A New Strategy for the War on Cancer - 9
President Nixon’s State of the Union speech on January 22, 1971 included one of his principal goals–to eradicate cancer. He declared:
” I will ask for an appropriation of an extra $100 million to launch an intensive campaign to find a cure for cancer, and I will ask later for whatever additional funds can effectively be used. 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.”
On that evening, our great nation became officially committed to the annihilation of this enemy. The president’s declaration was later described as the beginning of the “war on cancer.” It was to be pursued with the same national determination that led us into the nuclear age and that put a man on the moon. Virtually unlimited resources were pledged.
On December 23, 1971, fueled by the aggressive support of the president and numerous other political leaders, the National Cancer Act was signed into law. This government action infused unprecedented dollars and authority into the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to oversee a National Cancer Program of research and education. The NCI budget would bypass the traditional scrutiny of its parent organization, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and would be submitted directly to the president. The Act funded new research centers and contracted with prominent existing centers in an all-out national crusade to conquer cancer.
This bold venture was not without precedents. The president had alluded to what the ingenuity and power of America had proven capable of producing. We had models of what national determination with enough funds could do.
Nuclear fission/fusion was just being studied by the United States when the Second World War began in 1939. Fearful that Nazi Germany was developing a nuclear weapon, our nation assembled our best scientists complemented by some international experts displaced from Europe. This team, supported by every material and financial resource they needed, crafted and tested a device inconceivable in the minds of previous war strategists. Six years after a a concept discussion among a few scientists, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. The war against Japan was over.
Sixteen years later, we embarked on another journey of seemingly impossible proportions. Responding to the Soviet’s launching of Youri Gagarin into space orbit on April 2, 1961, President Kennedy boldly challenged Congress and the nation, on May 25, 1961, to land a man on the moon by the decade’s end. Space became the battle ground of the cold war. On July 20, 1969, just eight years later, the world watched Neil Armstrong make his “giant leap for mankind” to the surface of the moon further preserving our freedom through the aerospace realm. Both of these historical feats combined cost this nation less than what we are currently spending EACH YEAR on cancer research and education. In the nuclear and space races, the enemy’s objectives were thwarted in relatively short order. In the cancer race, we are in a seemingly endless marathon, and the enemy is winning.
The paragraphs above are extracted from my book, A New Strategy for the War on Cancer. Please continue to watch this blog for further extracts. I welcome your comments.