Lance Armstrong calls for national war on cancer
WASHINGTON -- Seven-time Tour de France winner and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong is calling on Congress to renew the nation's war on cancer.
''It's time for our country to refocus and relaunch a comprehensive war on this disease,'' Armstrong said Thursday.
Armstrong, who lives in Austin, Texas, was diagnosed in 1996 with testicular cancer that spread to his lungs and brain. But he recovered to win the world's premier cycling event from 1999 to 2005.
''For me, this is not a cause that I picked,'' he said. ''It picked me.''
Armstrong appeared before a Senate panel with Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of former Sen. John Edwards, the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee. Even after she was diagnosed with cancer and went through chemotherapy following the 2004 election, the couple continued public activities and she wrote a memoir.
