Last night my husband and I attended a town hall meeting hosted by the Lance Armstrong Foundation, and Lance himself. Special guests were Senator John McCain and Paula Zahn. Mr. Armstrong stated that the reason the Foundation exists is to "serve a cause greater than yourself". A simple statement, but one that if everyone lived by, the world would indeed be a much better place. For more information on his Foundation, go here.
Some facts that I learned:
- 1 American loses their war against cancer every minute
- 1 out of 2 men will get cancer
- 1 out of 3 women will get cancer
- 560,000 people die every year from cancer
- There are currently over 12 million cancer survivors in US (thanks for the correction!)
Funding
Senator McClain, a cancer survivor himself, was questioned on what the level of funding for cancer research would be if he became President. Although he couldn't give specific numbers, he did confirm that the amount of funding would increase from what it currently is today (it has been decreased over the past three years). Mr. Armstrong was correct - we are at war. And he wasn't referring to the military. Progress has been made, but a cure hasn't been found. We need to do more.
5 comments:
Say, recheck that last number, would you? I'm certain there are more than 100,000 cancer survivors -- a million wouldn't surprise me.
There are currently 12 million cancer survivors in the US!
Thanks for catching my mistake. I'm glad I was wrong. I like the 12 million much better!
I went looking and could only find a 2004 number of 10.8 million, so the 12 million number is certainly correct -- but i'd love to have a source (never know when you might get a column out of a detail like that!).
When i was pastoring a church in West Virginia, back in 1998, a lady in the congregation died of whom i only learned after her passing that she was famous for doing something in 1968. In that county, as it was shared with me by her friends, she became the first person as far as they knew to have ever said in public "I have breast cancer."
It was a real eye-opener to me to realize how recently, historically speaking, this was utterly not spoken about in public -- and how much more pain and fear comes of that kind of approach (see the end of "The Bells of St. Mary's" which my mom assures me was exactly what they said about people with cancer or TB in 1945).
So on behalf of Althea and all survivors today, thanks for the article Cheri!
For those of you who would like more information, Here's a great page. A pdf file, "cancer facts and figures. http://www.cancer.org/downloads/STT/CAFF2007PWSecured.pdf
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