Recently, citizens have begun organizing and protesting the current government shutdown and the impact it has had on the citizens and the healthcare industry. A group of lobbyists, with both Republican and Democratic members, has begun lobbying the government to continue to fund medical research amidst the shutdown and to continue funding after the shutdown.
Cancer has been the silent boogeyman of the medical field for years. It is an affliction that has been stubbornly resistant to treatment, with many methods being developed, but none having a guarantee of treatment, unlike other diseases. On average, each year, cancer kills more than 600,000 people in the United States alone. Disregarding suicide, the number of people who die from cancer each year is more than 30 times the number of people who die from guns each year.
Research into how to cure the affliction has been a common goal for society for decades, with several popular initiatives and movements having been started to fund research. ‘Cancer Doesn’t Care’ is the latest among these prominent initiatives, with a call to disregard the political maneuvering of Washington and ensure that medical researchers can focus on the common enemy of cancer.
Martin, a volunteer for the movement, has said, “We may not see eye to eye politically. We might not even see eye to eye in social circumstances, but we can see beyond those differences because we’re here for one cause.”
Each volunteer for the movement has been affected by cancer in some way, with most feeling the pain of the disease personally. The lobbyists wish to express their experience with the disease and to show the conflicting politicians in office that cancer is not something that can be set aside.