NATION : Quayle Wife Joins Cancer Fight

Marilyn Quayle’s voice cracked with emotion today as she told a congressional panel of her mother’s painful battle with the breast cancer that eventually killed her.

The wife of the vice president appeared before a House subcommittee on health and the environment to urge women to have mammograms that can detect breast cancer at an early stage.

“We meet this morning to declare war on breast cancer . . . a war in which there can be no substitute for victory,” Marilyn Quayle said in her first appearance on Capitol Hill since her husband, Dan, was sworn in more than a year ago.

While she talked of the need for all women to be concerned with breast cancer, she did not endorse proposed legislation that would provide screening of low-income women for breast and cervical cancer. The bipartisan measure would cost $50 million in fiscal year 1991.