The US Food and Drug Administration has approved a new vaccine called “Gardasil” to help in the prevention of cervical cancer. Doctors and medical research professionals have known for a while now that up to 70% of cervical cancer is caused by “HPV”, which is a strain of human papillomavirus. In fact, the past few months I have been seeing television commercials spreading the word about this virus which was news to me. Millions of women worldwide are victims of cervical cancer each year and if this vaccine is as good as many experts claim, this will be good news for women.
Cancer is a terrible killer of people around the world and this new vaccine is just the latest good news in some remarkable breakthroughs in cancer treatment. I’m in my mid 40’s and when I was a kid back in the 1970’s a disease called “leukemia” struck many young folks in my small hometown. Most of these kids died from this terrible disease. However, today the survival rate of people who have leukemia is much better than it was 30 or 40 years ago. The problems with these new cancer treatments are that they don’t come quickly enough for people who are already in the final stages of cancer.
As many of you know, my family has been plagued by this disease for generations and I have written here on many occasions about my hatred of cancer and the toll it takes on its victims and their families. Possible cures like this new vaccine called “Gardasil” are wonderful news to my ears. I think down deep inside that a some point in time, one of these new cancer treatments will open the door of knowledge to some smart researcher who will find the common denominator as to why so many get sick with cancer. When this happens it won’t be long until more cures are discovered for this dreaded disease.
There are thousands of research scientists working for drug companies who are dedicating their lives to finding better treatments for cancer. I’m sure some of these researchers are just doing this work for the money or recognition, but there are many people who get into cancer research just because they saw a family member die of the terrible disease. These folks decided to devote their life to finding better treatments and hopefully a cure, someday, for all types of cancer and hopefully they will achieve that goal, soon.
In the mean time we must all continue to support great organizations like “The American Cancer Society” with cash contributions. This organization has been around a long time and they are very helpful to people who are living through this terrible disease of cancer every single day. “Hospice” is another fine group of people who help both patients and families who are suffering from cancer. There are many other great organizations which need our moral and financial support and I hope that everyone reading this will consider helping out a non-profit cancer support organization sometime in the near future.
Related: Humane Cancer Treatment, Least Among Us, Life So Short, LeAnn Rimes Memories
Positive Cancer News
Saturday, June 10, 2006
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