David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

So Frei and Freireich went to the NCI’s
research oversight board to ask for
permission to test all four drugs
together: army, navy, air force, marines.
Cancer is now routinely treated with
drug “cocktails,” complicated
combinations of two or three or even
four or five medications simultaneously.
But in the early 1960s, it was unheard
of. The drugs available to treat cancer in
those years were considered just too
dangerous. Even vincristine, Freireich’s
prized new discovery, was utterly
terrifying. Freireich learned that the hard
way. “Did it have side effects? You
bet,” he said. “It caused serious
depression, neuropathies. The kids got