Archive Report
Archive Report
Progress and Problems
Unanswered Questions, Continued Concern
When billionaire industrialist Armand Hammer talks, people listen. Hammer, chairman of Occidental Petroleum Corp., recently donated $2 million in prizes and awards to the fight against cancer, including $1 million to any scientist who finds a cure for cancer by 1991.1 Hammer's offer provides a sharp illustration of the nation's continuing concern with cancer—a disease that kills some 420,000 Americans a year. Even though survival rates for most cancers have improved in recent years, cancer remains one of the most feared maladies. Most cancers bring intense pain and suffering for the patient, and anxiety and uncertainty for family and friends.
Doctors still do not know what causes the disease or precisely why some treatments are successful and others are not. ...