on c-span.org and the c-span now mobile video app, the house financial services committee looks at cryptocurrencies and other digital assets with testimony from ceos at several digital currency companies. at 2:30 p.m. eastern on c-span3, instagram's ceo testifies before a senate commerce, science, and transformation -- transportation subcommittee to protect kids online. watch next week on the c-span networks or watch our full coverage on c-span now, our new mobile video app. also had over to c-span.org for scheduling information or to stream video, live or on-demand, anytime. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. >> "washington journal" continues. host: it is time for our spotlight on podcast segment and we are joined by dr. diane eidy-lagunes, a medical oncologist at memorial sloan-kettering and the host of cancer straight talk from msk

podcasts. doctor, think you for giving us your time. guest: thank you so much. it is an honor to be here. happy holidays. host: what birthed the concept of this part hast -- podcast? guest: it was created from conversations in my clinic. i have been an oncologist for 15 years and i was hoping to educate and empower anyone touched by cancer. we all have our stories and to really help them along the cancer journey. as you know, we in the medical oncology community, everything we do is to help save lives. equally important is to ensure our patients are living happier and healthier lives. part of that is communication and transparency. it'll teach the patient and caregiver where they are in the journey and what to they really expect on what will happen. i think many of us in the oncology community, clinicians and non-clinicians, are focusing on that care but we are worried we want to save their lives and focusing on the side effects of treatments and other things that we are not having conversations

with the patient that they want us to have on nutrition, exercise, and other important concept we often don't have time to have in the clinic. this was the opportunity to talk to anyone touched by cancer and giving them an opportunity to learn as much as they can. host: so that is the concept of straight talk as far as the title is concerned. guest: exactly right. fortunately or unfortunately, there is a lot of information on the internet. some of which is tremendous and helpful but some of which is fictional and untrue. trying to unravel that, understanding what is really not real and taking that and unraveling the confusion that helping our patients can be helpful. that is one of the most important purposes of the podcasts. host: who is listening to this? guest: i think it is anyone touched by cancer. we have had international as well as national sort of folks that are listening to us. we try to focus a lot on the day

today of what to expect, but we are sort of surprised that even the patient population and number of caregivers across the gambit in terms of age, population, and other things. we are excited it has taken off. host: to your other job at memorial sloan-kettering, for those unfamiliar, what is it and what does it do in the role of cancer research? guest: memorial sloan-kettering is one of the first nci designated foundations in terms of being a cancer center and i have been honored to be a part of it for 15 plus years. most of us wear two hats, taking care of our patients today and tomorrow. our focus is not only on the patient care of patients and family members dealing with these terrible diseases but also rang to keep the eye on the ball and how we can improve therapies and technologies to ensure we have more cares and our patients of tomorrow have better outcomes. host: doctor, it was 50 years ago president nixon signed the

national cancer act. it did a number of things, including expanding authorities and responsibilities of national cancer institute, provided direct access to the president on these topics. some of federal government's role -- in your medical role, that is one thing. as far as the federal government's role in fighting and researching cancer, how would you evaluate that? guest: i think cancer -- 150 years ago when president nixon sat down with his two pens and signed the national cancer act, he sort of said to us we were going to -- we put a main on the moon, we split the atom, and he said we would find a cure for this dreadful disease. what we have learned in the last 50 years is it is many diseases, sort of what's in a name. there are hundreds if not thousands of different types of diseases we call cancer, which is many reasons why the cancers develop. i think it is an all hands on deck approach. we have to have a government involvement and injection of resources and energy. we have cooperative group trials

where all of us together in the cancer community will work on enrolling patients but, importantly, i think 50 years ago, the national cancer act did inject the energy and resources to do this. with $1.6 billion at the time, which is equivalent of $9 billion today. today we have $5 billion a year in our budget for this. i think there is tremendous efforts in all opportunities, including private pharmaceutical industries, to help us with the diseases. i think what we have learned in the last 50 years is that it is complicated. thankfully, we have absolutely improved the lives and we have certainly more ways to go. ensuring we continue that message at a government level i think is absolutely critical to help our patients. host: how guest is with us until the top of the hour. if you want to ask questions about cancer research and podcast, we divided the lines

