CNN Spot - Lung Cancer

[tnmynatt]

Paula Zahn is talking about LC right now. I missed most of it.

[tnmynatt]

Found the transcript:

Here's CNN's senior medical associate Sanjay Gupta.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know exactly where he's going to be sitting. Bobby will be sitting to my left, to the congregation's right, and he will be approximately eight to nine rows back. He is always there.

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): By all odds, Bobby Yoakum should not be alive. A Baptist church deacon, he prays each day his stage four lung cancer won't take him. BOBBY YOAKUM, CANCER PATIENT: If you have cancer, don't worry. That's not going to solve it. Don't worry. You pray about it. You trust God. You have faith. Have faith in God.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's 97.

YOAKUM: Ninety-seven? OK.

GUPTA: Bobby spends his days receiving chemotherapy, sometimes radiation and one experimental drug after another. Dr. Roy Herbst is Bobby's doctor, a pioneer in new theories to beat back lung cancer.

HERBST: More and more I'm developing a group of patients who are long-term survivors of this disease.

GUPTA: Dr. Herbst first ordered Bobby a foul tasting mystery drink. He wanted to know if pure shark cartilage worked on lung cancer.

YOAKUM: I knew it would taste terrible, but anything that he suggested, if Dr. Herbst said it, I was willing to try. I have nothing to lose.

GUPTA: And in the beginning Plan A was a hit.

HERBST: You can see the main mass has pretty much disappeared.

GUPTA: But after 15 months of remission, the cancer began spreading. Bobby moved on to Plan B: more chemo and a new experimental drug, but like almost all clinical trials, Plan B soon flopped.

HERBST: His tumor grew by more than 20 percent, so he had to come off the study.

GUPTA: Bobby was disappointed but hopes that his participation may have a larger purpose.

YOAKUM: Thank you, sir. Thank you.

It's not just going to benefit me, but what they find out is going to benefit the public, and that's why I was willing to do this.

GUPTA: Clearly, a single drug will not magically cure Bobby Yoakum and the more than 175,000 Americans living with lung cancer. Bobby is now on Plan C.

HERBST: We're not going to make it all go away, so what we're really trying to do is knock it down as much as we can.

GUPTA: The Yoakums are left with the promise of new drugs, new weapons in the FDA pipeline.

Just days later...

YOAKUM: All right. HERBST: Congratulations are in order.

YOAKUM: Yes.

GUPTA: ... a new weapon does arrive.

HERBST: The drug we've worked on here for probably about three, four years now got its FDA approval.

GUPTA: Tarceva, a once a day pill, was fast tracked when trials showed it prolonged lives.

HERBST: In someone like Mr. Yoakum who, of course, is here on a regular basis, who follows what's going on in our research, we've already talked to him about, you know, what next.

GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: Sunday night at 8 Eastern CNN presents "TAMING THE BEAST: INSIDE THE WAR ON CANCER." And all this week we're bringing you Dr. Sanjay Gupta's series on cancer. Tomorrow he looks at a smart bomb that targets one form of the disease.

[Addie]

I caught this too, Tina. My son's girl called me to tell me to turn on CNN.

Perhaps Jennings' death will bring some needed attention to l.c. I just hope, now that he's gone his family might feel less need to guard privacy and might be more open about the kind of l.c. Peter had...thereby shining a light on this disease...or KEEPING the light shining on it.

Lung cancer needs more research money....we all know that. And losing Peter Jennings might ultimately help that happen.

But oh, am I going to miss seeing him nightly, in my den, telling me what is going on in the world.

[Ann]

Tina, I caught this on CNN and thought it was very well done. Thanks so much for sharing the transcript with us. You're always on top of things that help keep us up to speed!!!

[dadstimeon]

Thanks for sharing Tina. Rich