It is difficult for a Brazilian citizen who does not know someone who has succumbed to cancer. Others are aware of success stories where the patient has recovered from the illness. Those who closely followed a patient who has conquered the disease know the pains and ills that most of them pass. The treatments, in general, bring consequences that are perceived by all and, even worse, felt by the patient. But for those who want healing, this is the way to go.
In parallel, research shows that many can at least minimize pain with the use of medications. It is a classic premise among professionals in the field, that of all the symptoms of a patient diagnosed with cancer, pain is the most feared, even when compared to the expectation of death.
However, you do not even need to be an expert to know that only treating pain will not provide healing. Pain affects 60% to 80% of cancer patients, 25% to 30% at the time of diagnosis and 70% to 90% of patients with advanced disease classify pain as moderate to severe. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared cancer pain a World Medical Emergency and in 1986 published a guide to treatment that can provide pain relief in 90% of patients.
The same WHO published a scale of analgesia for the treatment of cancer pain and guided the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for mild pain in the first step, weak opioid for moderate pain in the second and potent opioid for intense pain in the third step.
If a patient wants to just not feel the pain, he may be relieved by the use of potent opioids. Using only morphine, you will not have the consequences of the treatment, the sicknesses, the weaknesses, the falls of hair, etc. But, of course, the cancer will erode inside. Gradually you will take the organs and, depending on the origin and malignity, will succumb in a few months or after a few years.
In an orthodox parallel, the truckers’ strike makes one think of untreated cancer. We have an immense fleet of trucks “debased” by subsidies from previous governments flooding the fleet in recent years. Several companies were opened and equipped with many trucks. The free market is cruel, competition law is not easily repealed. Who needs to work, shrinks their margins and wins the competition.
But the problem is well before that, even venturing to say that the diagnosis of cancer was precocious. There is no serious country that has its highway-based logistics. Trucking, which comes almost anywhere, should be used for short distances: picking up milk on the farm, bringing feed to animals, transporting goods in cities, etc. Large nations use less expensive means, less impactful – from an environmental or partner point of view – and with fewer losses. They use railroads, fluvial transports, tubular transport (for gases and fluids), among others.
One hour the system would succumb. Today Brazil is like that patient who did not want to suffer the impacts of cancer treatment; preferred morphine.
All governments, including the military regime, stopped investing in railroads and waterways (and Brazil has immense potential, as nature provided the country with large navigable rivers). There was a preference for the big automakers, so the jobs were generated in the cities and the population created an illusion of development. Through misguided concessions, many toll companies have been created, with often dubious contracts, and with high costs for freight vehicles.
Reducing fuel costs or disposing of carrier bills is the same as applying one more dose of morphine. The disease will continue to erode the country and soon the dose will have to be higher. And then the opioid concentration will not be enough anymore.
Road transport requires the use of fossil fuel and it is unnecessary to explain something finite. Continuing to invest in a dirty matrix, which will end, is to further weaken the already fragile transport system, at the same time as it is pushing the problem forward for future generations.
The moment of apprehension and public disorder is even understandable, the Brazilian no longer accepts the tax burden, which is not reverted in services, but transformed into benefits and perks for the government. Obviously this must cease. The carcinoma is corroding the patient, but treating it with opioids alone will not solve the problem.
The struggle of the people should not only be for the tax exemption, but for the changes of policies, improvements in cargo logistics and transportation in an intelligent way. A key premise in the solution line is to encourage the use of renewable fuels, railways, waterways, and other less onerous modes.
The representatives of the people should mirror their voters. These must also comply with the legal precepts governing a developed nation. Change must begin with education and the behavior of society. Until this is changed, we will have the same legislators who only seek their welfare. “And, no, there is not a savior who will magically after the next election solve all those problems, let alone without cutting benefits.”
And before cancer can overcome this nation, let agribusiness generate the wealth that moves the country. Preventing producers from disposing of their cargo or starving the animals will have serious consequences. The truck drivers have shut down their engines, though the cows can not be turned off.
Effective treatment generates pain and symptoms, but they can not be just one sector. Especially the one who has saved the country.
We need rationality right now.
*PerRoberta Züge; is the administrative director of the Sustainable Agricultural Scientific Council (CCAS); Vice-President of the Union of Veterinary Doctors of Paraná (SINDIVET);