Disease Advocacy Quotes

Mary Lasker was an entrepreneur; she was a socialite. She was kind of a legendary networker. She became interested in saying, 'Well, you know, if these diseases don't have political support we'll never conquer them.' And she made, really, cancer her special cause.

One of the great changes wrought by the increased public awareness of Alzheimer's - and thank you, Nancy Reagan, you wonderful tough old dame, you - is that people in the early stages of the disease are now speaking out while they still have the capacity to do so.

The Alzheimer's Association in the United States, founded by Jerome Stone, they found me because they had heard rumours that my mom was diagnosed. Jerry said, 'We're a small family group, and we would like to know if you'd like to join us and to spread the word about this disease.' I said, 'Absolutely.'

The lesson is the same as it always has been to the HIV/AIDS community: embrace and celebrate the progress while not letting up the pressure until there is a cure.

Americans whisper the word Alzheimer's because their government whispers the word Alzheimer's. And although a whisper is better than the silence that the Alzheimer's community has been facing for decades, it's still not enough. It needs to be yelled and screamed to the point that it finally gets the attention and the funding that it deserves and needs.

Sickle cell does not have the priority in this country that it had in the 1960s, when I started working on it. Congress has been cutting everything that wasn't nailed down.

But cancer can also be fun with its luncheons, theatre parties, and fund raising luaus. ...What will they all do if a cure comes out of it? Considering how easily the March of Dimes conglomerate shifted gears after the polio vaccine, it should pose no problem.

I've always been very involved in anything that had to do with lung disease or cancer.