different leap. for those of you cancer patients and survivors, call us at (202) 748-8000. if you are on the others' line or anyone else that wants to asked her question, (202) 748-8001. you can text us to (202) 748-8003. dr. diane eidy-lagunes, president nixon described it as a war. where are we in the war as far as life expectancy, research overall, how would you characterize that? guest: i think we have made tremendous strides. i would say from prevention to early detection to treatment. on preventions, we know the use of colonoscopy, if you have a colonoscopy and you see this what we call a polyp or premalignant lesion there, and you take that out, the risk goes down by 90% that you don't get a cancer. this is a way to prevent the cancer from happening. vaccines for hepatitis b and hpv, these are ways we have

prevented folks from developing these cancers, which are life-threatening. public advocate ski -- public advocacy groups and other things have improved the lives dramatically and the data shows it. in the last 30 years, we have decreased cancer related deaths, adjusting for age, by one third. that translates to 1.6 million lives saved because of -- in just one year, because of cancer early detection and prevention. early detection in terms of breast-cancer, prostate cancer, cervical cancer, these are cancers we are now detecting at a much earlier stage, which leads to more cares. last but not least, we have had an absolutely treatment revolution in terms of therapies and ways we deliver cancer care today. before, we used traditional chemotherapies and even today, people say why do we still use these chemotherapies? they cure disease. but we also know that they

really lasting side effects sometimes. -- leave lasting side effects sometimes. it is important we are talking quality and quantity when dealing with these therapies. the ability to give therapies in different ways like immunotherapy treatments and cell therapies and genetic treatments, we weren't even able to have the conversation 10 years ago. there were ideas in the laboratory that have come to fruition and are saving lives today. it is an incredible time to be able to say to our patients, based on prevention and detection and treatment, we are doing what we need to do to improve all of the patients that are affected by this. host: doctor, we saw covid impacts regular patient visits aside from covid. how does that impact those dealing with cancer? guest: that's a great question. as we were watching the devastation of covid-19, we were worried, those of us in the cancer community, that a lot of our patients were home and not

having the appropriate screening that could help us early to tact to that could be cared. thank fully, the data suggests that probably is not the case, that people have gone back to get their screening, and for those on the call, if you have not yet, i encourage you to do so. there are strong protocols in all of the hospitals to protect you and prevent you from being exposed to the virus. i think that this is another deadly disease, these cancers are cancers that we really want to be able to detect and treat and we do not want covid-19 to yet do another sort of problem that our country is facing. so this is one we are encouraging folks that if they had knocked out screened to do it. host: the doctor is joining us for the podcast segment. she is from msk podcast. our first caller comes from benjamin in fort lauderdale, a cancer survivor. you are on with our guest. good money. caller: good morning, doctor.

my question is a simple one. after my diagnosis about eight years ago, of which i have survived, i felt once i was in the hospital, i was treated more as a protocol than as a patient. i wonder if you can address that. the sense of humanity or sense of closeness with physicians and health care professionals fell distance. i felt like i was a protocol rather than patient. can you address that? guest: it is a really important question. honestly, one of the main reasons i started the podcast. i think we in the oncology community are here to help our patients, but we are so focused on making sure that you get cared that we don't often have the kind of conversations that show that we really do have the humanity, that we went into this war the right reasons. one of our episodes is on the importance of survivorship, patients cared for their disease

and then we say bye-bye and they say i'm not ready to leave, i am afraid and i have a lot of other issues i may have other types of side effects. so we are having these conversations on the podcast to say you are not alone. others feel that way. i think that we probably could do better in the oncology community to sometimes show that in a deeper way but i think it does take a special person to go into the cancer world. clinicians and non-clinicians alike. but i hear you. that was one of the most important reasons i started the podcast, to say we don't take care of the cancer, we take care of you and we want you to know that. on behalf of my members in the community, not only at memorial but other places, that is what we are trying to convey in the podcast. host: how do you determine topics for the podcast? who do you talk to? is it medical professionals, other professionals? guest: a great question. a little bit of all of the above. for our listeners, we encourage them to write in.

