University of Utah professor James Tabery argues for an environmental approach to reduce risk of cancer and other diseases.
SALT LAKE CITY — Major scientific breakthroughs like mapping the human genome have given researchers the ability to isolate specific genetic markers that can increase one's risk for developing certain diseases.
The subject is a personal one for Tabery. The book opens with the story of his father's diagnosis of lung cancer in 2011, and the subsequent months of treatment using a drug called erlotinib, for which his father's cancer was a genetic match. Genetic-based drugs have changed the game when it comes to a handful of rare diseases. "Tyranny of the Gene" describes how the approval of imatinib in 2001 turned chronic myelogenous leukemia, a rare blood cancer, from a disease with a life expectancy of less than five years to a chronic condition that could be managed similarly to Type 2 diabetes.
"People are so desperate, and I think that's one of the real selling points of this whole approach to medicine," he said. "Everybody knows somebody who'd died of cancer, and to be able to say, 'This is the way to the cure,' or, 'This is a kind of magic bullet,' it's hard not to get excited about that. I think that's one of the things that makes it so hard to combat the hype about this is because people want it to be true.
Still, he acknowledged that health care professionals and researchers are often tasked with balancing the needs for prevention with the needs of patients who are already sick.
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