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April 12, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:41
April 12, 2013, Friday, Hour #2
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And once again, greetings to you, music lovers, thrill seekers, conversationalists all across the fruited plain, broadcast excellence unfolding before your very eyes and ears.
It's a thrill and a delight to be with you, Rush Limbaugh here behind the golden EIB microphone.
The telephone number is 800-282-2882.
That's the number to call if you want to be on the program.
We're doing our annual care-thon today of the blood cancers with the leukemia and lymphoma society of America, and the show today is about survival.
About extending life once the diagnosis of blood cancer has been made.
Greetings, folks.
Great to have you uh have you here.
We do this one day a year.
Less than three hours a year, and the amount of uh money that you have contributed to this cause is incredible.
I don't have the I mean, it's multiple millions, obviously, and I don't have the exact number off the top of my head, but it's astounding.
It is incredible.
Every year has been up over the year prior, other than the year that 9 11 happened.
That that 12-month uh period.
Now, what are we talking about?
What are the blood cancers?
Let me tell you specifically what we're fighting here.
Leukemia is cancer of the bone marrow and of the blood.
Now, this cancer, leukemia causes more deaths than any other cancer among children and young adults under 20.
One third of cancer deaths for children are from leukemia.
Despite that, the disease kills ten times as many adults.
I don't know if you're like me.
I um leukemia is it's a it's a it's a cancer.
I've always associated with children for some reason, but every year it seems you read about somebody in their 60s or 70s, somebody in the public domain, somebody you know being diagnosed with this.
For some reason it always surprises me.
But it shouldn't because it's a cancer.
It's cancer of the blood, leukemia, cancer of the bone marrow of the blood, lymphoma is cancer of the lymph system.
Last year, 43,000 people were diagnosed.
260,000 people total are battling the cancer in America right now.
Hodgkin's lymphoma currently affects 154,000 people.
Non Hodgkin's lymphoma affects almost half a million people in this country.
Myeloma, that is cancer of the plasma cells, begins in the bone marrow, and that touches 70,000 people today.
In all, there are about 148,000 new cases of blood cancers every year.
There are 57,000 people who die.
Now, during the program today, 48 people are going to get this diagnosis.
Forty-eight people will hear this terrible news.
Twenty more during these three hours today will lose their battle with blood cancer.
Now, these numbers are daunting.
There's no question.
But you have to know the progress that's been made against these numbers against these diseases that is in no small part due to your donations to the lymphoma, leukemia, lymphoma society of America.
We've been doing this for 23 years now.
A big part of the increased survival rate has taken place in that period of time, directly a tributal, a tribute attributable to what you are doing here.
Leukemia patients in the late 70s.
This stuff always fascinates me.
Leukemia patients in the late 70s had a five-year survival rate of 34%.
Today, that is 57%.
That's astounding.
Kids with the most common form of leukemia are up to a long term survival rate now of over 90%.
And despite that, it's still the leading cause of death by disease in kids 14 and under.
It's not guns.
It's not 32 ounce sodas.
It's not secret tape recordings in Kentucky.
It's not rap videos.
It's leukemia, the leading cause of death by disease in children 14 and under.
Hodgkin's lymphoma, long-term survival rates in that same time frame went from 72% to 86%.
Non-Hodgkins lymphoma survival rates went from 47% all the way up to 70%.
And myeloma, which is a really tough cancer, five-year survival rates of 12% in the 60s, but we have managed to triple that to 41% with myeloma.
As I say, that's a that is a toughie.
Now, folks, almost half of the new cancer drugs approved by the FDA were developed initially to attack blood cancers, and many of it again with your funding through the leukemia lymphoma society of America.
These drugs are being used in battling other cancers beyond the mission of the Leukemia Lymphoma Society.
So maybe maybe you or your family have not been affected by leukemia or lymphoma, but you ought to know that your donations fund breakthroughs that have been applied to other diseases as well.
And that's a great thing.
