PROSTATE CANCER

A dear friend of mine (Best Man at my wedding) sent me the following letter sent to him by a friend of his.  Please consider signing the petition.

Hi

I usually don' t do mass mailings of this type, but as I believe that you know, I was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer in 1999 and have been through a whole panoply of treatments from surgery to radiation to ADT (chemical androgen deprivation therapy).   While advances have been made in improving the quality of life with the disease or prolonging life at end stage (from my perspective, only incrementally), there is no cure for recurring Prostate Cancer.  There are many areas of active research for finding a cure but they are woefully underfunded, often excruciatingly slow to get approval for testing much less for FDA approval for treatment.  As they say, "time is a wastin'".

 

Unlike the public awareness in other kinds of cancer, Prostate Cancer just hasn't received the attention it deserves, despite its high incidence and its high rate of mortality.   Men just haven't been good advocates for themselves.  I suppose that is because it has been considered kind of a "guy thing"  and we know, guys don't talk about "guy things".  Because of the limited public knowledge about how serious and deadly this disease is, people tend to belittle it and repeat the words that grate on my nerves so much, "Oh, you will die with the disease and not from it".   That  is only true if you are diagnosed at 70 or 80 years old but not if diagnosed in your 50's. 

 

Prostate Cancer matches up with breast cancer in incidence and mortality but there is no denying that because of its lower public profile, it has not received the public and governmental attention that breast cancer has.   In no way, am I asking to divert money from breast cancer research.  Heaven forbid!   I would never want to do anything but increase the research funding for finding a cure for breast cancer, or for any other kind of cancer, whether it be colon cancer, lymphoma, lung cancer or any of the dreaded "C's".  What I do want to see is things move faster and better for government funding of Prostate Cancer research.

 

So, why am I writing to you?   Well you can relax.  I am not asking you for money for research or for any other reason.   I just want to raise the profile of this dreaded disease among my family and close friends, not for me but for you men (including our sons) who are receiving this and for you women who love them.  I want there to be an effective cure for this disease in the lifetime of the next generation.   While I am not asking for donations, I am asking you to do two things.  

First, I want you to read, sign and send in the petition attached to this email. ( If you cannot open it, cut and paste this to your explorer: http://www.prostatecancerpetition.org/

Second, please send it to anyone you are comfortable sending it to, asking them to also sign and send in.

The government will respond if enough people tell it that this is something that we can and must do. Let's make that happen with this small but significant start. 

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

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Tags: Cancer, ProstateCancer Research Funding, Petition, open letter, science, medical, medical information