if they have specific topics, we would love to hear from them. it most come from clinics. when i have conversation with folks and they asked me important questions. i always say i'm involved in some of the family advisory council and one of the most important things is our patients and family members provide us a blind spot that we have as doctors. i'm listening to them and hearing things when i'm like i'm just rang to keep you alive but they are saying it is just as important to talk about sexual health. because this is real and this has changed since i have been on treatment so we have another episode on the podcast about that. we have something called an aya population, the adolescent young adult population, folks who are just starting their lives for the first time and they get this dreadful life altering diagnosis. all of a sudden, the walls come tumbling down. it is not only about the diagnosis but it is, how my going to start to work again? the financials and all of these. that is another episode where we

can have a conversation on what is going on in there had to focus on the whole patient and not just a cancer diagnosis. host: we have a viewer off of twitter who asks you, doctor, there was a push a few years back to delay mammograms from women -- of women from 45 to 50. was that a mistake in hindsight? guest: that is a great question. i think one of the biggest struggles we have an oncology is it is not only to cure more patients but first do no harm. what can happen in some of the diagnostic tests we have is something called false positive finding. in younger women that have what we call dense breasts, we can find things that we think are suspicious which leads to biopsies and often but rarely complications, then we find out it was not actually a cancer. so what is what we call this we spot of trying to find the ideal age where we are trying to detect that but also not imposing this harm on our

patient populations of doing too many tests and going down that rabbit hole of not necessarily doing what we need to do for our patients. that is why it is important to have those conversations with your doc on what is your family history, what are the risks? do you have dense breasts or meet other modalities? these are conversations to have at the doctor but great question. host: this has been reported on over the last few months, suggestion for the lowering of the age for a colonoscopy. what is driving that? guest: i just spoke about what we call the aya, the adolescent young adult population. it is -- in a striking and scary way, we notice a trend where our patients younger than 50 were developing colon cancer. we don't know why. the average age is 65. because the average age was 65, the recommendations were always get a colonoscopy at 50 so you had the time in between to find the polyp, take it out, and prevent the cancer.

and in a scary way, we started to see that more and more of our young patients were developing these terrible diseases. we do not know why but it was for that reason that the american gastroenterology association suggested 45 be considered. certainly anyone with symptoms or with a family history should talk to their doctor about doing it earlier. we are trying to do those scopes earlier to prevent potentially cancers and particularly in this type of patient population, if they have symptoms, we want to make sure we are detecting it and doing the right and us copies -- there's something called a micro biome where we have billions of bacteria in our gut and could that potentially be changing in terms of flora? we don't know. we know there is this trend and as a result, we went to be mindful for any of our young adults in 20's, 30's, 40's. if you have not had a colonoscopy and you have symptoms, see your doctor.

host: don, hello. a cancer survivor. caller: good morning. good morning, doctor. it is ironic you mentioned that because i just had my first colonoscopy when i was 30 years old, had polyps removed, and i'm 41 now. it has been a challenge for sure. i just want to say thank you for mentioning that and i wanted to ask your opinion, dr., because from what i understand, 80% of americans support medical cannabis, i've watched many things where the fda and different government people basically deny the evidence or knowledge or even 80% of american people that believe, by trying or knowing someone who has come a one way or another, used thc or cbd's with chronic pain or cancer to be more than

helpful, if not as close to beneficial as some of the other medications that hospitals and people like yourself use. as a combination. i had two major back surgeries, opioids did not work for me. they made things worse. that is when i was introduced to cannabis from a patient provider here in washington. that is actually now in missouri helping people. host: ok, color. we got the point and we will let our doctor respond. guest: you are absolutely right. i thing medical cannabis can absolutely help patients with symptoms. we do use it in new york here, particularly in this context in the medical scenting -- setting. practitioners have to have a medical license to prescribe that but i think there is no question it can help patients.

