Voters Considering The Subject of Cancer
Monday, April 16, 2007 -    reddit
According to Democratic pollster Geoffrey Garin, cancer isn't quite the taboo that it used to be. Via AP:
"The way voters respond depends very much on the specific illness involved and the extent to which they tend to think of it as being a risk to the candidate's long-term health," Garin said.
In the case of Democratic candidate John Edwards, the former senator and his wife, Elizabeth, called a news conference to announce that her breast cancer had returned in incurable form and spread to other parts of the body, but that it would not slow his presidential campaign.
This of course is a subject because of the recent announcement made by the Edwards' regarding Elizabeth's recent change in condition, though I'm not sure why that would influence anyone's vote one way or another, since she isn't the candidate. Maybe it plays to a persons honesty, who knows. Also recently diagnosed are Republican Senator Fred Thompson and White House Press Secretary Tony Snow.
I haven't been up on this issue since I was away when it was announced, but I would note that incurable doesn't mean untreatable -- that's very important to understand. The last I heard, the news was even worse for Snow, and even though I think the guy is a giant weasel (a requisite for being the Press Secretary) and hypocrite, amongst other things, I'm very sad to hear about this. Though misguided on any number of issues, I'm sure he is a genuinely nice guy, and I'd hate to see any of these people have bad things happen, and cancer is pretty bad no matter how you look at it.
"The interesting question that remains to be answered is: How are the people who vote going to look at this?" said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, who keeps a cancer blog on the Internet. "How all this plays out remains to be seen. I think it shines the light on a very important fact, which is that we have many more cancer survivors today."
Lichtenfeld, who is 60, recalls being smacked as a child for daring even to mention cancer to an aunt who had the disease.
I find the prospect of any disease being so taboo that it not be spoken of to be abhorrent. How can you possibly come to terms with something so deadly and misunderstood when people are literally abusing their children to keep them from speaking of it? How much more primitive can you get? Let's just take the next logical step and move back into caves for crying out loud.
Cancer is a top killer in the world and of all the things we could be doing to fight it and raise awareness for early testing, to have the possibility that we dare not even speak of it is just appallingly.
Other posts from this blog: John Edwards, Cancer, 2008 Elections
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