Political Quotes

“I want to thank my colleague from New Jersey for his leadership on this issue, for his eloquent opening, and I want to echo his sentiments in congratulating the American Society of Clinical Oncology. As my colleague has said, we have made major advancements in cancer research in this country. Thirty years ago, less than 50 percent of those who were diagnosed with cancer lived beyond 5 years of their diagnosis. Today, it is over 65 percent for adults and over 80 percent for children. Historically, you had, really, three options with cancer. You could burn it out through radiation, you could cut it out through surgery, or you could poison the fast-growing cancer cells; but the problem is you were also killing healthy cells, as well, through chemotherapy. Today, because of medical research, we now have smart drugs, drugs that will attack fast-growing cancer cells, without attacking fast- growing healthy cells. We also have a number of clinical trials going on, including right in Buffalo, New York, at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, clinical trials for vaccines that treat the body's dendritic cells toward the goal of helping the body naturally fight cancer. We have made major progress, but as my friend from New Jersey has said, we still have much further to go. People realize that early detection is very, very important in effectively treating cancer. Less than 10 percent of cancer deaths occur from the original tumor.…”