Survivors Take Stock of Gains Against Cancer

In wartime, you pull out the big guns when you come under attack.

Which explains why a prominent U.S. senator trotted out myriad celebrities Thursday in Beverly Hills to commemorate the 25th anniversary of America’s “War on Cancer.”

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) was trying to boost his campaign to increase funding for cancer research and treatment and at the same time blunt criticism by some medical researchers who contend that the $30-billion war has been a flop so far.

“Quite candidly, when Hollywood speaks, the world listens. Sometimes when Washington speaks, the world snoozes,” said Specter, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education.

But to the surprise of all, the stars of Thursday’s unusual subcommittee hearing turned out not to be Diane Keaton, Jack Klugman, Sally Field and Olivia Newton-John testifying about their experiences with cancer.

Instead they were ordinary people from Calabasas, Hancock Park, Agoura Hills, Diamond Bar, North Hills and Cheviot Hills who slipped into hastily arranged chairs behind the celebrities to talk about their own successful fights with the disease.

Specter suggested that their stories of survival eloquently rebut a new analysis of the fight against cancer that concludes that the government should scale back its search for a cure and focus instead on prevention.

The study, by Dr. John Bailar III of the University of Chicago, was published in Thursday’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. It echoed warnings published by Bailar in 1986 that “years of intense effort focused largely on improving treatments must be judged a qualified failure.”

Thursday’s hearing was organized weeks ago by Friends of Cancer Research, a nonprofit group set up to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the National Cancer Act by promoting continuing cancer research.

The celebrities were recruited by Sherry Lansing, head of Paramount Pictures’ motion picture group.

Newton-John, who was found to have breast cancer in 1992, said: “I think if you had told me a few years ago that I would be discussing something so personal in public, something so intimate as this, I would have cringed.

“But I know I must speak out. . . . I am here to say that we need to spend whatever it takes to stop cancer.”

Klugman addressed Specter’s subcommittee with a voice made raspy by throat cancer eight years ago.

“I am living proof of why increased investment in cancer research is so critical,” Klugman said. “Had I had the same illness 20 years ago, the doctors would have taken out my entire larynx and left me with a hole in my throat and I would have never been able to act again.”

Keaton discussed the death of her father from a brain tumor, and her own anxiety.

“I know there are millions of people like me who wake up in the middle of the night in a panic, convinced they have cancer, then get up in the morning and do nothing about it,” she said.

The six cancer survivors making the surprise appearance at the Beverly Hills council chambers were former patients at the City of Hope Medical Center in Duarte.

There was Shari Kahane, a Calabasas physician who overcame breast cancer; Yocheved Rosenthal, a Hancock Park nurse who suffered leukemia; Cindy Ladin, a homemaker from Agoura Hills whose leukemia is in remission.

And there was Anissa Ayala, a Red Cross employee from Diamond Bar whose much-publicized fight with leukemia ended with a marrow transplant from her 14-month-old sister, Marissa, now 7; Robin Frasier, a Cheviot Hills psychiatrist who defeated leukemia by using self-donated marrow; and Mushtaque Jivani, a computer analyst from North Hills whose experimental bone-marrow transplant 20 years ago was one of the nation’s first.

When they received the loudest round of applause of the day, hearing organizers scurried to find chairs for them up front.

Where celebrities sit.