Interviews and Articles featuring Dr. Raza
The Third Way: Evolution in the era of genomics and epigenomics
The vast majority of people believe that there are only two alternative ways to explain the origins of biological diversity. One way is Creationism that depends upon intervention by a divine Creator. That is clearly unscientific because it brings an arbitrary supernatural force into the evolution process. The commonly accepted alternative is Neo-Darwinism, which is clearly naturalistic science but ignores much contemporary molecular evidence and invokes a set of unsupported assumptions about the accidental nature of hereditary variation. Neo-Darwinism ignores important rapid evolutionary processes such as symbiogenesis, horizontal DNA transfer, action of mobile DNA and epigenetic modifications. Moreover, some Neo-Darwinists have elevated Natural Selection into a unique creative force that solves all the difficult evolutionary problems without a real empirical basis. Many scientists today see the need for a deeper and more complete exploration of all aspects of the evolutionary process. Read more
Women in Oncology: Leukemia Therapies in Humans, for Humans
Catherine E. Lai, MD, MPH, an associate professor and physician leader of the Leukemia Clinical Research Unit at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine, moderates a discussion with Judith Karp, MD; Azra Raza, MD; and Michelle M. Le Beau, PhD, on the leukemia treatment legacies they hope to be remembered for. Read more
A Poetic Life: Azra Raza, MD
In this edition, Azra Raza, MD, shares her passion for reciting poetry, the deep roots poetry has within her family, and how the power of verse has helped in her career. Read more
Cancer Shouldn’t Pose a Threat to Our Lives. We Should Find It First Identifying the “first cell” could revolutionize the way we treat cancer
I lost my previous husband to cancer when he was 36, followed by my mother. I, too, am a cancer survivor. My husband died six months after he was diagnosed with cancer—after a lung removal, a second thoracic surgery, three brain operations, radiation, and chemotherapy.e cannot claim to speak on behalf of anyone else, let alone a distinct majority, but for the slightly literary inclined, it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain a regiment in regard to potent dosages of the written word. But where you might find yourself faltering, you can count yourself lucky to be, if you are in the company of good people – my friend M, who is more than familiar with my various anchors, nudged me lightly in the direction of this book. She did so sincerely and perhaps slightly tactfully, to a good extent – and after inhaling its contents, I could not be more thankful for her contribution to my little catalogue. Read more
Who wants to live forever?
One cannot claim to speak on behalf of anyone else, let alone a distinct majority, but for the slightly literary inclined, it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain a regiment in regard to potent dosages of the written word. But where you might find yourself faltering, you can count yourself lucky to be, if you are in the company of good people – my friend M, who is more than familiar with my various anchors, nudged me lightly in the direction of this book. She did so sincerely and perhaps slightly tactfully, to a good extent – and after inhaling its contents, I could not be more thankful for her contribution to my little catalogue. Read more
AARP
As the War on Cancer Turns 50, Earlier Diagnoses and Treatments Are Saving Lives
A half century since the National Cancer Act passed, understanding of the disease has deepened but challenges remain. Read more
MOJO STORY
70% of Cancer Drugs have failed to increase life spans. Stop Paybook Oncology says this Doctor
The First Cell: Jump-starting the global cancer revolution
“The First Cell” is the title of a revolutionary book written in 2019 by oncologist Azra Raza from the Columbia University Medical Center. In it, she calls for a radical shift in cancer funding away from its current predominant focus on late stage treatments, and towards early detection of what she calls “the first cells.” Read more …
We Must Find Ways to Detect Cancer Much Earlier
The job of the oncologist of the future will be to prevent and treat the emergence of disease. read more …
The Costs of Pursuing Cancer Cures
At one of my institution’s recent journal club meetings, we discussed results from a clinical trial that eventually led to FDA approval for a new indication of a chemotherapeutic agent in a malignancy with few effective treatment options. read more …
Novel Multicancer Early Detection Technology—Potential Value to Employers and the Workforce
