Cancer is Capitalist Violence
Anthropology Against Oncology
McKenna, Brian
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/11/15/cancer-is-capitalist-violence/
Date Written: 2013-11-15
Publisher: CounterPunch
Year Published: 2013
Resource Type: Article
Cx Number: CX15306
It’s been two decades since the publication of Martha Balsham’s landmark study, “Cancer in the Community: Class and Medical Authority (1993).” Balshem, a hospital-based anthropologist, documented how a Philadelphia “lay community” rejected medical advice to stop smoking, eat fruits and vegetables and schedule regular screening tests. The working class community of Tannerstown (a pseudonym) instead blamed air pollution from highway traffic and nearby chemical plants, as well as fate, for their cancers.
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