Barriers to successful management of breast cancer

Abstract

A remarkable degree of advancement has been made over the last three decades in our understanding of the nature of cancer and the successful management of at least some of its variants. Much of the progress is attributable to worldwide efforts following upon the signing to law the United States of America National Cancer Act on December 23, 1971 by President Richard M. Nixon. The Act was based on a blueprint compiled by a panel of experts, the Consultants on the Conquest of Cancer, which had been convened by the Senate of the United States. The struggle against cancer, which led to this extraordinary action of the US Senate, was spearheaded by the American people, under the leadership of Mary Woodard Lasker of the Citizens Committee for the Conquest of Cancer. Its tactics to get the attention of the US Government included provocative campaign-type full-page advertisements in national newspapers with slogans such as Mr. Nixon, you can cure cancer (1). The views of the American public and the Congress about the war against cancer were that with little extra effort and money, cancer would be eliminated. It was therefore not surprising that the signing of the National Cancer Act in 1971 was welcome with euphoria and a call for the end of cancer by 1976 as an appropriate commemoration of the two-hundredth anniversary of the independence of our country (2). © 2006 Springer.