The research into curing blood cancers has led to discoveries that have been applicable to other cancers, other diseases.
Just since our last curaton a year ago, immunotherapies have seen some phenomenal progress.
There's a doctor by the name of Carl June and his team at children's hospital in Philadelphia.
With funding from the Leukemia Lymphoma Society, they've developed a new approach using a patient's T cells.
Now, these are disease-fighting cells found in the body, obviously.
What happens is they are genetically re-engineered with a disabled form of the HIV virus.
They're put back into the body to attack cancer cells.
They act like living drugs that provide an ongoing continuous assault against cancer over long periods of time.
Do you realize how special the people are involved in this research?
How committed they are and how brilliant they are.
The things they conceive to try that of course requires money.
But this approach, new approach, using a patient's T cells, genetically re-engineered with a disabled form of the HIV virus to try to wipe out cancer cells.
It works.
Stunning.
Now, in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, this therapy has already achieved some long-lasting remissions.
Nine out of 12 patients in this study continue to be cancer free, and Dr. June said our goal is to have a cure.
We can't say the word yet, but that remains the goal.
Everybody involved is aiming for a cure.
And the same therapy has recently been used on advanced cases of acute lymphocytic leukemia.
Results have been mixed, but it's improved the outcomes of cases thought to be hopeless.
Told you in the past about all the wonderful drugs that have been developed that are having so much success.
Now, we say we're here to cure the blood cancers, and I've made mention of the fact that the doctors don't use the word cure.
And there's a reason why the people in this fight against blood cancers don't use the word cured is because relapse happens.
Treatments don't work in all cases.
Some treatments are bringing about long term survival, but too many other patients don't see that outcome.
And it's those patients that drive the society in this program today.
Now, your dollars have funded these promising treatments since the 1960s.
Survival rates for people with blood cancers have doubled, even tripled.
It's unimaginable that what used to be only hope is now survival to so many people.
It's astounding.
I think back on this 23 years that we've been doing.
And the way this began, we we began as an afterthought to what was an already in place nationwide radio thon that was being conducted on all the ABC owned and operated stations at the time, back in I guess it'd be 1989.
And my program in New York from noon to three was not technically obviously a local New York program.
So the people who are still the same people.
Pam Edelstein, Larry Vandervee, they came to me and they kind of sheepishly walked in.
They said, would you just kind of and the management of WABC tiptoeing him?
Would you give this phone number out?
Because the rate the rest of the radio station was wall to wall with this.
Sun up to sundown.
That's the only thing they did was engage in Curaton programming.
And I wasn't.
My three hours were not the same progress.
They came, would you just give the number out a couple times?
I'd be happy to.
And eventually it evolved, and now we're it.
And that's just the way it is.
And I've always said, because of that, never be afraid to ask for what you want.
These people all traipsed in, and they were just they were prepared for me to say, no, are you kidding?
I mean, I've got this national show here.
I can't stop this to do that.
But I've always been a team player.
And I was on a bunch of ABC stations at the time.
And if this is what they were doing, I wanted to be a part of it and help it work.
And it's now evolved to where it is.
And it's a very satisfying thing.
And all of us here at the EIB network are very honored and proud to be associated with this.
So again, let me give you the telephone number to donate, 877-379-888.
Rushlimbaug.com, our website, which explains all of this, by the way.
It explains the premiums, little prizes that you get, offerings for certain donations, and explains a little bit what we're doing.
And now you can also donate there, as well as at Twitter at Rush Limbaugh or at Limbaugh and Facebook.com slash Rush Limbaugh.
The phone number again, 877-379-8888.
Now, I mentioned in the first hour that I never ask people to do what I don't do myself.
Sit here and pound the desk and say, give, donate.
Where's your hood?
Come on, step up.
In the way they do on television.
And the uh many of these hosts, you never know what they do.
Uh some some do indeed get involved off there.
They never tell you others, well, giving my time.
Time is very valuable, and that's my donation.
So well, a researcher at the children's hospital in Philadelphia can't use my time.
