Dr. Watson has been in the news again lately after publishing a paper in the Royal Society’s journal Open Biology. In the paper, Watson questions the benefits of anti-oxidants and criticizes the U.S.’s current “war on cancer.”
This type of thing is really old hat for Watson, who has been a blunt critic of the way we have been funding cancer research since the 1970s, when he served on the National Cancer Advisory Board. In March of 1975, he gave a speech at the dedication of the Seeley G. Mudd Building at MIT which also drew national headlines.
Watson was quickly inundated with letters from both scientists and the public, many whom agreed that we were not making enough progress with the cancer problem. One letter, in particular, caught my attention with a hypothesis that I believe has been completely overlooked in the ensuing years:
