title: Cancer coverage: the public face of childhood leukaemia in 1960s Britain.
abstract: In the 1960s, stories of children fighting cancer, previously absent from the British news, started to feature ever more prominently in the national press. Conventional treatments could not keep children alive for many months, so the promise of a cure through the use of an alternative anti-cancer 'serum' was not easily dismissed as quackery. The Ministry of Health and cancer research organisations struggled to find a fair and honest way to inform the public and affected families about childhood leukaemia without raising or crushing hope.
authors.affiliation: Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK. emm.barnes@manchester.ac.uk
authors.forename: Emm
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Barnes
mesh_terms: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000191:economics / Q000266:history*; D002648:Child; D002669:Child Welfare / Q000191:economics / Q000266:history*; D015195:Drug Design; D005381:Financing, Organized / Q000266:history; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D015470:Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000191:economics / Q000266:history*; D011639:Public Opinion; D011781:Quackery / Q000266:history*; D013222:State Medicine / Q000266:history; D006113:United Kingdom
chemical_list: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents