Metastasis

Metastasis is a radical rethinking of cancer as a biological phenomenon, and a critique of science that serves capitalism. More than fifty years after the War on Cancer was declared, victory is no closer. Nafis Hasan argues that the problem lies in how cancer is understood and in the "cancer-industrial complex" built to deal with it. This complex grows out of the symbiosis of private corporations, nonprofit bodies such as universities and foundations, and public regulatory agencies in the post-genomic era. It profits from a vulnerable population in a market structurally rigged against them by their physical and socioeconomic circumstances. Much of the research and technology involved is well-meaning, but a quiet extortion takes place beneath it.

The book puts this complex at the center of what cancer is. It covers the chronic nature of the disease, its parallels with capitalism, its link to the neoliberal model of economic development, and the disproportionate burden it places on poor and nonwhite populations. It also asks what it would really take to remove the gravest threats to individual and collective well-being.

Hasan was trained as a cancer scientist, and he offers a critical and clinical reading of current narratives in cancer research, including the way they put the responsibility on individuals rather than on collective efforts to prevent cancer cases and deaths. He proposes an alternative theory of carcinogenesis that challenges the dominant neoliberal view that mutations cause cancer, and he uses a dialectical approach to the biology and sociology of the disease. In his view, if we must fight the longest war, it should be against capitalism, whose growth has metastasized through every part of society and of ourselves. The book also sets out a vision of liberated health and well-being.