Rick Ward, of Deer Lodge, Montana and San Antonio,Texas, a pioneering prostate cancer awareness advocate and activist, died recently of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Rick, an Air Force veteran aged 71, will be remembered for his tremendous contribution to Seedpods brachytherapy mailing list, for his dedication to helping Veterans faced with cancer and other health problems, for popularizing the sky blue ribbon as an emblem of prostate cancer awareness, and for advocating for equitable funding for prostate cancer research.

Rick discovered he had prostate cancer at age 56 in September 1994 in Deer Lodge, Montana when a PSA test at a free screening clinic during Prostate Cancer Awareness Week came back at a high 14 ng/mL. He called the National Cancer Institute at 1-800-4CANCER; and as an early internet user, he joined one of the start-up online mailing lists.

Writer JG Ballard died yesterday aged 78 of prostate cancer. “Despite being diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer in 2006,” Chris Watt reports in the UK Herald “he kept well enough to pen an autobiography, Miracles of Life, in 2008.” BBC –putting his obituary in the entertainment section –pointlessly bowdlerizes the nature of Ballard’s illness, claiming “His agent Margaret Hanbury said the author had been ill ‘for several years’ . . . .” Ballard made no secret of prostate cancer. Others have claimed that he began Miracles of Life because of it.

When Merv Griffin died on August 12, his family said on his website :

Griffin, who turned 82 on July 6th, was recently diagnosed during a routine examination with a recurrence of the prostate cancer that he had overcome more than a decade ago. Its aggressive progression to other organs was unexpected and immediate, according to his doctors at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

The notion of a sudden fatal resurgence may mislead other men who are fighting prostate cancer.This description of Griffin as “recently diagnosed” during a “routine examination” with a recurrence of a cancer

Merv Griffin (July 6, 1925- August 12, 2007), a pioneer in the TV entertainment industry, has died at age 82 of prostate cancer. Merv Griffin, a singer and talk show host, created the TV games Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. Diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1996, he was treated initially with brachytherapy therapy [see correction below].