A late-winter mix of marvels and miscellany. . . What a fabulous story about how far we have come in cancer. The latest data show that for the first time since 1930, year-to-year total U.S. cancer deaths in 2003 declined; percentagewise, cancer deaths per 100,000 have been dropping for more than a decade. The explanation: earlier detection, more effective therapies, and - regarding lung cancer - reduction in smoking. XXX Medicine and medical science clearly are gaining on cancer. A multibillion-dollar genetic research enterprise soon will begin building a cancer genome atlas categorizing the hundreds of glitches that turn healthy cells into cancers. Completion of the effort - the most daunting genetic undertaking since the Human Genome Project - remains years away. Yet it likely will turn the developing victory over cancer into a rout. XXX Also in the realm of marvelous news: British Columbia has announced the designation of a 4.4-million-acre park twice the size of Yellowstone. Running up the B.C. coast from Vancouver Island to Alaska, the Great Bear Rainforest will boast grizzlies, bald eagles, cedars that took seed in antiquity and staggering scenery. This is a victory, too - not least for future generations - and made possible by naturalists, businesses, native groups and governments working together. XXX In case you missed it, the Supreme Court has given an unequivocal answer to the hoo-ha about whether states can legally require parental involvement before minor girls can have an abortion. Yes, said the court - states can require parental notification, as long as the law allows doctors to act without parental notification in medical emergencies. Sandra O'Connor, known increasingly as she approached the end of her career as a swing justice who could go either way on various questions, wrote the opinion - her last. The vote by an unequivocal court: 9-0. XXX ABC's Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt were severely wounded in Iraq, as is widely known. Less well known is this: The two civilians were medevac'd to Ramstein AFB in Germany, treated by American military physicians at Rar Landstuhl Regional Medical Center and subsequently were medevac'd to Andrews AFB in Washington for treatment by military physicians at Bethesda Naval Hospital. Questions: (1) Will ABC News reimburse the U.S. military for transport, supplies, treatment and meals; and (2) Will the care the two have received cause any re-evaluation of network television's too-often-negative coverage of the nation's military and its competence? XXX Sweden, from which many sociological ecology luminaries say the U.S. should take its lead in nearly all things, has resolved to end its dependence on oil within 15 years. And why not? As President Bush has noted, the U.S. could meet a similar goal with a multifaceted approach comprising new technologies, hydrogen, coal, and nukes. Continued... |