The Cancer Detectives: The Trailblazers Who Landed the First Blow Against Cancer Amanda Pollak, Gene Tempest

The story of how the life-saving cervical cancer test became an ordinary part of women’s lives is as unusual and remarkable as the coalition of people who ultimately made it possible: a Greek immigrant, Dr. George Papanicolaou; his intrepid wife, Mary; Japanese-born artist Hashime Murayama; Dr. Helen Dickens, an African American OBGYN in Philadelphia; and an entirely new class of female scientists known as cyto-screeners. But the test was just the beginning. Once the test proved effective, the campaign to make pap smears available to millions of women required nothing short of a total national mobilization. THE CANCER DETECTIVES tells the untold story of the first-ever war on cancer and the people who fought tirelessly to save women from what was once the number one cancer killer of women.

CREDITS

EDITED BY
SANDRA CHRISTIE, ACE
ORIGINAL MUSIC BY
EDUARDO ARAM
PRODUCED BY
AMANDA POLLAK
WRITTEN BY
GENE TEMPEST
DIRECTED BY
AMANDA POLLAK
GENE TEMPEST
NARRATED BY
ANDIA WINSLOW

SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS

 Chemistry
 Biology

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EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES


Feature Films

A science focused teaching framework for short and feature films, all of which have received awards from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for their depictions of scientific themes or characters.