Examine Yourself: Military terms like 'battling cancer' and 'war on cancer' do more harm than good

Military metaphors are commonly used when we talk about cancer but, according to new research, describing the disease as a battlefield is far from helpful and can have a negative effect, writes Marjorie Brennan.

In the book C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too, published in 1998, journalist John Diamond wrote: “I despise the set of warlike metaphors that so many apply to cancer. My antipathy has nothing to do with pacifism and everything to do with a hatred for the sort of morality which says that only those who fight hard against their cancer survive it or deserve to survive it — the corollary being that those who lose the fight deserved to do so.”