This Election Day, many Americans are wondering whether bipartisanship is even possible anymore.
For the millions suffering from cancer and other debilitating diseases, I hope so. Because 18 years ago, when I faced a deadly diagnosis of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), bipartisanship laid the foundation that gave me my life back.
The treatment that saved me resulted from years of research that would have amounted to nothing without the law authored by two senators, Indiana Democrat Birch Bayh and Kansas Republican Bob Dole, in 1980.
Image: Senators Birch Bayh and Bob Dole at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 21, 1978. The Bayh-Dole Act has helped private drug companies bring government pharmaceutical research to market—saving lives, writes Betsy de Parry. JOHN DURICKA—AP IMAGES
