Cancer

The good news is the nation is finally talking about cancer, said Lance Armstrong in Newsweek. But it took two high-profile victims to get the discussion started. First was Elizabeth Edwards, wife of presidential candidate John Edwards, going public with a recurrence of her breast cancer. Then White House spokesman Tony Snow, who had previously beaten colon cancer, found out the disease was back, this time in his liver. There was an immediate outpouring of public sympathy for both Snow and Edwards, but little surprise or anger: Three and a half decades after Richard Nixon declared war on the disease, Americans no longer believe cancer can be conquered. As a cancer survivor, I find this complacency

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