Lance Armstrong: using his celebrity to raise cancer awareness

You may already know that I love to ride my bike - - I am also a bike Lance Armstrong fan. When Lance was racing the Tour de France I was an avid follower. Yesterday he announced (via video blog on the Lance Armstrong Foundation website) that he's coming out of retirement to ride in the Tour once again as part of an international cancer campaign strategy. In other words, he's using his celebrity to “raise awareness of the global cancer burden.” This announcment interestingly comes on the heals of the huge Stand Up to Cancer sucess of last week (something I know Laura wants to blog about!).

This week's Time magazine includes a feature article (with a full page photo of Lance!) about cancer research funding and why American cancer deaths continue to rise. While government research funds have stayed flat for several years, what is philanthropy's role in funding research, advocacy, and caring for patients, survivors and their families?

I think we'll be seeing a lot more on this topic in the future!