The overall cost for cancer last year was $206 billion, which includes $78 billion for medical bills, $18 billion for lost productivity from the illness, and $110 billion due to lost productivity from premature death.
– Lance Armstrong Foundation
Cancer costs us $206 billion a year.
I wonder what would happen if $206 billion was put into cancer research each year?
In the 100 meters men’s track and field final at the Olympics, Usain Bolt won, broke the world record, and was wearing the yellow wristband. What a message! Four years ago the winner wore the band as well.
This is a global movement. It may have started in Austin with our educational resource called “Livestrong.” It may have been born in combination with Nike when they decided to honor Lance in such a big public way. But clearly now this is a movement. A global one. It means so much to so many. It is about overcoming cancer. It is about overcoming any obstacle in your life. It is about living strong. And it belongs to anyone who wants to own a part. It is therefore not the LAF’s movement. It is not Lance’s movement. It is “our” movement. We all share in the work, the committment and the results we desire. Thanks for being a part of your movement and for letting us be a part of it.”
–copied from the Lance Armstrong Foundation blog by Doug Ullman, CEO of LAF and survivor
Yesterday I spent the morning with a famous cancer survivor, Senator Bob Dole, six term senator from Kansas. He was in Raleigh to meet and greet and be photographed with anyone that asked. Sen Bob Dole is immensely popular with people from all walks of life. We toured Cary and Apex, NC in the historic downtown areas and he was like the pied piper. People came pouring from the fire station, the shops, and the restaurants. At age 85, he still has a great sense of humor and reads the Wall Street Journal thoroughly every morning.
Senator Dole and I compared notes on our experience with cancer, mine in 1990 and his in 1991. Walter Shephard, Director of the Cancer Control division of the North Carolina Public Health Department joined us. Walter told us of a cancer-proof mouse they have developed at Bowman-Gray Medical Center at Wake Forest University, a NIH designated Comprehensive Cancer Center. Researchers can inject the mice with live cancer viruses and the cancer will not grow. The mouse will not develop cancer. Period.
Great progress is being made in cancer research!
I have been working very hard since returning from the Lance Armstrong Summit to get out the word on Vote Yellow! I truly think that if we believe we can influence Congress and legislation, we can. We have a spokesperson and leader that is focusing our efforts and we have never had that luxury before. Lance Armstrong has done for cancer what no one else could have done. Now it is up to us to get behind his efforts and talk about cancer funding to everyone in our life and look for ways to talk to others. The first issue is to get everyone registered to vote. Less than half of eligible Americans actually vote!
I am working for the Elizabeth Dole reelection campaign and I am combining the two efforts. What I learn from one, I use to help the other. The events I attend for Dole get me in front of the right people to make a difference. Each of us has a sphere of influence. With 12 M survivors, that is a lot of influence!
