1 - The Potent Promise and the Rotten Reality

Summary

One of the great myths of cervical cancer is that it only strikes women in impoverished countries like Somalia or Sierra Leone – countries that struggle to feed their people, let alone inoculate them against cancer. And to some degree, it’s true: cervical cancer kills more poor women than wealthy ones. Yet, even amid affluence, cervical cancer assails women no matter where they live. Persons with cervixes in the United States and other higher-income countries are routinely denied the means or knowledge for protecting themselves against this disease – even while sharing space with some of the world’s wealthiest inhabitants. In fact, those with female reproductive systems are marginalized everywhere, and thereby receive unequal access to the interventions for preventing this deadly cancer. The sound science for ridding the world of cervical cancer requires universal intolerance of the inequities that flourish in every corner of the globe. The political, social, cultural, and financial obstacles for eliminating this cancer must be addressed and removed, one by one, in order to give all persons with cervixes a fighting chance.