Over the holidays, I read Elton John’s biography, Me. He writes about his friendship with Freddie Mercury, the ultratalented lead singer of the rock group Queen. Mercury tragically died at the age of 45 of AIDS in 1991. Mercury was one of the last people to die of the disease in Britain during the epidemic years. John writes sadly and almost offhandedly that, if Mercury had lived one year longer, he probably would have survived because of the AIDS medication that eventually saved millions of lives.

Then, a few days ago, we all read on the front pages of newspapers the amazing story that cancer death rates (age-adjusted) have fallen to their lowest level in decades. Millions of lives saved. We are winning the race for the cure remarkably quickly. The decline in the death rate is due in part to the considerable drop in smoking but also because of new drug therapies and treatments to combat tumors.