Joshua J. Ofman, MD, A. Mark Fendrick, MD, and Azra Raza, MD | Dec 18, 2020
Cancer is soon to become the world’s leading killer. Despite significant advances in therapeutics
and guideline-recommended tests that screen for 5 cancer types—a single cancer at a time—cancer kills nearly 1700 of our loved ones every day in the United States.1 The fact remains that even today, the majority of cancers still lack screening tests and are therefore detected too late and often not impacted by available therapies, leading to poor patient outcomes... read more …
Taking Early Cancer Detection to the Next Level
Joshua J. Ofman, MD and Azra Raza, MD | Nov 1, 2020
Early cancer detection can save lives, yet, cancer is predicted to become the world’s number one killer because we are still diagnosing most cancers too late. In the United States, we currently screen for only five types of common cancers. The rest are only identified when signs or symptoms appear, often signifying advanced disease when outcomes are poor. We estimate that these five single cancer screening tests collectively detect only 16 percent of the 1.2 million cancers diagnosed each year in those aged 50–79 in the US. read more …
The cancer detection rate—a public health approach to early detection
Joshua J. Ofman, MD and Azra Raza, MD
Back in the 1960s, the American Cancer Society first began promoting the Pap smear as an effective means of cervical cancer screening. A decade later, early detection of breast cancer through mammography became mainstream.
By the 1990s, colorectal cancer screening had been shown to be effective, and this decade, screening for lung cancer was found to reduce mortality. Despite this progress, that in each case has taken massive effort and excruciatingly long clinical studies, cancer is predicted to become the world’s number one killer. read more …
64 – Azra Raza – A Better Way to Fight Cancer
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Leukemia and Questioning Advancements in Cancer Research and Treatment
Anna Yang and Azra Raza
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#121 – Azra Raza, M.D.: Why we’re losing the war on cancer
Azra Raza is a physician, scientist, author, and outspoken advocate for reconfiguring the current model of research in cancer. In this episode, Azra discusses the content of her book, The First Cell, which takes a critical look at the outdated models being used to study cancer resulting in a lack of progress in survival rates for cancer patients. Azra offers a solution which focuses on early detection and prevention, and she concludes with an optimistic outlook for the future of cancer research.
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Scientific Sense
By Gill Eapen
Emerging ideas in Science, Policy, Economics, and Technology. Discussions with leading academics and experts.
Prof. Azra Raza, Professor of Medicine and Director of the MDS Center at Columbia University in the City of New York on Cancer – why have we failed and how can we get better?: The quest to find and destroy the first cell to minimize human strife.
Listen:
59. AZRA RAZA: THE FIRST CELL / A NEW FOCUS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST CANCER
Our conversation spans Dr. Raza’s acclaimed book The First Cell: And the Human Costs of Pursuing Cancer to the Last
Azra helps make both a passionate and informed argument for how and why the way society currently attempts to alleviate the plight of cancer needs to shift.
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Slash, Poison, Burn: How We Treat Cancer, and How We Should—Azra Raza, MD—Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS) Center at Columbia University in New York
Azra Raza is the Chan Soon-Shiong Professor of Medicine and Director of the Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS) Center at Columbia University in New York, a practicing oncologist, and author of The First Cell: And the Human Costs of Pursuing Cancer to the Last.
She joins the show to discuss several incredibly important topics, including the following:
- Why there is a significant problem with the use of mice as models for cancer research and what needs to be done in order to really understand the earliest footprints of cancer in humans
- How Dr. Raza is trying to overcome the financial barriers to the research necessary for cancer prevention and early detection
- Why a complete paradigm shift is needed within the cancer industry
Listen:
EP 342 How To Lose the War on Cancer: Keep Doing What We’re Doing
There are some who will tell you that we’re making great strides in fighting cancer with more of the same approaches we’ve been trying for the last four decades. Dr. Azra Raza is not one of those experts.