Or anybody else's.
All he's got is his, and he needs resources.
His team needs resources.
So Catherine and I always seed the fundraising effort every year.
And the only thing I haven't announced the amount that we have decided to pledge.
Usually do that in the first hour, but I just I thought I'd switch it up and at some point in the program tell you what it is.
But don't doubt that we are.
Now I've got to take a brief time out.
We do have other things going on in the world today we want to talk about.
As well, for example, I just heard I you know the time I can't help the timing of this.
And is it something I can't just ignore?
I just heard.
Well, let me set it up.
I got an instant Message this morning from a friend of mine who said, Do you think the Republicans are going to cave on gun control?
Now I will be honest with you in what I wrote back before knowing anything that I mean, I mean, I'm aware of the latest the proposed filibuster and all the debate arguments, pro and con what the Democrats.
I know what the Democrats want.
They want to get guns out of the hands of everybody that's got them legally.
I know the dr you do too.
Don't care what they say, don't care about their denials.
They wish the second amendment wasn't there.
They don't care what polling data is.
They just want control.
They just wrote back and I said, Well, can you give me any evidence to suggest they won't cave on gun control?
The friend wrote back and said, Well, what do you mean?
I said, Well, pick an issue.
Budget issue.
Uh name one.
Where have the Republicans at the end of the day not, if not caved, sacrificed greatly in order to forge an agreement.
There is one instance.
They didn't buckle going into the sequester.
And they're being blamed for the sequester when it was Obama's idea.
So there is that.
They they did hold firm to that.
And I wrote back and I said, I don't the way I'm thinking right now, the Democrats want gun control.
The media wants gun control.
The Republicans want to be loved by the media, therefore we're gonna get gun control.
And then I saw, then I saw that like this.
I I think it's shameless.
Shameful.
This regime, the way they use victims, poor people, as props and pawns.
I just I just saw that a parent of a child killed at Sandy Hook is going to give the weekly presidential address on Saturday.
And I just it's it's it's it's shameful.
What what are the parents of all other loss out there?
We're gonna bring a parent out, deliver president, and you know exactly what the purpose of it's gonna be.
Well, aren't you doing the same thing, Russia?
I mean you're taking cold slippers.
No, no, no, no.
No, no, no.
I'm not that I'm not dragging people in, I'm not politicizing leukemia.
I'm not using leukemia, the curaton here to advance my political ideas.
I'm not exploiting people to have this disease for the advancement of anything I believe.
We are self-contained here.
Everything we're doing in raising money to cure the blood cancers is just that.
Raise money to cure the blood cancers.
I'm not trying to defeat some presidential bill at the same time.
Or I'm not trying to advance some Republican idea.
So I wouldn't exploit people that way, and I wouldn't exploit you, but that's just me.
Anyway, I gotta take a break.
I just see the clock.
Telephone number for the uh donation again to cure the blood cancers is 877 379-8888.
No, Obama asked this mother to do it.
Obama asked this mother of a six-year-old who was killed at Newtown to stand in for him and do the uh presidential address, the radio address, the internet address on um on Saturday, Rush Limbaugh.com or Twitter at Rush Limbaugh or Facebook.com slash Rush Limbaugh online donations available here for our curathon today.
Here's Chris, Corona, California.
Hi, great to have you on the program.
Hello.
Hey, how's it going?
Very well, sir.
Thank you.
Yeah, I just want to call and say that, you know, I'm grateful for what you're doing with the uh the cancer, especially for the children.
Um I had a nine-year-old son that died January 4th, uh, 2013 due to a Wilm's tumor.
Oh, oh, that's not supposed to happen.
Yeah, um, the doctors told us that he had a 98% success rate, and later on he went through the chemo treatment to shrink down the uh tumor which was in his kidney.
Um they shrink it down, took the kidney out, he did the whole chemo.
They thought he was gonna go into remission.
He ended up relapsing because they found the tumor spread to his lung.
