Controversial comments. Dr Richard Smith says cancer is “the best way to die”. Picture: British Medical Journal. Source: Supplied
A LEADING doctor has courted controversy after saying we should stop wasting money on cancer treatment as it is the best way to die.
Richard Smith, the former editor of the prestigious British Medical Journal (BMJ), said cancer death was preferable to others because it gave a person time to say goodbye and to reflect on their life before they died.
In a blog published on the BMJ website Dr Smith acknowledged that, given the choice, most people would prefer a sudden death.
But he said such a death “may be very tough on those around you, particularly if you leave an important relationship wounded and unhealed.”
He went on: “The long, slow death from dementia may be the most awful as you are slowly erased, but then again when death comes it may be just a light kiss.
“Death from organ failure — respiratory, cardiac, or kidney — will have you far too much in hospital and in the hands of doctors.”
Dr Smith concludes that “death from cancer is the best”.
“You can say goodbye, reflect on your life, leave last messages, perhaps visit special places for a last time, listen to favourite pieces of music, read loved poems, and prepare, according to your beliefs, to meet your maker or enjoy eternal oblivion.”
With this in mind he said we should “stop wasting billions trying to cure cancer, potentially leaving us to die a much more horrible death.”
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Originally published as ‘Death from cancer is the best’