Blog 3

The article I choose to critique comes from the Austin Statesman Commentary section written by Lance Armstrong:Put Cancer at top of global agenda. Today is Friday Oct.2,2009 and it also happens to be Livestrong day which is a global day of action to raise awareness in our communities about the fight against cancer. Today is the 13th anniversary of Lance Armstrong's own cancer diagnosis and with no medical insurance. Had it not been for one of his sponsors, Oakley, who threatened their insurance company to cover him he may not be alive or he would but with a pile of medical bills.
Cancer is projected to become the world's leading cause of death next year. And without greater progress in detection,prevention, and treatment that number could triple by 2030. Also if the epidemic continues to grow, it will have a devastating effect on world economies. A new Economist Intelligence Unit Study commissioned by the Lance Armstrong Foundation pegs the global economic impart of the disease at more than $300 billion in 2009 alone. In coming years, developing nations will be forced to spend increasing amounts of money on treatment and on public assistance to patients. In the U.S. and Western Europe, where aging populations are already straining public health costs, the rise in cancer means an even greater percentage of national budgets will be devoted to healthcare.
But the disease has an even greater impact on personal economics. According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, cancer survivors in the U.S. and Europe were 37 percent more likely to be unemployed than those who have not been afflicted by the disease. This is a health and economic crisis throughout the world.
In conclusion, cancer won't wait. The threat grows minute by minute and countries have to find a way to drive the cost of treatment down. Livestrong Day for the first time is being marked globally and events around the world are trying to make it a global agenda impossible to ignore.