ATLANTA - Al Gore crawled on the floor with a toddler and spoke of the anguish of watching his own son near death as the vice president commiserated yesterday with cancer patients and promised to lead the war on the disease.
The Democratic presidential candidate also offered a proposal to speed Medicare coverage of preventive screenings, if they become available as the human genome research project progresses. And he called for measures to keep medical records private and to ban employment and health insurance discrimination against workers who find through genetic testing that they are predisposed to the disease.
''I pledge this from my heart: If I am entrusted with the presidency, I will work with you to put the same energy and priority into fighting cancer that we would put into preventing a war that could take 500,000 American lives every year,'' Gore said.
The vice president was accompanied by Frank Hunger, the widower of Gore's elder sister, Nancy, who died of lung cancer in 1984. Aides trying to showcase Gore's less formal side had billed his address, on the steps of Emory University Medical Center, as a personal statement about the ravages of cancer.
But Gore only obliquely mentioned his sister's struggle, saying, ''I know from my own family's experience what cancer can do to a family.''
In the playroom of a children's cancer center across the street, Gore lunged onto his hands and knees to chase Ian MacKay, 2, who suffers from hemophilia, under a table.
MacKenzie Dyer, hooked to an intravenous machine and cradled in her mother's lap, shrank from the commotion of the vice presidential entourage. ''Things will quiet down in a bit,'' Gore assured the 4-year-old girl.
A pediatrician recalled hearing Gore speak several years ago about his son, Albert III, then 6, battling back from near-fatal injuries after being hit by a car. ''When you've been through an experience like that, you have a bond with others who've been through it and realize what people are feeling,'' Gore said.
On his Medicare proposal, Gore noted that scientists on the human genome project expect within the next few years to identify genes involved in causing cancer.
Gore proposed a ''fast track'' process for congressional approval of Medicare coverage for preventive screenings and treatments as they are developed.
