But Livestrong has made a valuable contribution. I’ve spend
the last week or so with some of the nation’s leading cancer
researchers, including members of the so called Dream Teams
funded by Stand Up 2 Cancer, one of the new organizations
that have arisen in the Armstrong era to take a more
deliberate approach to cancer research. The focus is simple:
produce cures, not papers, and do it today, not in a decade.
These scientists are juiced (oops, bad word choice): they
have never been more convinced that we are on the precipice
of some breakthroughs. People are going to be alive in five
years because of the advocacy of organizations like
Livestrong and SU2C in driving the development of these
future therapies.
Clearly, there is much more work to be done. Cancer will soon
become the nation’s leading killer, because it is
increasingly a disease of the old. Still, the National
Institute of Health faces an 8% budget cut next year if the
current sequestration rules take effect. Yet every two days
cancer kills more people than were lost in the 9/11 attack.
It’s been people such as Armstrong and organizations like
Livestrong that have been taking the fight to cancer, even if
our legislators won’t. That’s why Nike will continue to
support Livestrong, but not Armstrong. So condemn Lance as a
cheat; but don’t condemn Livestrong, as some idiot
sportswriters seem to be doing. The only thing we need to
cheat here is cancer.
When bad things happen, it’s human nature to accentuate the
positive, as Johnny Mercer put it. That’s precisely what the
Obama Administration did following the September 11 killing
of U.S. ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three fellow
Americans in a terror attack on the U.S. consulate in
Benghazi.
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