.
Olney, Md.

Your fascinating, in-depth article on cancer was badly needed. But you left out an important factor in surviving many types of cancer: where you live.
CEDRIC GARLAND, Associate Professor School of Medicine
University of California
San Diego

Cancer research--today's media hysteria over newer technologies notwithstanding--has always made strides in a slow and deliberate manner. Oncologists worldwide attend meetings yearly to listen to, digest, scrutinize, modify and summarize a universe of scientific and clinical data. No two oncologists walk away from these meetings with exactly the same opinion. Clinical trials that last only several years must further mature before long-lasting conclusions are crystallized. I'm not against enthusiasm, but science always advances without cheerleaders and circus ringmasters. Our patients deserve better.
ANTHONY F. PROVENZANO, M.D.
Clinical Assistant Professor
New York Medical College
New York City

Cancer is a human problem, not a puzzle provided for the pleasure of those temperamentally inclined to endless research. The entire question of how best to spend our resources needs to be debated because we are proceeding on blind faith that is unsupported by positive results after decades of research. Scientists continue to work with mice, knowing that what is learned seldom applies to humans. The cancer-research juggernaut has been rolling for too long, costing too many dollars and lives.
LAWRENCE BLAKELY BARNES
Bangkok

Your treatment of delays in developing new drugs let the Food and Drug Administration off the hook. A poll of cancer specialists commissioned by the Competitive Enterprise Institute bears this out: 65% believe the FDA is too slow in approving drugs, and more than 70% state that FDA delays have hurt their ability to give the best possible care to patients on at least one occasion. Worse yet, more than 10% say they frequently encounter this problem. In short, for many of these doctors, fighting cancer often means fighting the FDA as well.
SAM KAZMAN, General Counsel
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Washington

Does hyping angiogenesis inhibitors, radiation treatments and chemotherapy really inspire "hope"? I think not. TIME has given us just another 13 pages of cancer research and treatments, with only one teeny-tiny insert on prevention and nothing on alternative cancer therapies. Today we have more industrial chemicals in our homes, jobs, food, water and air and on our lawns than a chemist's lab had 50 years ago. The American diet may sustain life, but it undermines health. When the day comes that "war" is declared on the systemic source of the problem--the companies producing carcinogens that we consume and absorb--then scientists will be acting responsibly, and I will feel hopeful. While the cancer industries have everything to gain financially from their "cure" focus, resplendently depicted in your story, the American public gains little.
TERESA DIFFLEY TUETING
Edina, Minn.

HOW THE PATIENT SEES IT

As a mother with two young children and a victim for the past nine years of "brain cancer," I read with wonder and awe of the new developments in cancer therapy. It's been two years since my last brain tumor, but I live in constant terror of another recurrence. I share the hopes and fears of many others in my situation--hope that these advancements will be made available to me within a realistically short period of time in order to avoid the fear of leaving my children to wonder why the process couldn't have been sped up a bit.
PAULA J. EISENACH
Salem, Germany

I am a cancer patient undergoing treatment [May 18]. Clearly there is enough new hope in treating cancer for TIME to give full coverage to recent developments. If you talk to cancer patients, you'll find that hope, false or not, is its own drug.
AMY M. SPINDLER
New York City

As a 50-year-old metastatic-breast cancer patient, I say that if Dr. Joseph Sparano can make me live 20 years symptom free, if not cancer free, I'll take it in a minute. That's 20 years to find a cure. TIME writer Christine Gorman's statement that 20 years symptom free may not be good enough for millions of patients was way off the mark. Evidently she didn't survey many patients.
BONNIE KENNEDY
Wheelersburg, Ohio

Your exhaustive coverage of pharmaceutical, chemical and radiological treatments failed to list the Gerson dietary protocol as a therapeutic option, even though its five- and 10-year survival rates are better than those of some of the treatments you noted. Nor did you list the herbal formulas pioneered in Canada by physiologist Hulda R. Clark, again with an impressive record of lifesaving successes.
ROBERT BRAYLEY-HODGETTS
Hove, England

WILL NATURE CONQUER CANCER?

Half the angiogenesis drugs on your checklist of cancer treatments [May 18] are derived from natural sources--shark cartilage, African bush willow, mouse urine and fungus. It doesn't take an environmentalist to understand that preserving the world's biodiversity is important to all of us. Nature continues to supply all our needs, if only we know where to look--and if the right species are still there to look at.
CATHERINE CROW
Cambridge, Mass.

