Regarding the March 25 news article “With two senior royals facing cancer, British monarchy must do more with less”:
Survival rates for pancreatic and liver cancers, for example, are still dire compared with outcomes associated with early detection and treatment of testicular or skin cancers. In just the past two decades, research on once uniformly deadly cancers such as multiple myeloma and chronic myelogenous leukemia has progressed such that those diseases have become chronic conditions able to be managed for majorities of patients.
On the other hand, there is an almost perverse anticipation among cancer patient interests throughout the world that Charles and Kate will make their specific diagnoses public. Doing so would raise awareness, direct research funds and activity to their cancers, and spur aggressive fundraising efforts for select advocacy organizations.
The ongoing speculation surrounding Charles and Catherine feeds an odd mix of concern, hope, fear and cynicism, underscoring a historical ignorance of how cancer is — or, to be more accurate, cancers are — perceived by the public.
Greg Brozeit, Fairlawn, Ohio
Tackling TB costs money and time
Regarding John Green’s March 24 Sunday Opinion column, “My brother’s cancer care? First-rate. The world’s TB problem? Shocking.”
While I am now retired from the Centers for Disease Control-President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief team working on tuberculosis and HIV, I can attest to the fact that there are rigorous efforts underway to reduce the burden of TB in the countries Mr. Green mentioned in his Sunday Opinion column. The cost of the testing equipment is not the whole problem.
Getting physicians in some of those countries to order rapid tests and use them, instead of relying on culture tests that take weeks to get results, is incredibly frustrating. I have been to many countries where the rapid-testing equipment sits idle or the lab waits until there are enough specimens to run a batch, thinking it is more cost effective to wait. Some ministries of health tout their GeneXpert machines, but no one monitors their acceptance by physicians or the number of daily tests run. This test is not complicated — even a registered nurse or licensed practical nurse can be trained to do it in a day, as I have seen for myself in some teaching hospitals in South Africa. Missed opportunities in quality care because of poor implementation is killing millions of men, women and children. Getting the cost down should be easy. Implementation is the real challenge.
Virginia Lipke, Cincinnati
I am so moved by John Green and his brother Hank’s willingness to share Hank’s story and to contrast their experiences with those of millions of people suffering and dying from tuberculosis. As a family physician who has spent my 40-year career in under-resourced communities, I would add that the deadliest infectious disease isn’t merely a science problem. It’s a priorities problem.
John Green got me thinking about how our government sets priorities and spends our tax dollars. With roughly half of the federal government’s discretionary budget allocated to the military, Congress must bicker over how to split the remains among everything else. I recently learned about a backdoor, little-known source of additional military funding: the Unfunded Priorities Lists. Each branch of the military is required to submit these wish lists of items that didn’t make it into the budget to Congress, even though senior military leaders have criticized the process as a flawed way to flag key armed service needs. No other part of the federal government gets the opportunity to lobby for extra funding in this manner.
It’s time for Congress to end UPLs. I urge Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to support the bipartisan Streamline Pentagon Budgeting Act, which would repeal the requirement for the military to submit wish lists to Congress. Perhaps we could fund a global tuberculosis eradication program instead.
Nancy Bermon, Nyack, N.Y.
Come sit under the Apple tree
Regarding the March 22 front-page article “DOJ swipes at Apple iPhone”:
The antitrust lawsuit filed by the Justice Department against Apple reminded me of Queen Gertrude’s declaration in “Hamlet”: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” In this instance, the facts of the phone industry speak much more loudly than the government’s filings.
The Justice Department’s complaint points out that the original iPhone was priced at $299, which would be roughly $450 today, adjusting for inflation. But the premium price Apple charges for its latest iteration of the device is not de facto evidence that Apple is a monopolist. The iPhone 15 is a radically different device in size and technological complexity than the original released in 2008. Other models of the iPhone are available gratis through many mobile providers if one is willing to forgo the cachet of the hottest model.
Comparing Apple’s supposed dominance of the smartphone market with Microsoft’s command in the web browser field, which rose as high as 94 percent in 2002, also reveals the flaws in the government’s case. Apple had 24.7 percent of the global smartphone market in the fourth quarter of 2023, and Chinese smartphone makers Xiaomi and Transsion are growing at much faster year-over-year rates.
And Apple hardly seems to have made other products worse, as it popularized both the touch screen and the rubber banding effect when users reach the end of a web page or document.
The Justice Department accuses Apple of “making it harder or more expensive for its users and developers to leave …[rather than] making it more attractive for them to stay.” But Apple created a radically new product that consumers continue to love. That’s hardly the usurious technological “Hotel California” it’s portrayed to be.
Greg Boyd, Washington
The Justice Department’s antitrust suit against Apple feels like a mistake. By trying to bust open Apple’s smartphone ecosystem, they may end up destroying a good thing. To my mind, Apple’s “closed universe” benefits its customers. Their controlled environment protects users from many of the viruses and crashes users experienced when using Microsoft and Google. Apple made a choice to protect users by erecting some barriers and I’m just fine with that.
Before retiring, I enjoyed a great career managing technology policy issues in Washington. (Apple was never a client.) But I was not good at getting into the operations of my personal technologies. After retiring I knew I could not survive as my own tech support. So I ran away from Windows and Gmail, finding great ease and safety in Apple’s MacBook, iPhone, iPad and ApplePay. It all just worked.
Yes, we pay a little more for the products and there are a few things we can’t do. But why should we break up a tech ecosystem that works just to drag it down to a lower common denominator? Let the marketplace decide which way works best. Open vs. closed is a market choice, it’s not good versus evil. Personally, I’ll keep picking Apple.
William R. Moroney, Washington
Trump’s favorite book
Regarding the March 26 online analysis “An all-American Bible — with a cut of the sales going to Trump”:
Recently, Donald Trump claimed the Bible was his favorite book and endorsed a Bible he is attempting to sell to raise money for his personal gain. Because I was born and raised a Missouri Synod Lutheran and attended Lutheran school from elementary through high school, I am familiar with the teachings of the Bible. It is my favorite book as well. These teachings include the injunctions to “Love your neighbor as yourself” from the Book of Mark, to forgive those who have wronged you not just “Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven,” and last but not least, to “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” both from the Book of Matthew.
You’d think that if someone had a favorite book, they would know it inside out, study it and follow its teachings. This doesn’t hold true for Mr. Trump, and that deeply offends me, especially because he is using the Bible for monetary gain. To capitalize on God’s word is blasphemy. The Bible makes this clear: When Jesus saw people using the temple for monetary gain, He drove them out, and He taught, “You cannot serve both God and money.”
If anything, Mr. Trump should be giving away Bibles to further the Gospel instead of putting his seal of approval on them, as if that even mattered to anyone, least of all God. God doesn’t need anyone’s stamp of approval because He is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. He is the final authority, not Mr. Trump.
The real question is: How many more lies will the American people let Mr. Trump get away with? This one is too much for me.
Sarah Hayes, Lincoln, Neb.
