Cancer kills more children than any other disease in America. Although there have been tremendous gains in cancer survival rates in recent decades, the proportion of children and teens diagnosed with different forms of the disease increased by almost a third between 1975 and 2001.
Grisly though these statistics are, they are still tiny when set beside the number of adult lives lost to breast cancer (41,000 each year) and lung cancer (164,000). Advocates for more money for child cancer prefer to look at life-years lost. The average age for cancer diagnosis in a young child is six, while the average adult is diagnosed in their late 60s. Robert Arceci, a pediatric cancer expert at Johns Hopkins, points out that in terms of total life-years saved, the benefit from curing pediatric cancer victims is roughly the same as curing adults with breast cancer.
There is an obvious element of special pleading in such calculations. All the same, breast cancer has attracted a flurry of publicity, private fund-raising and money from government. Childhood cancer has received less attention and cash. Pediatric cancer, a term which covers people up to 20 years old, receives one-twentieth of the federal research money doled out by the National Cancer Institute. Funding, moan pediatric researchers, has not kept pace with rising costs m the field, and NCI money for collaborative research will actually be cut by 3% this year.
There is no national pediatric cancer registry that would let researchers track child and teenage patients through their lives as they can do in the case of adult sufferers. A pilot childhood-cancer registry is in the works. Groups like Mr. Reaman's now get cash directly from Congress. But it is plainly a problem most politicians don't know much about.
The biggest problem could lie with 15-19-year-olds. Those diagnosed with cancer have not seen the same improvement in their chances as younger children and older adults have done. There are some physical explanations for this: teenagers who have passed adolescence are more vulnerable to different sorts of cancer. But Archie Bleyer, a pediatric oncologist at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Centre in Texas, has produced some data implying that lack of health insurance plays a role. Older teenagers and young adults are less likely to be covered and checked regularly.
The author cites the example of Mrs. Pryce to show that
A. child cancer is no longer a rare case.
B. nowadays Americans care little about child cancer.
C. the current health-care debate is rather time-consuming.
D. school kids axe more likely to be diagnosed with cancer.
Which of the following is the text mainly about ?
Alternatives to conventional paid media.
B. Conflict between hijacked and earned media.
C. Dominance of hijacked media.
D. Popularity of owned media.
I would appreciate the opportunity of meeting you personally on my visit to Singapore.
A. 我很感激能有机会在新加坡与您见面。
B. 若您答应在我去新加坡时与您私下会晤,我将十分欣赏。
C. 将十分珍惜去新加坡与您私下会晤的机会。
D. 我若在去新加坡时能有机会与您私下会晤,将十分荣幸。