Listen:
Marty Time: Same Old, Same Old in Medicine?
May 2, 2020 | Azra Raza and Marty Makary
Watch:
Dr. Azra Raza on the Human Costs of Pursuing Cancer
April 30, 2020 | Azra Raza and Roxanne Coady
In Conversation with Roxanne Coady on the Just the Right Book Podcast
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EPISODE #289: THE WAR ON CANCER — INTERVIEW WITH DR. AZRA RAZA
April 27, 2020 | Azra Raza, Ronald Baker, and Ed Kless
A PROFOUND AND MOVING CONVERSATION ABOUT CANCER, DR. AZRA RAZA’S RESEARCH, AND HER LIFE EXPERIENCES
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Azra Raza On Cancer’s $250 Billion Elephant-In-The-Room
April 2, 2020 | Azra Raza and Perry Marshall
Azra Raza treated cancer patients for 30 years, but not even the loss of her Oncologist husband could provoke her to write a book. It took the death of her daughter’s dearest 22 year old friend – when suddenly she realized she had to speak up.
Here we discuss the one most important thing that The System overlooks – THE PATIENT’S ANGUISH – and speaks out about the state of cancer research in the 21st century. Groupthink, sexism, ignorance of history, and absence of empathy… and no one is in charge.
A quarter-trillion dollars later, we’re still carrying out the same punishing treatments we were doling out in the 1970s – where life extensions of six weeks are heralded as “breakthroughs.”
Watch:
Azra Raza on The First Cell
March 23, 2020 | Azra Raza and Russ Roberts
Author and oncologist Azra Raza talks about her book The First Cell with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Raza argues that we have made little progress in fighting cancer over the last 50 years. The tools available to oncologists haven’t changed much–the bulk of the progress that has been made has been through earlier and earlier detection rather than more effective or compassionate treatment options. Raza wants to see a different approach from the current strategy of marginal improvements on narrowly defined problems at the cellular level. Instead, she suggests an alternative approach that might better take account of the complexity of human beings and the way that cancer morphs and spreads differently across people and even within individuals. The conversation includes the challenges of dealing with dying patients, the importance of listening, and the bittersweet nature of our mortality.
Listen:
An Interview with Azra Raza, MD, Oncologist, Scientist and Author
March 2020 Edition Vol.11, Issue 3
Dr. Azra Raza is the Chan Soon-Shiong Professor of Medicine and Director of the MDS Center, Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) in New York City. A practicing oncologist who sees 30 to 40 cancer patients weekly, her life is devoted to the early detection and prevention of cancer. Dr. Raza also directs a basic cancer research lab at Columbia that has generated hundreds of original publications for high profile scientific journals.
Published in October 2019, Dr. Raza’s book, The First Cell: And the Human Costs of Pursuing Cancer to the Last, has attracted significant attention. It explores the reasons she feels there should be a paradigm shift in cancer care.
552: The First Cell
This week we take a closer look at what cancer is, how it works, and what makes it so hard to treat without shying away or ignoring the human experience of cancer for patients and their families. We talk with Dr Azra Raza, oncologist, Professor of Medicine, Director of the MDS Center at Columbia University, and author of the new book “The First Cell and the Human Costs of Pursuing Cancer to the Last”.
249: Azra Raza | Myelodysplastic Syndromes And Current Oncology In “The First Cell”
Armen Shirvanian and AZRA RAZA | Feb 17, 2020
When it comes to cancer treatment, Dr. Azra Raza of the MDS Center at Columbia University has been working with patients for decades. She is an expert on myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), which are disorders caused by poorly formed or otherwise nonfunctional blood cells, and acute myeloid leukemia (AML), which affects 1/3 of MDS patients. This type of cancer, along with the stories of many patients and the progressions of their treatment, is detailed in Dr. Raza’s book The First Cell: And the Human Costs of Pursuing Cancer to the Last.
Dr. Azra Raza talks about cancer research and treatment in the U.S.
