It was fifty years ago when President Richard Nixon declared a war against cancer when he signed the National Cancer Act while simultaneously increasing funding for cancer research. At the time, President Nixon said if we could put a man on the moon in eight years, we should be able to do the same with curing cancer. Unfortunately, it’s easier said than done. About 600K Americans still die from cancer each year and we are a long ways from finding an outright cure. However, that’s not to say that progress hasn’t been made. Over the past 50 years, death rates dropped by 70% for childhood cancers, 56% for colorectal cancer and 39% for female breast cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. Sadly, painful cancers like pancreatic cancer and glioblastoma—a horrible kind of brain cancer—remain nearly as deadly as they were during Nixon’s rein.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2021/12/23/cancer-war-screening-genetics/6430979001/?gnt-cfr=1