Danny’s Tree. A memorial to Danny Host, a 7 year old victim of brain cancer. Danny’s death this past February is one small part of cancer’s annual death toll of almost 600,000 people in the United States.
Over the next decade, cancer will strike 1.6 million Americans per year. Over a decade, that’s more than the populations of the cities (not suburbs) of New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Imagine the reaction – and money available – if Al Qaeda could injure 1.6 million Americans per year. 4% of Americans are cancer survivors. Annual cancer rates keep climbing for children and for blood cancers. In fact, there is a blood cancer death every 10 minutes in the United States.
But, despite those depressing numbers, there are real reasons for hope. Who says so? Nobel Prize winner Dr. James Watson, one of the two leaders of the team that explained DNA’s double-helix. Go here for his powerful article explaining that mapping the genome and other advances mean that science has made enough progress so that there is now a scientific tool kit that can actually work for some people with some cancers, and can be applied to an increasingly wide range of cancers. Here’s the opening paragraph of his article:
"THE National Cancer Institute, which has overseen American efforts on researching and combating cancers since 1971, should take on an ambitious new goal for the next decade: the development of new drugs that will provide lifelong cures for many, if not all, major cancers. Beating cancer now is a realistic ambition because, at long last, we largely know its true genetic and chemical characteristics." (emphasis added).
These are just some of the millions of reasons to speak out and seek better as to cancer treatment and research. So, today, speak out and wear yellow on LIVESTRONG Day.
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