Rachelle Akuffo and Azra Raza |Feb 5, 2020
CGTN’s Rachelle Akuffo spoke to Dr. Azra Raza about the state of U.S. cancer research and treatment during World Cancer Day.
Cancer research is an ’embarrassment,’ must switch focus to early detection: oncologist
Matt Galloway and Azra Raza | Jan 23, 2020
A leading oncologist says it’s an “embarrassment” that we have been using the same methods to treat cancer for decades, despite the billions spent in research.
Most cancer diagnoses are “still being treated with chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgery — what I call the slash, poison, and burn approach,” said Azra Raza.
She told The Current’s Matt Galloway that she is prescribing the same drugs today as when she treated her first North American patient in 1977.
“The First Cell”: Dr. Azra Raza on Why the “Slash-Poison-Burn Approach” to Cancer Has Failed
Nermeen Shaikh, Amy Goodman, and Azra Raza | Dec. 23, 2019
Slash, poison, burn. That’s what a leading cancer doctor calls the protocol of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. We spend $150 billion each year treating cancer, yet a patient with cancer is as likely to die of it today — with a few exceptions — as one was 50 years ago.
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/12/23/the_first_cell_dr_azra_raza_on
Q&A with Azra Raza
Azra Raza, MD | Dec. 3, 2019
Dr. Azra Raza, professor of medicine and director of the MDS Center at Columbia University, talked about the way cancer has been treated in the United States since the early 1970s and how patient care can be improved.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?465660-1/qa-dr-azra-raza
Azra Raza on the way we should fight cancer
Sean Carroll and Azra Raza | Dec. 16, 2019
In the United States, more than one in five deaths is caused by cancer. The medical community has put enormous resources into fighting this disease, yet its causes and best treatments continue to be a puzzle. Azra Raza has been on both sides of the patient’s bed, as she puts it — both as an oncologist and expert in the treatment of Myelodisplastic Syndrome (MDS), and as a wife who lost her husband to cancer. In her new book, The First Cell, she argues that we have placed too much emphasis on treating cancer once it has already developed, and not nearly enough on catching it as soon as possible. We talk about what cancer is and why it’s such a difficult disease to understand, as well as discussing how patients and their loved ones should face up to the challenges of dealing with cancer… Read more …
It’s Time to Stop Obsessing about the War on Cancer
Lorraine Glennon | Winter 2019-20
In The First Cell, you call for a fundamental shift in the way we approach cancer research and treatment. Can you explain this?
For decades, our strategy has been to try to kill every last cancer cell, and in pursuit of that goal we have witnessed cycle after cycle of excitement, anticipation, a new magic bullet just around the corner, followed by crushing disappointment. I’m proposing that instead of fighting the disease at its most malignant, malevolent end stage, we catch it early. I’m not saying we will literally find the very first cell, but the idea is to identify problem cells at the earliest point possible. By detecting the footprints of the disease — its biomarkers — we can eradicate these cells before they have a chance to organize into an incurable disease. To be clear, I’m not calling for all current research to stop; patients with active disease need to be treated. But the status quo is unsustainable and financially ruinous for individuals, institutions, and the nation’s health-care system. Also, we must look at all this through the prism of patient anguish. Read more …
Our Failures Demand a New Approach to Cancer
Azra Raza, MD | Dec. 5, 2019
A few weeks before his death, 23-year-old Andrew—my daughter’s best friend—was approached about a DNR (do not resuscitate) order. He was suffering from end-stage brain cancer, but he refused outright to even consider signing. Read more …
FOLKS
Fixing Cancer’s Cancer: The High Cost Of Treatment
Brent Crane | Dec. 3, 2019
The field of oncology, asserts Columbia University oncologist Azra Raza, is infected with an “unshakeable hubris.” With so much time and resources funneled into curing cancer–that is, so much attention devoted to the cancer itself–the field has lost sight of the needs of something even more important: the patient. While researchers and institutions continue believing, as Raza puts it, that “we possess the power to untangle the intricacies of as complex a disease as cancer”, patients continue to suffer under the “ghastly” decades-old assortment of treatments on offer, chemotherapy and radiation. Read more …
Oncologist Azra Raza: ‘Don’t give up hope. Don’t give in to despair’
Andrew Anthony | Nov 23, 2019
The Columbia professor on taking healthcare out of the stone age, her ideas for cancer prevention – and why getting too close to patients is an occupational hazard. Read more …
Azra Raza’s mission to spot cancer earlier
Jane Mulkerrins | Nov 29, 2019
The most exciting developments in the war on the disease include smart bras and high-tech toilets, the leading expert Azra Raza says. Read more …
Winnipeg Free Press
Current cancer treatment system flawed
Dr. Azra Raza believes cancer research and treatment is on the wrong track.
