War on cancer also battles high costs

[dArKeR]

By Roland Jones
Wall Street reporter
MSNBC
Updated: 6:26 p.m. ET June 01, 2004

Cancer — it's probably one of the most petrifying words in the English language. It is the second leading cause of death in the United States, exceeded only by heart disease, and kills more than 1,500 Americans every day. In your lifetime, the disease will likely strike someone in your family or circle of friends ... or perhaps even you.

Yet more than 30 years on from President Nixon’s National Cancer Act, the 1971 legislation designed to mobilize the country's resources to fight cancer, experts say we still have a long — and increasingly expensive — road ahead in the crusade to conquer this everyday killer, which in many instances is preventable.

“If I have learned anything about cancer it’s that it’s a very complicated disease and the level of understanding we have of it right now is not very high,” said Peter Tollman, an analyst at the Boston Consulting Group who covers the biotechnology sector. “Cancer is a tough problem, and challenge for the latest cancer treatments is to catch up with cancer itself — that’s enormously complicated.”

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5051477/