Beyond the Soul’s Meridian July 22, 2018
In 1971, while the Vietnam War was raging, President Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act, which initiated a program that immediately became known as the “War on Cancer.” Although the National Cancer Act itself does not mention the word war, President Nixon and the media immediately proclaimed the act as a “war” against cancer. The goal of this endeavor was to find a cure for cancer and eradicate it as a major cause of death. Additional administrations, such as President Barack Obama’s, used cancer again as a political issue while earmarking significant increases in revenues to combat this elusive specter. In 2015, the National Cancer Institute was budgeted for 5.665 billion dollars, which did not include private donations, endowments, or publicly funded organizations such as the National Cancer Society. (1, 2) Continue reading “A Cure for Cancer”