THE "NEW" PROSTATE CANCER INFOLINK

Representatives of almost all of the major US-based prostate cancer advocacy and support organizations gathered on a conference call earlier today to start a process of greater cooperation between the groups toward shared goals.

The first and most immediate priority, and the primary reason for the conference call, is to seek a major increase in the prostate cancer reseach allocation within the US Department of Defense for fiscal year 2010. The goal is to raise the prostate cancer funding allocation for 2010 to $125 million from the current 2008 allocation of $80 milllion.

We are going to need your help to do this. Whether you are a patient or a spouse or an advocate or a friend or a clinician or a researcher, The “New” Prostate Cancer InfoLink urges you to contact any of the major prostate cancer advocacy groups (Us TOO, ZERO, PAACT, NASPCC, Prostate.net, the Prostate Health Education Network, etc.) and ask how you can help to ensure that we can obtain this 35 percent increase in Department of Defense funding. It is an achievable goal if we all work together.

It is also clear that many on the conference call today would like to work closely together to identify other key prostate cancer advocacy priorities that we can work on in concerted teams. We will have more to report about this in due course.

The “New” Prostate Cancer InfoLink and Prostate Cancer International are absolutely committed to building a national prostate cancer constituency that will be the strong voice for early diagnosis, appropriate management, quality care, and improved therapeutic options for prostate cancer — and we will work with every other like-minded group we can find to accomplish this goal.

Another way you can start to particiapte is simply to join the “Activists and Advocates” group on The “New” Prostate Cancer InfoLink social network. Information and guidance to help you become an effective advocate on this first issue and others will be posted regularly in that discussion forum and on this web site too.

And a quick postscript … Thanks to Alvin Chin, John Willey, Skip Lockwood, and others for “jump-starting” this initiative. We really believe the time is right!

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