The Cancer Mavericks Podcast launches June 4th

A NEW DOCUMENTARY PODCAST SERIES ABOUT THE PIONEERING ADVOCATES WHO LAUNCHED THE WAR ON CANCER

 Podcasts offer content creators and listeners the elasticity of topics that often isn't available with TV or radio. This new podcast, The Cancer Mavericks, exemplifies the big tent viewpoint of narrative storytelling that defines podcasting.

 
OFFSCRIP MEDIA has announced the launch of THE CANCER MAVERICKS: A HISTORY OF SURVIVORSHIP, a groundbreaking eight-part documentary podcast series that tells the story of the decades of grassroots advocacy that have shaped today's narrative in cancer survivorship as policy, practice, and culture. 

 

Created by Matthew Zachary, a 25-year brain cancer survivor and the Founder of Stupid Cancer, OffScrip Media is the first podcast network and educational publisher focused on health equity and patient advocacy. Their mission is to build community, end isolation, amplify voice, and improve quality of life for patients and caregivers in oncology and rare disease.

The story of cancer’s impact on the human body has been told many times. THE CANCER MAVERICKS is the story of cancer’s impact on people, society, and even pop culture. It profiles the rebels who rose up against the status quo, forced the hand of lawmakers, rallied a nation to a cause, and transformed themselves from "victims" to "survivors."

Hosted by Matthew Zachary, Co-Founder and CEO of OFFSCRIP MEDIA and Founder of STUPID CANCER, THE CANCER MAVERICKS is the historical and reflective narrative of how we got from there to here, plus a glimpse into what may lie ahead, and the important work that still needs to be done.

A trailer for the series is available here: http://trailer.cancermavericks.com

"I am a cancer survivor,” said Matthew Zachary. “Over the past 25 years, I've come to appreciate that I would not be who I am today without those predecessors who advocated on my behalf. This series is a long-overdue homage and tribute to the unsung ordinary heroes who changed the cancer conversation."

THE CANCER MAVERICKS maintains the belief that the only thing that has ever changed approaches to treatment is patient advocacy. As such, it honors the past to inspire the next generation of cancer rebels, so they might take up the mantle and overcome today's inequities and injustices within the cancer community.

In eight episodes, the series follows the ordinary people, touched by illness, who acted in extraordinary ways to challenge the medical establishment to change the patient-doctor relationship, overturn the stigma of victimization, and alter the practice of medicine itself. 

The podcast begins with Mary Lasker, the healthcare advocate and philanthropist, and the movement that launched the war on cancer in 1971, and Rose Kushner, the pioneering advocate who challenged the medical establishment to listen to patients. The story continues through today as families of children with rare diseases push the government and medical community to change how clinical trials are performed.
 

“Everywhere we looked we found women who said no to the men making medical decisions and by doing so changed how we think of cancer,” said Matthew Zachary. “The early history of cancer advocacy is made up of a roster of women who questioned authority,” 

Zachary noted several women of note, including: Mary Lasker who spearheaded the war on cancer; Rose Kushner, a journalist who refused to accept her doctor’s recommendation for radical breast surgery; Susie Leigh, a Vietnam War nurse veteran and cancer survivor who was one of the founders of the National Coalition of Cancer Survivorship, and others. Later episodes will also include a new generation of women who have become lead oncologists and scientists altering how we treat cancer.

The strength of this podcast is that it steers into multiple lanes of issues, ranging from the care of cancer patients to policy disputes in healthcare and the cultural baggage that weighs down any discussion where cancer is a topic.