On September 10, all major television networks and several other broadcasters will again air the marathon 3 hour Stand Up 2 Cancer. When SU2C aired in 08, the program has helped raise more than $ 100 million for cancer research conducted by the American Association for Cancer Research. This year's program, interspersed with celebrity performances, will show viewers how five "Dream Teams" composed of 13 scientists from several disciplines use these dollars to prolong the lives of cancer patients and to be closer to finding a cure.
easy thing to do that night would change the channel. I encourage you not to. Instead, I encourage you to listen, because chances are you know someone whose life has been touched by cancer. There are chances that you have read the articles detailing how a person struggled not only physical, but emotional and spiritual pain of a cancer diagnosis and won. Chances are you've told your kids not to smoke because you want to spare them this pain. There are chances that you know where to find the next Relay for Life race in your community.
You know all this. Everyone has heard of cancer of the super star like breast cancer and pancreatic cancer, but what about those others with names as long as you can not remember how to say? Nobody really knows about these orphan cancers like mesothelioma. Sometimes, not even your doctor.
Stand Up 2 Cancer is an opportunity to have this conversation.
Every day I hear stories about people whose doctors did not know about mesothelioma. The diagnosis comes back and the patient's doctor tells them to do their affairs in order, as they have only six months to live.
If doctors do not even know, how are you supposed to know that 3,000 new people are diagnosed with meso each year? How are you supposed to know that asbestos, which causes meso, is still legal in the US? That the United States and Canada are the only two Western countries that are not major efforts to ban asbestos? How are you supposed to know about the research being done for other cancers using meso and vice versa?
How are you supposed to know that there is hope for a cure, not just the superstar of cancers such as breast cancer, but for the orphan cancers as well meso? Stand Up 2 Cancer, and other shows like it, how you can know, because it highlights the work for all cancers so that one day there will be no need for us to know.
