Overview

A bold rethinking of cancer as a biological phenomenon, anindictment ofscience that serves capitalism, and a radical vision of liberated health and well-being. More than fifty years after the declaration of the War on Cancer, we are nowhere closer to victory. The problem lies in the way cancer is understood and the ""cancer-industrial complex"" that has been established to address it. The cancer-industrial complex arises from the symbiosis of private corporations, nonprofit organizations such as universities and foundations, and public governmental regulatory bodies in the post-genomic era. This network profits off a vulnerable population who exist in a market that is structurally rigged against them given their physical and socioeconomic conditions. Under the auspices of scientific research and technological progress, much of which is well-meaning, a critical extortion takes place. Metastasis brings the cancer-industrial complex to the fore of our understanding of what cancer is, the chronic nature of the disease, its unmistakable parallels to capitalism, its inextricable link to the neoliberal model of economic development, and its disproportionate burden on nonwhite and poor populations-and what it will really take to rid ourselves of the gravest dangers to our individual and collective well-being. Trained as a cancer scientist,Nafis Hasan offers a critical and clinical reading of current narratives of cancer research and the conditions that put the onus on the individualrather than our collective efforts to prevent cancer incidence and deaths. He offers a visionary alternative theory about carcinogenesis-one countering the dominant neoliberal idea of mutations causing cancer-and centers a dialectical approach to understanding the biology and sociology of cancer.Hasan states, ""If we must fight the longest war, then it should be the war against capitalism, whose growth has metastasized in every aspect of our society and ourselves.""

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9781945335181

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Reviews

Seeking endorsements from: Ana Soto, professor of Immunology, Tufts University School of Medicine Carlos Sonnenschein, works at the Integrative Physiology & Pathobiology Lab, Tufts University School of Medicine Yuri Lazebnik, professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory/Lerna Consulting Jacobin magazine, American socialist magazine based in NYC Science for the People magazine, an organization of scientists, workers, educators, and activists committed to building a bottom-up social movement with radical perspectives on science and society Clifford D. Conner, author of The Tragedy of American Science: From Truman to Trump Natalie Shure, writer (with longform features in New Republic, Jacobin, The Nation, Vice, and The Daily Beast, among others), and researcher whose work focus on history, health, and politics Libby C. Watson, writer who covers health care at New Republic and the Baffler Sophie Lewis, author of Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation Beatrice Adler-Bolton, host of Death Panel podcast Alyssa Battistoni, political theorist, and assistant professor of Political Science at Barnard College S. Lochlann Jain, author of Malignant: How Cancer Becomes Us

Author Information

Nafis Hasanis writings have appeared inJacobin,Science for the People,The Trouble, and more. He serves as an editor for the radical science magazineScience for the Peopleand South Asian left media platformJamhoor, and organizes with the Democratic Socialists of America.

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