MD Anderson Strikes Out "Cancer"

This is big, bold and beautiful.


The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center takes a visual step forward today with its announcement of a new graphic that visually symbolizes its even wider mission: to eradicate cancer. 


Not just eliminate, but eradicate.  Since the word literally means "to get rid of as if by tearing up by the roots" just imagine cancer vanishing from its source.  Imagine that the roots of a particular cancer, mysteries buried deep within a cell, can be destroyed. To me that seems like a dream.  MD Anderson, at least, wants to put that elusive goal out there for all to consider.


The change to the logo is actually simple, which is part of its beauty.  The powerful "Making Cancer History" tagline, part of a l996 advertising campaign where surviors take a red pen and strike through the word cancer, remains. But the red-lined cancer now is incorporated into the graphic where it was only subliminallly related before.   


"With this new mark, we've told the world where we stand in the effort to end cancer," said John Mendelsohn, M.D., president of MD Anderson. "We're proud that we've created tremendous momentum in cancer research and care.  Every patient and research finding teaches us more about how we can eliminate cancer." 


As many of you know, I'm a "graduate" of MD Anderson and was diagnosed there in l998 with a locally advanced breast cancer (or Stage IIIB).  My cancer may indeed be history, and the same for my husband who is a two-time melanoma survivor.  He too has been treated there and also participated in a clinical trial for a melanoma vaccine.


Until now, oncologists have been jumpy about using the word cure and cancer together, or in my case, to consign cancer to a limited time frame.  Gone.  But certainly not forgotten.  For if that were true, there wouldn't be so many of us, working so hard, with such diligence and determination, to bring the elusive cures to fruition.  Imagining a world without cancer isn't something I can conceive of.  Just yet.


What about you?  How does this affect your thinking about cancer?  Do you you think cancer can be eradicated in your lifetime?  Or that of your children?