Washington - Leading advocates in the fight against cancer on Thursday urged lawmakers to overhaul the US health care system to put all Americans on an equal footing when it comes to the country's biggest killer disease.
"We have chosen as a nation to turn our backs on some of us who have cancer," Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former White House Democratic contender John Edwards, told a hearing of the Senate committee for health, education, labour and pensions.
"I urge you to reform health care responsibly, morally and aggressively and save millions of us," said Edwards, who has breast cancer which has spread through her body and which, she said, "will undoubtedly be the reason I die."
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Lance Armstrong, who survived metastatic testicular cancer to go on to win the Tour de France cycling stage race an unprecedented seven times, urged the United States to wage a "ruthless and relentless war" against the disease.
"This is a major fight, a major war," Armstrong told the panel.
"Cancer doesn't care if you're Republican or Democrat, young or old, black, white or native American, rich or poor. It comes and it comes hard, and it is ruthless and relentless.
"And for us to win, we also have to be ruthless and relentless," he said.
He urged lawmakers to rethink the US strategy against cancer and to sweep away the disparities in health care that pervade the US system, to give all sufferers equal chances of survival.
"A full third of the 560 000 cancer deaths we have every year in this country could be prevented if we simply applied the information, the technology and the knowledge we have to the people who need it most," Armstrong said.
"If we have something in house and there is someone down the street who needs it, and we are not walking down the street and giving it to him, we are failing.
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