They took out part of his lung, and then they uh gave him radiation again, gave him bone marrow transplant, and you know, that was May of last year when they thought he was gonna go critical.
Well come uh November, the week of Thanksgiving, they told us that he only had three weeks to live.
And um, so I mean my wife we're we're all that that's just heartbreaking to hear this kind of thing.
I I um I don't know what to say.
I wish there was something we could all do to make that outcome change.
And welcome back, Rush Limbaugh, the EIB network open line Friday, and it's our annual curaton, 23rd annual curaton, as we move closer to the objective of curing the blood cancers of leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma.
You can donate a rush limbaug.com via Twitter at Rush Limbaugh or at Limbaugh.
Facebook.com slash rush limbaugh.
We've got you covered if uh online is your preferred way to donate.
By the way, rest assured that the information that you provide with your donation is not shared with anyone.
It's not shared with any other organization.
It is entirely secure.
And donating online is quick, it's efficient, it's less expensive than other ways, which means that your online donation goes just that much farther.
It's it's pretty significant too.
We also have the phone number, as always, 877-379-8888, but a bunch of different ways online.
Again, rush limbaugh.com at rush limbaugh or at Limbaugh, Twitter and Facebook.com slash Rush Limbaugh.
Roger Bloomington, Illinois.
I'm glad you waited.
Great to have you on the program, sir.
Hello.
Well, thank you very much, Rush, and mega dettos to you and God bless you for what you're doing.
Thank you, sir.
Um the Obama administration is is bringing these parents in from uh Newtown, Connecticut.
Uh, to lobby the Congressman.
Are they registered as lobbyists?
And if not, wouldn't that be considered uh kind of uh like a jack leg uh uh diplomacy?
It's not just that.
These people are being shepherded, they've got handlers.
They are they are being walked to offices talking to senators, they're being shepherded and guided by administration officials.
Um and they are lobbying.
You're exactly right, but nobody's gonna shut them down.
No, it and no they're flying in on Air Force One.
Uh I mean, this is the full court press.
By the way, keep something in mind.
While Obama is parading these people everywhere and urging them to speak to anybody, the victims from Benghazi are still being told to be quiet, to shut up, to not ask any more questions.
When it comes to Benghazi, there aren't gonna be any answers.
When it comes to Benghazi, there aren't gonna be any questions because there's nothing politically there that Obama wants.
But Obama wants gun control.
He wants massive new gun control legislation, and so here come the parents from Newtown flying in on Air Force One, and you're right, they're lobbying senators.
I think that's a uh isn't that some kind of a federal offense if you're not registered as a lobbyist.
Well, um look, I hate to be cynical, but but yeah, but so what?
Well, there's all kinds of other laws that are being flouted here that that's true, that's true.
But that's to me.
Where's your heart, man?
This is compassion.
We're trying to save the children.
I feel for those parents.
I would never want to lose my children that way or any other way.
Even to a bug bloodborne diseases and stuff.
I would never do that.
Yeah, but you know, here look at I d you know the hard work always falls to people like us.
You have these people like the president and other liberals who engage in this emotional tug of war.
They're proposing legislation that would not have changed the outcome at Newtown.
There's nothing in any legislation that would change the outcome of what happened there.
But they exploit the victims, they bring them forth, they make them uh into extensions of a political cause.
And when you, as I'm doing now, point all this out, I'm the bad guy.
I'm the guy that was no heart.
I'm the guy that's where's your compassion and so forth.
And and the and the the root of this is that people are being used, taken advantage of, exploited for the advancement of a political agenda I happen to disagree with.
And the liberals do this, I could give you names.
Hollywood actors and actresses who have been utilized in TV commercials to advance a cause.
And as far as I'm concerned, see, this is the toughie.
The parents have now been, correct me if I'm wrong.
Let me let me ask the official program observer.
Would it be safe to say that the Newtown parents have now been inserted into the political aspect of the issue?
Okay.
All right, the answer's been absolutely 100% without question.