In The First Cell Raza, a professor at Columbia University and oncologist for over 30 years, argues that most drugs being developed and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) end up buying patients only a few months of life at great cost and suffering. Meanwhile, research into the bio-markers of early stage cancers and pre-cancers is starved for funds. Read more …
Is it time to change the way we fight cancer?
Nov 6, 2019
Billions of dollars and countless hours of research have been poured into fighting the scourge of cancer. But the work has yielded little tangible benefit, according to leading American oncologist, Dr Azra Reza. Treating cancer continues to be expensive, incredibly painful and oftentimes ineffective at keeping a patient alive, she argues.
The Healthcare Policy Podcast
David Introcaso and AZRA RAZA | Nov 4, 2019
During this 35 minute conversation Dr Raza begins by discussing what causes cancer (we do not know or know completely). She moreover discusses the urgent need for a new cancer research paradigm, i.e., the current use of tissue culture cell lines and mouse models have proven to be inadequate. She also argues cancer researchers need to spend less time chasing the last cancer cell and instead ID the first cancer cell, i.e., we should place greater emphasis on early detection. She explains her criticisms of the pharmaceutical industry and the federal government funding in researching effective cancer treatments. Dr Raza also explains her relationship with her patients, her belief treating oncologists need to develop empathic relationships with their patients and she notes her view regarding palliative sedation.
By STEVE KRASKE & JAMIE HOBBS | Oct 28, 2019
Segment 1: One oncologist says cancer research is not progressing, and she offers new ideas.
Dr. Azra Raza says the public believes cancer research and treatments are advancing, but that’s not the case. The death rate from the most common cancers is no lower now than it was 5o years ago. She suggests an alternative to radition and chemotherapy and says more interdisciplinary collaboration could advance the cause.
The Cancer Fight Reconsidered, In “The First Cell”
AZRA RAZA on the THE JEFFERSON EXCHANGE| Oct 23, 2019
People with cancer are able to live longer than they used to, thanks to modern treatments. But it’s debatable whether we are gaining any ground in the war against cancer, and Azra Raza is ready to have that debate. Listen
Why We’re Treating Cancer Wrong, And How We Can Get It Right
From Diane Rehm Podcast
AZRA RAZA and DIANE REHM | Oct 15, 2019
Click here to listen
For more than three decades, Dr. Azra Raza has cared for cancer patients. An oncologist at Columbia University, Raza has had a front row seat to our country’s war on the disease – tracking medical breakthroughs and keeping current with the latest research. Listen
Cancer Is Still Beating Us—We Need a New Start
Most patients continue to face excruciating, ineffective, extremely costly treatments. It’s time to shift our focus from fighting the disease in its last stages to finding the very first cells.
Combating Cancer: PW Talks with Azra Raza
Do you see a major shift in your field coming?
Journalist’s Struggle to Find Bone Marrow Match Exposes Racial Disparity in National Registry
[Original publication in In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal]
Interviewer: Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Numbering: Issue 2.A, Idea: Women in Academia (Part One)
2013 : WHAT *SHOULD* WE BE WORRIED ABOUT?
