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Because Genentech is a leading developer of cancer therapies, some doctors also fear that the company's pricing plans for Avastin - around $8,800 a month - may encourage other companies to charge more for their own oncology drugs.

In the wealthy industrialized nations, effective drug therapies against AIDS became available - AZT as early as 1987, then combinations of antiretroviral agents in 1996. The new drugs offered hope that fatal complications might be staved off and AIDS rendered a chronic condition.

A lot of medicines are not there to cure diseases. That's fine - drugs that keep people alive who wouldn't otherwise be alive are useful. What I object to is the drug companies' advertising, which you see everywhere in the U.S., which claims that they are curing diseases when they're not.

Paradoxically, no such embargo exists for the drugs and therapies that have revolutionized the treatment of serious diseases although many of them were created with the same technologies.

Most breast cancer-related deaths can be prevented through simple and painless preventive measures. A late diagnosis can result in more serious, long-term consequences.

The cancer is in remission, and I will shortly go on a drug maintenance regimen to keep it there.

Breast cancer isn't one disease - it's probably four or five different types, and without knowing what type a person has, you can't optimize treatment for them.

Cancer affects everyone, and it's up to all of us to support the important research that can one day make a much sought-after cure a reality.

While eliminating smallpox and curtailing cholera added decades of life to vast populations, cures for the chronic diseases of old age cannot have the same effect on life expectancy. A cure for cancer would be miraculous and welcome, but it would lead to only a three-year increase in life expectancy at birth.

Asthma research is a lot better and new medicines are always coming out to help young people.