by Laurie Singer

It's so easy to use fighting words when we talk about cancer. We call it a war against the beast. We fight the disease. We lose the battle.

But you know what? It is a war, one of the longest wars on record. It was declared back in 1971 on Dec. 23. That's the day President Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act, "The War on Cancer," and asked for "An appropriation of an extra $100 million to launch an intensive campaign to find a cure for cancer, and I will ask later for whatever additional funds can effectively be used."

He went on to say: "The time has come in America when the same kind of concentrated effort that split the atom and took man to the moon should be turned toward conquering this dread disease. Let us make a total national commitment to achieve this goal."

I bring this up now because, almost 37 years later to the day that this war was declared, there are estimates that close to 12.5 million people will be diagnosed with cancer this year, and more than 7.5 million are expected to die from cancer.

Those numbers are huge. What kind of war are we fighting here? It feels like the beast is on free rein.

I usually hate estimates. Educated guesses. But this is a war that has hit home, and I'm fighting mad.