So if the parents of Newtown have now been inserted into the political characteristics of the issue, is it fair game to discuss them in such terms?
Well, yes, it is fair game, but if you dare try it, I guarantee you if I were to go full bore on this, the the the monsters of the media would be descending on me, and I would be portrayed out there as the biggest heartless boob you've ever seen.
No matter that we are all engaged here in an effort to cure cancer, fighting the blood cancer, that wouldn't matter.
The fact that I would dare comment politically on the poor people and their saga, their story, they lost their kids.
How dare you, Mr. Limbaugh?
And so that's how they get away with it, folks.
That's how they turn a political issue into nothing more than an emotional gut wrench, and they stifle any opposition to it.
So now anybody, anybody that seeks to oppose the Democrats' gun control legislation is actually attacking these parents.
That's the way it would be portrayed.
If some Republican senator decided to deal with this head on, you can guarantee.
What is it, Senator, that you don't get here?
What do you have no compassion for these parents?
None?
Do you have to have to everything be political, Senator?
And the Senator, I didn't make this political.
The president did.
And this is how you're witnessing.
This is how all opposition is silenced.
This is how it's done.
Can't dare talk about the issue now because talking about the issue opposing Obama's agenda is opposing these people is opposing these parents as having no heart.
And I guarantee you, most elected officials are gonna look at this as not worth it.
It just isn't worth it.
So I'll shut up.
I'll shut up and the bill's gonna pass.
You think the Republicans are gonna cave?
It's not that the Republicans are gonna cave.
On the concept of gun control, that's not what they're doing.
The Republicans are being silenced.
The Republicans, all opposition is effectively being shut down here.
All you gotta see is that picture of the Newtown parents getting off Air Force One, slowly, sadly walking down the steps.
And then either video or still shots of them talking to the senators.
Russia, they registered lobbyists.
Where's your heart, sir?
What do you mean?
They're not lobbying.
They're trying to save other people's children.
So that's how it works.
It was the president who asked for this mother of a six-year-old who died to do his speech.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat Connecticut, is using Sandy Hook to raise money in his emails.
They're trying to turn the new town parents into a dozen Cindy Sheehans in a in a way.
And it's what the Democrats do, folks.
They always try to hide their agendas behind women and children, and most of all, victims.
And so the newtown parents are human shields.
In a sense, the Newtown parents are out there to protect the Democrats from any criticism and to shut it down.
Pure and simple.com slash Rush Limbaugh back after this.
And the 23rd annual Curathon as we tackle the blood cancers, leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma.
Let me run through again what the premiums are.
A donation of 75 to 99 dollars, and you get an official Rush Limbaugh t shirt.
It's 100% cotton, full size, one size only, by the way, XL.
It has the Rushlin bought 2012 logo on the on the full front.
That's between 75 and 99 bucks.
A donation of 100 to 374, you get the Rush Limbaugh t-shirt plus.
An official EIB cap.
It's a bright six red panel hat.
Uh reinforced backing, decorated with the official EIB logo, the signature, uh Rush Limbaugh signature 2013 logo, red and blue thread, uh Velco sizing strap adjustable matches, one size fits all, a donation of $375 or more, you get the official Rush Limbaugh EIB golf shirt and a cap.
Now the golf shirt is 100% polyester, features the ultra-cool fabric system to control and manage perspirations, accepted with a three-button placket, cuff, square bottom with side vents, and there's custom sizing.
From small to uh triple XL.
But again, don't let these numbers uh say that anything under 75 dollars that people aren't interested in.
That really is not the case at all.
Um it's just that those dollar amounts is where it becomes practicable to offer a premium.
But honestly, folks, particularly in in this economy, anything, and the smallest donation is as appreciated as is the largest donation.
If $5 is it, believe me, the number of people in this audience donating at $5 adds up, and it becomes huge.
But it becomes part of the effort.
Everybody becomes part of the effort here that's ongoing to improve that diagnosis.
