40 years ago today Terry Fox, a 21 year old Canadian who lost a leg to cancer, began an east to west cross-Canada run to raise money and awareness for cancer research. He ran the equivalent of a full marathon every day and made it to 145 days and 5,373km before he was forced to stop and he lost his battle with cancer.
I can’t wait to see the day when we actually have a solid curr for most cancers and it becomes no less leathal than the flu after we invented vaccines or infections after the discovery of penicillin…
To many amazing people die this agonizing and cruel death…
I do wonder if once we solve cancer, another deadly disease that we haven’t solved yet will just take it’s place.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t try, it’s just a cruel problem.
Definitely, after we find solutions for the most lethal cancers we will probably only see life expectancy go up by 5-10 years and have most people die from the 2nd and 3rd highest killers, cardiovascular and brain diseases. There are some promising possibilities for treating heart and vascular disease with things like cell therapies and tissue engineering but the brain is going to be a tough nut to crack.
I mean, all the other major killers are more-or-less preventable before your body reaches it’s general decline into dysfunction from old age.
Heart disease and cancer alone kill more than like everything else combined, the former being largely preventable with proper lifestyle and diet.