for example, sometimes if they have neuropathy, numbness and tingling in the extremities. i wish it could help me treat cancer. that would make my life a lot easier. [laughter] then the traditional chemotherapies that we use. i think that there could be and should be a lot more testing on this. it is definitely going on but i do not think there is any question that, for some patients for symptom control and nausea, as well as pain control, it is a great medication to be considered. host: we have heard, and you probably heard as well, about disparities in the health system, particularly with those on the lower income spectrum. what does that mean for those dealing with cancer and what options do those people have? guest: that is such an important question. i always encourage patients, no matter where you are, to be considered to be seen, at least for medical second opinion if you will and what we call national cancer institute designated cancer center. there is 71 across the country.

particularly if you have an uncommon cancer. we are not smarter than anyone but in rare diseases when we are doing it all day long, we just have a knowledge base that may be different than the so-called community dr. which he or she is trying their best. but being able to be at a cancer designated center where they have the possibility of experiment of drugs that could potentially help you and/or understand your disease better is certainly important. getting that out to folks that may not be as aware is super important, which is another reason we are trying to promote that on the podcast, to understand there are differences in where you get your treatment and where you get your treatment first really matters. we have really good data about that. it is important. we get one shot here. so we went our patients to not say i want to go to a cancer designated center not because i'm in trouble. you want to go at the time of diagnosis, to at least get an opinion. host: if someone does not have insurance or is dealing with

finances, what options do they have? guest: i think today's society, that financial peace is so critical -- piece is so critical. we have terrible stories of people financing their homes to keep up with medical bills, not only in the cancer world but other diseases as well. there is hope and help out there. i think at the very least, to try to call the centers and there are social workers and finance folks that can help you through that, case managers i can get us on the right track. if you are too far away, they can potentially do what we call -- we know telehealth is critically important nowadays. so there is other ways to get the opinion you need, even if you don't get the trim in there but you get the opinion. host: in new york on the line for others. hello. caller: good morning. my question for you is, what you think is the most important advancement in cancer research? guest: such a great question.

we talked about before how we have improved on prevention and detection and treatment, but the way that we treat cancer today is not what we would ever dream of 50 years ago. i talked a little bit about immunotherapies. now we are able to take our own immune system and turn it on to treat cancers. approximately one third of our patients with cancer today are getting these types of treatments. that means no hair loss, no nausea, no traditional side effects. they are getting therapies that do have rare in syria side effects but the vast majority of patients can do so well and are living so much longer because we were able to figure out the pioneering work of others to how to turn on our own immune system and turn on what we call t cells and allow them to attack the cancer. this was unheard of before. in addition, we have so much more technology advances. we can run a blood test now and

be able to test the genes of a cancer and potentially think about could there be other therapies based on that signature. just a little blood sample. imagine what that means and where we are going. it is an exciting time. thank you for that question. host: from paul, a cancer patient, good morning. paul in florida, hello. caller: sorry. host: it's ok. go ahead. caller: i was a fireman for a number of years and i came down with a blood cancer. can you explain to the community about how these blood cancers are, in my case, terminal guest: i'm so sorry ash terminal. guest: i'm so sorry -- terminal. guest: i'm so sorry to hear that. we truly don't understand what causes these cancers to develop

for the vast majority of patients. sometimes about five to 10% of the time you may have inherited a gene from your family that caused the cancer but the vast majority of the time it is not from that, it is from some other reason that caused these cells to be damaged. i would say in an uncomfortable way, sometime the damage occurs over many years. it is not necessarily one environmental damage, per se, but may be something that caused one gene to be damaged, and a couple years later, there is something else in the environment that caused something else to be damaged. so there are cancers that can develop anywhere in the body. blood cancers are when the cells of the blood system, white cells, red cells, platelets, can be damaged. mild fibrosis is one of those damages. we do not understand exactly why develops but it can lead to a lot of problems not only with quality but quantity. i think we are all trying to work hard on what we call -- the

category in thinking about target approaches, looking at for example your cancer in the genes that were damaged that cause your cancer to see, is there any opportunity to use these targeted drugs which go after those genes and help you live longer and better? host: our guest is dr. diane eidy-lagunes, the host of cancer straight talk from msk podcasts. before we get too far into it, how can they find your podcast? guest: wherever you listen to your podcast or online, spotify, apple, on the internet itself. host: from ohio, a survivor of cancer, linda, hi. caller: good morning. i'm not a survivor but my husband is. he is sitting in the other room. he has been on i think it is called mechanistic for malignant

