Behind the cancer story

Yesterday, MiD DAY published a story about a potential cure for cancer.

Full of hope: A cancer patient undergoes Cytotron treatment at the Centre for Advanced Research and Developmentu00a0 file pic

Yesterday, MiD DAY published a story about a potential cure for cancer. It took us days of research and many many checks before we could run the story. We visited a research centre on the outskirts of Bangalore, and I spoke for two hours to the scientist pioneering a new method. Our photographer Ramesh took scores of pictures. Reporter Lavanya called up some patients and got their quotes. Sheu00a0 visited the centre last week to record patient accounts first hand. We checked and double-checked facts. Finally, our designer Suresh Kumar put it all together in a neat package.

As we struggled with the details, we asked ourselves a larger question: Would we be raising false hopes by publishing this story? Doctors treat cancer with surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Here was this electronics engineer, Rajah Vijay Kumar, saying he could heal malignant tumours by focusing mild radio waves on to them. Should we write about something that defies the current principles of oncology?

Journalists have no clinical or healing experience, and most of what we understand about health is gleaned from popular articles, those breezy little pieces written for lay people. We hardly ever get to read professional journals. Some journalists specialise in health stories, but still, are we qualified to tell a genuine breakthrough from a dubious claim?

Newspaper stories that rely on primary research take more time and effort to put together than stories we source from the wire services. And then, there's the question of credibility and responsibility. Health articles are followed avidly by thousands of curious readers, and any mistake could impact their lives. We need to guard against creating false hope, or false despair.

So what do we do? Journalists pride themselves on their common sense, and ask questions on behalf of a lay audience. Doctors may speak a language understood only by other doctors, but journalists make it a point to write in a language that any non-specialist can understand. Journalism is the magic key that opens doors to the hidden treasures of research and scholarship. Journalists explain the expert world to the non-expert. That, in essence, is our defence.

A tad too late

I had first intended to meet the maverick inventor when I chanced upon a mention of his institute a year ago. My mother was already in hospital in Mumbai, and doctors had told us to be prepared for the worst. We called up Vijay Kumar's research centre in Bangalore. He offered to see her, but the irony was that my mother, who had lived most of her life in Bangalore, had just then been to Mumbai to spend some time with my sister. Since she was in no condition to return to Bangalore, Vijay Kumar only got to see her papers. He said the cancer was too advanced for him to do anything. She died a month from then.

The soft-spoken Vijay Kumar has developed a machine called the Cytotron, which employs mild radio waves, similar to those used by FM radio and mobile phones, to tame tumours. He is shipping out 60 machines to hospitals across the world, starting April. Of course there's a business side to what he's doing. He has patented the machine, and will market it extensively once it gains acceptance.

As I saw my mother's cancer painfully consume her, I cursed myself for not having made enough efforts to track down this scientist, working from a research centre just an hour's drive from where she lived. His research had advanced over two decades, and if destiny had so willed, he would have seen my mother and treated her. I hope I have made some amends by writing about him now. I don't know how far his invention will go, but I pray his desire to help those in pain and despair is fulfilled.