Congresswoman Deborah Pryce | Proudly Serving Ohio's 15th District

January 29, 2007

Renewed Optimism Justified in the Battle against Cancer

COLUMBUS, OH – Congresswoman Deborah Pryce (R-Columbus) today submitted the following editorial:

In 1971, then President Richard M. Nixon unveiled a new federal commitment to combating cancer. During his State of the Union address that year, he announced, “The time has come in America when the same kind of concentrated effort that split the atom and took man to the moon should be turned toward conquering this dread disease. Let us make a total national commitment to achieve this goal. America has long been the wealthiest nation in the world. Now it is time we became the healthiest nation in the world.”

Since this unofficial declaration of war on the disease, the casualties have been staggering. Over the past 30 years, more than 15 million Americans have perished from cancer, and today one in four deaths in the U.S. is due to cancer. In 2007 alone, an estimated 1,444,920 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed, and 559,650 Americans will die from it.

While these numbers are certainly grim and at first blush suggest President Nixon’s clarion call to action was in vain, his 1971 speech marks an immensely important turning point in public policy’s treatment of cancer. Coming at the heels of a century of unimaginable and unprecedented scientific breakthrough and understanding, America determined it would no longer sit passively and fall victim to cancer, and that we could indeed harness our resources to put an end to a disease that through the centuries had wrought incalculable misery and suffering on so many lives.

Over the past three and a half decades, science has continued to crash through barriers in the fight against cancer. Cancer is no longer the mystery it once was, and researchers now know infinitely more about prevention, detection, and treatment than ever before. While these breakthroughs have been a consistent source of optimism over the years, they failed to lead to empirical, statistical progress in cancer deaths.

Until now. According to a report released last week by the American Cancer Society, fewer people died of cancer in 2004 than in the previous 12 months, marking the second straight year that cancer deaths have declined in America. Even more encouraging, the rate of decline has accelerated – from 369 fewer deaths in 2003, to 3,014 fewer in 2004. Dr. John Seffrin, the CEO of the ACS, notes that this news should quell debate that the previous drop in cancer deaths was a statistical anomaly; he states, “The second consecutive drop in the number of actual cancer deaths, much steeper than the first, shows last year’s historic drop was no fluke.”

We are also witnessing declining rates for most major cancers. Breast cancer death rates have been dropping steadily since 1990, and rates are also dropping for both prostate and colorectal cancer. Lung cancer remains America’s most common cancer killer; while the incidence and death rates for women have remained largely steady in recent years, fewer men are either developing or dying from it. For these dramatic recent successes, the ACS credits continued improvement in the areas of cancer prevention, earlier detection, and more effective treatments.

The uplifting news of dropping cancer deaths coincides with a palpable, renewed sense of optimism permeating throughout the scientific and medical communities and cancer advocacy groups. From successful cancer clinical trials to genomic mapping, cancer research and understanding is accelerating at rate that few among us can comprehend. The rise and passion of an American icon, Lance Armstrong, and his army of cancer advocates, has helped inspire millions of Americans to speak out for a cancer cure like never before in history, and public officials are listening – today, approximately $5 billion of pubic money is spent on cancer research and training.

This renewed optimism was manifest on Capital Hill last year, when the House of Representatives passed a resolution supporting the goal of eliminating the death and suffering due to cancer by the year 2015, a target strongly supported by the American Cancer Society. While in part symbolic, the 2015 target is about spurring hope into action, and making the impossible possible. It is about resuscitating President Nixon’s call to action more than 35 years ago, to harness America’s expertise, energies and resources – all unmatched on Earth – to lead humanity toward making cancer a manageable disease.

Back to Deborah's Views 2007