melanoma. this is the second time he has had it. what should i look for long-term side effects, he is finally off of it after being on it for a year and it is very frightening for the family, but what should he be looking at as far as side effects down the road, besides his twice a year skin checks? you did answer my question about finances because it just seems we have been lucky to have excellent health insurance. this particular combination of drugs is $15,000 a year. if you get this and you have crappy insurance, they tell you tough, too bad, die and do it quickly. guest: i think in some ways your husband really illustrates the cancer advancements we have had. as i said before with our last caller, we have the ability to

check for certain gene mutations or damage to certain genes that occur that leads to the development of the cancer. we believe in many cancers that damage is the driver, and if you can inhibit the damage or process from taking place with these medications, you can stop the cancer from growing and spreading. the combination of drugs your husband is on his doing that. many malignant melanoma patients have this damage in a type of gene. in melanoma, these targeted approaches going right to the money, right to that gene driving the cancer, can help our patients live longer by stopping the cancer in its tracks. like you said, there is a huge financial cost on some of these therapies. there are, certainly for those with insurance, can be covered. there are programs with the company that can be done. nevertheless, it is a real problem our society has and we

have to have these conversations more often. they are happening but we need to have it more often so our patients are not in the hole with these financial issues. i want to also say that, for you as a caregiver, you said beautifully that we are all worried about this disease. cancer does not only affect the patient. it is a family disease. we actually have an episode on the caregiver because we recognize how the experience is for you. it takes its toll. we really want to focus not only on the patient but on the caregiver in that way. host: doctor, we have a president who has direct relation to someone losing the cancer. what has this administration done in terms of cancer and has it made any strides in improving cancer? guest: under president obama, we had the moonshot deal. it was run by president biden in part because he lost his son to

a devastating type of brain cancer. i think there is no bigger advocate than president biden and really trying to advocate for our patients of today and tomorrow. he understands and has been to kettering and several cancer centers. he understands the importance of research, and that is our tool to get us there. the science will get us to where we need to be to continue this war, if you will. i do think there is tremendous advocacy in the part of our national government right now to move this forward. host: we will take you back to 2016, vice president biden then talking about cancer five months after he lost his son. there is what he said back then. [video clip] >> i believe we need a moonshot in this country to cure cancer. it is personal. but i know we can do this. the president and i have already been working hard on increasing funding for research and development, because there are so many breakthroughs just on the horizon in science and

medicine. the things that are just about to happen, and we can make them real with a absolute national commitment to end cancer as we know it today. i am going to spend the next 15 months in this office pushing as hard as i can to accomplish this, because i know that there are democrats and republicans on the hill who share our passion to silence this deadly disease. if i could be anything, i would want it to be the president that ended cancer -- i would want to be the president that ended cancer because it is possible. host: where the government on this? guest: i think today we had a $5 billion budget for cancer. i think this is one that goes on the hill -- those on the hill believe in. we have gotten support and we

would always love more because i believe we need to keep moving forward. the technology is there. the advancements are happening come alive. president biden said it, it is real. every day, i lose folks to this disease and it is devastating and does not get easier. for me, just i president biden, it is the force that keeps it going, the reason why i keep going, because we cannot lose more patients like this. it is like it is there but it can happen -- can't happen fast enough. it absolutely requires the resources and funding. there has been less philanthropic funding during the covid pandemic to the national cancer society and other places, and that is so critical to our health in terms of finding these cures and doing the research that we need to do. as i said before, it is an all hands on deck approach and i do think the government supports -- we don't have a lot of government bipartisan support but in the world of cancer it is

there there's an effort on capitol hill highlighted by senator marco rubio. the senator -- center for medicare could as soon as january and you're caught up to 50% funding for medicare reimbursements on radiation treatment such as proton beam therapy. if you could explain a little bit more, what could that do have those cuts happen? guest: so i think that proton therapy is a really important example of how technology has advanced. some of our kids that get these terrible, devastating brain tumors can be cured of the disease but then they are left with major cognitive deficits. that is not good enough. things like proton therapy, which is so precise -- you can take the beam and it goes right to where the tumor is and have it scatter, which allows us to cure the patient, but with a lot less side effects. things i proton therapy really can help us, particularly in the pediatric population. what we need to be so precise as