IMPOTENT AND PROUD OF IT

I can't understand all the fuss about sexual erection [May 4], which for many seems the most important thing in life. We have been given a certain amount of sexual intercourse in a lifetime, and there is no point in trying to force nature for more. This modern attitude is the product of a sick and decadent society that refuses to accept the limitations inherent to our human nature. For my part, I have sired six children, and after this performance, I am not ashamed to admit that I am impotent and proud of it.
GILBERT TOUCHE
Lindome, Sweden

HOLBROOKE VS. THE ADMIRAL

In his recently published memoir on the Bosnian crisis, To End a War [May 18], Richard Holbrooke somewhat dubiously ascribes the post-Dayton exodus of Serbs from their suburban Sarajevo homes to intimidation by Radovan Karadzic's thugs, and he criticizes nato's Admiral Leighton Smith for not deploying troops to combat the thugs. Why were these Serbs expected to embrace "multi-ethnicity" when the Muslim-Croat federation was and remains a sham, and Mostar was and remains rigidly divided into its Muslim and Croat halves? Surely the burden of responsibility in integrating Sarajevo lay with the acquiring Muslim-dominated government, not the relinquishing Pale leadership. The international community must accept its share of the blame for not pressuring the Izetbegovic government into offering an amnesty for Bosnian Serb combatants. This was a failure of Holbrooke's diplomatic world, not Leighton Smith's military world.
ARIANA BEATTY
London

In your review of Richard Holbrooke's book, the Bosnians in Dayton are blamed for their uncooperative behavior, but no mention is made of the fact that all effort to make peace before that had been torpedoed by Bosnian Serbs.
GUIDO VAN DAMME
Antwerp, Belgium

THE DAIMLER-CHRYSLER DEAL

What is being highly acclaimed as a "merger" between Daimler-Benz and Chrysler [May 18] is actually something far more ominous. A close look at the details reveals the disturbing truth. The new company will be incorporated in Germany. After a three-year transition period of co-chairmanship, a single chairman will take charge of the company. That chairman, you can wager, will come from Daimler-Benz. Chrysler has been "bought" by Daimler-Benz. Another great name in America's manufacturing will fade into oblivion. With only two American auto manufacturers left, we are at risk of losing the automobile industry, much as we have lost the consumer-electronics industry. While we celebrate our evolution into a "service economy," our trading partners are happy to take advantage of our naivete.
WILLIAM J. LYNOTT, President
Buy America Foundation
Abington, Pa.

ON DIVISIONS IN ISRAEL

It is astounding to see how the government of Benjamin Netanyahu increasingly echoes the intransigent, apartheid-era South African government under former President P.W. Botha [May 4]. It is only Netanyahu's personal charisma that precludes even more opprobrium in the face of international condemnation of his hardened position on the Palestinian question. But if the U.S. is really serious about bringing peace to the Middle East, perhaps it is time to mention the S word: sanctions against Washington's closest Middle Eastern ally. They may well be unthinkable, but sanctions could do wonders to prompt sensible Israelis into taking control over their own destiny again.
JOHN GROBLER
Windhoek, Namibia

A QUESTION OF MORALS

Obviously, privacy and each man's access to it, no matter what his job, must be sustained [May 11]. The issue of truthfulness, and the nurturing of truthfulness, however, seems to have disappeared behind the smoke screen of personal privacy in the case of our shameless President. Somehow we must keep the moral and ethical issues in the forefront and resolve them in such a way that our children have positive examples. It is unfortunate that the moral issue in this case involves sex. The American penchant for locker-room humor has permitted the immorality of President Clinton's behavior to become clouded, at least, and perhaps even approved of by a cadre of admiring misfits with no respect for the vulnerability of the young.
HUGH R. CALLUM
Aboard the Yacht Meachelle
Sailing on the Caribbean Sea

We have no business claiming that Clinton has no morals or, worse, that he should have morals. Morals have nothing at all to do with Clinton's position as a representative of our government.
JENNIFER CAMPBELL
St. Louis, Mo.

GIVE CHELSEA A REST!

I know it's kind of interesting to feel as if I'm getting the inside scoop on the First Daughter, but is it necessary to profile her boyfriend [May 18]? As a girl about her age, I can't even imagine what it must be like to be in her position--having the whole world watch as you try to figure out who you are and whom you like. One of my friends goes to school with Chelsea, and from the sound of it, she's just trying to be a normal college student. It just seems a little too nosy to be commenting on her boyfriend's pecs.
RACHEL VESSEY
Edina, Minn.

SEINFELD FINIS

For all the hoopla, many readers said they wouldn't miss Jerry et al [May 18]. "How does one judge vapidity?" asked Nina Wishe of Middletown, N.Y. Said John Zyrlis Jr. of West Haven, Conn.: "I found it only just that the final episode concluded with the cast in jail. Look at the crime they committed against the American public." Entertainment writer John A. Small of Tishomingo, Okla., waved, "Goodbye and good riddance." Praising the humor of The Simpsons, Gwendolyn Frothingham of Greenville, Miss., said, "Every single thing during any episode is a joke--a pun, a satirical hint, a social or political commentary." But weeping fans also sent letters of mourning. Wrote Robert Katz of Glendora, Calif.: "Many of us will suffer withdrawal symptoms."