ABSTRACT
The Secret History of the War on Cancer is a model because it is eminently readable and persuasive while still retaining scholarly credentials. Devra Davis has several strands of argument as to why the war on cancer is being lost: the secrecy of the war; the wrong battles with the wrong weapons and the wrong leaders; the collusion of business, governments, and academic institutions; the revolving door of cancer researchers in and out of cancer-causing industries. Topics covered are by way of anecdotes or Davis's personal experience as well as observations made in passing or to illustrate a general point, such as the discussion of cancers among researchers and medical practitioners. The reception of The Secret History was mixed; there were, in particular, two hostile reviews in non-specialist journals, Dr. Richard Horton in the New York Review of Books and Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, a breast oncologist, in the New Republic.