related to radiation therapies, and if there's an example again, it is not enough to cure the cancer, we want to improve the outcome of our patients. that is a public health perspective, something we all need to do. the long-term consequences of these therapies are not trivial, they are real. i think the government needs to look at these types of things. host: from orlando, florida, a cancer patient. this is chris. hi. caller: hello. host: you are on. go ahead. caller: yes. i am 39, just turned 39 in april of this year. i was diagnosed with stage iv adrenal cancer. one of the places it traveled to was my brain so i have a mass in my head but it originated from the adrenal gland, which i have been told is highly unusual. my doctors seem optimistic. i have gone through chemo and right now on dooming immunotherapy -- doing

immunotherapy but the data is kind of grim. anything on the horizon so far -- what do we learn about adrenal cancer as far as treating it and things like that? it seems there's not a lot of information on it. guest: no there's not. ironically, that is the disease i take care of. there's probably about six to 800 patients a year that get the devastating disease -- 600 to 800 patients a year that get that devastating disease. my colleagues responsible for doing the clinical trial that brought the immunotherapy that you are on right now to the clinic. it is one of the day honors and privileges i had to work in a place like msk. i want to share a story that i will be having on an episode soon of a patient of mine to illustrate the magnitude of what the cancer research today can do . i had a 19-year-old named drew who was diagnosed with this devastating disease and i was taking care of him to prevent the cancer from coming back.

unfortunately, a senior in college, the cancer did come back. he passed on valentine's day in his senior year before graduation. it was so devastating for me and his family, and we are so very close, even today. but i made it a point that we wanted to do better. so we started a trial based on survival events and other things and pitched it to one of our pharmaceutical colleagues that really, based on our data in the lab, suggested this could be helpful. patient number two was a college senior named grace who had a stage iv adrenal cancer must assess his -- cancer metastasis to the lung. she is a few years out now with no evidence of disease to the trial. 25% of the patients on the trial responded, which is incredible. that means a 5% did not. we are there. -- 75% did not. we are there and need to keep moving. as an example of what we need to do, we did not have great

therapies before that. we have traditional chemotherapies which work sometimes, but i think you are on the right therapies. i think you want to talk to your doctors about that but we wish you well. host: from michigan, bob on our line for others. good morning. caller: good morning. doctor, you are talking about a young person, and two you may be five years seems like a long time. i'm looking at aarp, they spotlighted how well we are doing on cancer, the progress we are making. i must tell you, it is pretty unimpressive to me. particularly when you we -- when we use a five-year window. it is not as impressive as i had thought it would be for the tens of dozens of billions of dollars we spend looking at this disease and its various forms. wouldn't a 20 year window be more common sense? don't get me wrong, my wife died

of geo glass dome of multiform -- geo blessed oma multiform. i'm not trying to be called but these statistics are not impressive for the amount of time and energy and money spent looking at these erratic cells. wouldn't a 20 year window be better indicator of success than a five-year one? guest: it's a really great question. i think to clarify on why we use five years. first of all, i do not think any of us in the oncology community is good enough -- community think five years is good enough. that is why we are here to keep going. i think what is important is, generally speaking, a patient that has lived five years from the time of cancer, for example if they have no cancer at five years, for the vast majority of cancers, not all of them, but for the vast majority, that means you are cured. so we used five years as a guide

to if the cancer has not come back at five years, it is a good chance you are cared. it is harder to maintain data for 20 years. most of the trials, for example, look at five years. but your point is incredibly important to make sure i emphasize for our listeners now that we are just not trying to get to five years, we are trying to get to cures. that is the benchmark we use for these trials. again, the hope and expectation is the patients will live for decades, not just five years. host: how do other countries do as far as not only their treatment of cancers but survival rates and the like compared to the united states? guest: that's a great question. i thing there is a paradox here in our country. we have a lot of resources. we are funding a lot of the critical trials that lead to the advancement and lead to these fda approvals. as you said before, there is disparities in no question. so we need to do better.