When you walk into the doctor's office, our show today is about survival, and you walk into the doctor's office, and you hear leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma, blood cancer, and then you hear three to five years.
And it all comes into focus.
Everything in your life changes.
Everything.
The way you look at the rest of your life, the way you look at your kids, the way you see the world, it all changes.
It's an amazing thing that happens to People because we only have one life.
Only one life, and you're told three to five years, and then as you continue to consult with your doctor, you're told you've got a chance.
Or your kid has a chance because of all of the donations, all the research, all the work that continues to be done and enabled by people like you.
And the three to five years hopefully becomes six to ten years or more.
That's what everybody's working for.
That's what everybody wants to make happen.
The researchers all know.
When they sell tell somebody three to five years, that isn't easy.
And they all develop their own ways of doing it, but they don't like it.
But they do love telling people how it could improve.
They do love imparting the notion that there's a chance for it to get better.
And that's what we're doing here.
That is what this day once a year is all about.
And as I went through the stats in the previous hour, the improvement, the survivability rates continue to improve.
The notion that you've got a chance of becoming more real each and every day.
It's not just something somebody hopes for.
They say three to five years, but there's a chance now that's not going to be right.
It's going to be longer than that.
But it does focus you, and it puts you in touch with yourself or member of your family in ways that have not happened before.
Nobody wants to go through it.
Everybody has their own way of dealing with it.
The researchers and everybody involved with leukemia and lymphoma do not want anybody to ever be told three to five years.
They always are striving for that never to be the diagnosis, and that there is always a chance.
And that the chances are always improving.
So again, it's rushlimbaugh.com at rush limbaugh or at Limbaugh on Twitter, either one of those two will work, and Facebook.com slash Rush Limbaugh.
John in um uh what is it, Mundaline, Illinois?
Am I pronouncing that right?
Mundaline, Illinois.
Mundaline, Illinois.
Well, anyway, grab Mundaline, Illinois.
Great to have you here.
Hi.
Thank you for taking my call.
I disagree with you, but I hope you'll hear me out.
Uh I never I never talk to people disagree with me.
See you later.
Uh I feel that a group of people, in this in this case, the parents of the children slaughtered at that school in Newtown.
If a group of people want to go to Washington because they have an opinion about an issue, and I think there's no question that these people have a very serious opinion about the issue we're talking about.
Guns.
If they want to go and express themselves to elected officials, not only is that perfectly a legitimate thing for them to do, I think that to imply that they've somehow been manipulated into having a strong view on this issue, or that they've some that there's something illegitimate about them wanting to go speak to their elected officials on an issue that you may disagree with them on, but to imply that there's something wrong or suspect or possibly illegal about them doing that is offensive.
Well, you upset them.
Are you upset with the previous caller who try to refer to them as lobbyists?
I did.
He suggested it might be illegal for them to be doing what they're doing, and you seem to agree with that.
No, anybody can go talk to their congressman all day long if you can get in.
Okay, then why did you agree with them with him when you said that?
Well, because I know what look, I know what he's talking about.
I know what he meant.
What the reason he said lobbyist is because these people are being set up.
They're being orchestrated, it's being planned, and the taxpayers are paying for this, and they're being put on Air Force One, and they're being sent up there by the president and his people to go talk to these Democrats to put pressure on them.
It's it's he just that was his way of th of of him saying that he thinks this is being orchestrated.
Are you rather are you implying that they don't want to go and speak to members of Congress?
Are you saying that's the same thing?
I don't know.
No, I'm not saying anything.
I'm not I'm trying to tell you what this guy, empathy is one of the things I try to use here.
And this is you don't think they're being set up.
You think your caller thought that.
Do I think they're being set up?
Yeah, the parents, do you think that they're somehow being set up or you're I I think that there are two things happening.
I'm not gonna be critical at least for crying out loud.
But I do think I do think that their pain is being exploited for the advancement of a political engine to the Democrat Party wants.
We'll be back.
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