our life expectancy in general in cancer is a big part of that is lower than a lot of our european colleagues in other places in asia, etc.. i think we are trying our best to get there, trying to address the disparity issue. we probably do not want to go into today of benefits and risks versus problems of nationalize cancer systems and wait times and other things that can happen, but i think what is critically important is the consistency of care in our country, that's where giving everybody an opportunity to get the best care possible. i think we have a ways to go to make that happen. host: would you say better in the united states, people are better educated about cancer causes, treatments then they were say five to 10 years ago? guest: in general, patients are absolutely better educated. they understand the importance of smoking cessation, eating better, and advisory -- avoiding environmental toxins.

there is stuff out there that we don't know, but i do think we have disparities in care. that is not consistent across our country in being able to allow people to tap into the resources that they deserve to have. host: let's hear from carolyn in texas, a cancer survivor. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? guest: well, how are you? caller: just fine, diane. i am a 20 when you're cancer survivor and i heard the man said a window of 20. so far i am a 21 year survivor and i have known some people who have survived it 30 and 40 years. my mother-in-law was a cancer survivor and she died at 98. [laughter] guest: that is awesome. caller: there are a lot of people like me who are surviving it. i wanted to let some of your listeners know that are watching you that you have to really

approach it, not just from a five-year standpoint window but you have to approach it -- i had a doctor that said you have to approach it from a five pronged point of view. you have to approach dealing with your cancer from a physical standpoint with the doctors and the people you work with, and from a spiritual standpoint from mental stance, emotional standpoint. i forgot the fit one. -- fifth one. i had five relatives, when i first found out i had my cancer in 2000, august 1 of 2000, as i went along in getting my treatments, i had two sister-in-law's and two cousins who came down with the cancer at the same time. your mental state sometimes may determine your outcome, but we

were all -- it was kind of like we were all in a race together. 20 years ago, some of them did not make the five-year window because of some of the decisions they made i guess with their doctors or whatever. host: i apologize, because we are running short on time, but we will thank you for the call. doctor, go ahead. guest: i do want to comment a little on the mental health piece. some people -- the famous line, you don't beat cancer by your attitude, you beat it by the way we live. some folks have the best attitudes in the world and they still will pass up -- of their disease. i thing the mental health piece and part of it is important. we talk about that in one of the episodes. it is ok to be upset and devastated and then grateful and moving on and trying your best when you get these diagnoses. it can often have a lot of

emotions even at the same time. i think it is a big part of what we need to address in the medical community on taking care of the patient when they are diagnosed with the cancer. i think it is also -- i do want for our listeners to hear that it is very unfair to say their attitude was not good and therefore there cancer grew. we really don't have any data to suggest that attitude -- attitude helps for sure us live better but it is difficult to get there. host: our guest, a medical oncologist at sloan-kettering, thank you for coming and happy holidays. guest: thank you for having me. host: that is it for the program. another edition of washington journal comes your way 7:00 tomorrow morning. we will see you then. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national

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2:00 p.m. eastern time proposing a legislation to raise the nation's debt ceiling come up prevent abuse of presidential power and protect against foreign interference in elections. the senate votes next week to confirm several of president biden's executive nominations including jessica rosenworcel to chair the federal communications commission. watch live coverage of the house on c-span, the senate on c-span2. you can watch online at c-span.org or our new c-span now video up. -- video app. congress has avoided a government shutdown by passing a temporary spending will to keep the government funded through mid february. the legislation passed the house by a vote of 221 to 212. congress one -- congressman adam

kinzinger was the only republican to vote in favor. the bill was approved by the senate and sent to president biden for his signature. without congressional action, funding would have expired friday at midnight. next on c-span, a house floor debate on the continuing resolution. . delauro: madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the measure under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. ms. delauro: madam speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized. ms. delauro: madam speaker, before i go any further, i would first like to take a moment to mourn the loss of congresswoman kerry meek. she was an extraordinary force in the congress, a pioneer that was not deterred by any challenge that came her way. i'd like to say though she was unassuming and soft-spoken, she carried a big stick. that is evident in her