Gavin Rodden, the 8 year boy fighting metastatic muscle cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma, which began in muscle in his prostate, now has a web page at CaringBridge, Gavin the Strong:

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/gavinthestrong

Gavin is taking chemotherapy in Houston. To donate to the Medical Fund that Shannon’s employer has set up for Gavin (see details in our previous post) send a check, in any amount, payable to Gavin Rodden Medical Fund and mail to:
Citizens’ National Bank
PO Box 1009
Henderson
TX 75653-1009
To validate the address and the fund you may contact the bank from this page: https://www.cnbtexas.com/#/contact-us
Or donate to “Gavin Rodden’s Hospital Fund” via PayPal.

Reuters and WAll Street Journal report today that Dendreon plans to seek US FDA approval for Provenge prostate cancer vaccine in November. Dendreon “expects regulators to act on the application by the middle of next year, the company said on Thursday.”

To start from an updated report in the Wall Street Journal, which adds this information to Reuters’ coverage of Dendreon ‘s share prices today. The points are excerpted and reordered:

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.

Scientists have identified seven new genetic variants that appear to be linked with increase risk of prostate cancer. Among these are four new “single-letter” genetic variants on one particular chromosome, called 8q24.

This chromosomal region has previously been associated with breast, colon, and bladder cancer. The discoveries identifying the four new genetic locations associated with prostate cancer on chromosome 8q24 were made by teams of independent scientists around the world. Three separate research papers on the discoveries are published in the online issue of Nature Genetics.

In one of the papers, Rosalind Eeles, from the London, UK Institute of Cancer Research laboratory (ICR) and colleagues in the Genetic Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, report on the discovery of seven new prostate cancer susceptibility loci. In this video Dr. Eeles explains what her team found. She says they plan to take the results “into the clinic” to try to predict which men may need early testing for prostate cancer. Dr. Eeles says 8q is a “very interesting part of the genome for solid cancer risk.”

Brave New Films’ video Sick for Profit opens with a clip of a woman, Jo Joshua Godfrey, who says Cigna cut off her coverage by telling her she had nothing wrong with her, when they knew — as she did not — that her scans showed she had lung cancer.

I would go to CIGNA and they would tell me I had bronchitis and give me medicine and send me home. Then the CIGNA Director called me up and she told me that there was nothing wrong with me at all. I called the doctor, and I came with my film and my CAT scan and he just put it in, it took exactly thirty seconds. He told me, ‘You have cancer,’ and he said the reason CIGNA did not want to give you your records is they’ve known right way back for years that you have cancer and they’re not going to treat you.” Jo Joshua Godfrey.

the 4th C2 Academic Retreat (C2R) being organized jointly by the Canadian Urologic Oncology Group (CUOG) and the Canadian Urology Research Consortium (CURC) is scheduled for the weekend of September 25 to 27, 2009 at the fashionable hotel called W in Montreal.

According to UroToday, “this three-day educational event will include provocative ‘Town Hall’ sessions on the topics of Hormone Replacement and Cancer Risk, Prostrate Screening Controversies and the use of Robotic Technology in Surgery (Is it ready for prime time?).” “The line-up of topics and the caliber of presenters is unsurpassed in all the years we have been conducting these events,” says Dr. Laurence Klotz, Chair of the CURC and immediate past president of the Canadian Urology Association (CUA).

The Retreat allows the sponsoring (and often competing) pharmaceutical companies (i.e. Amgen AstraZeneca, Sanofi Aventis, GlaxoSmitKline, Merck Frosst, Novartis, Minoque Medical, Genesis Genomics, and Pfizer) to actively participate in the academic portion of the agenda.

TULSA – For the fifth year in a row, KJRH 2 Works for You has partnered with Saint Francis Health Systems to bring the National Prostate Cancer Coalition’s free prostate cancer screenings to Tulsa onboard the Drive Against Prostate Cancer bus.

In addition, this year’s event will also include free screening services by the Tulsa Downtown Lions Club’s Mobile Health Unit (MSU) as well as a blood drive being conducted by the Oklahoma Blood Institute (OBI). The Lions Club will offer free screenings for diabetes, blood pressure, glaucoma, visual acuity, hearing and bone density.

The free screenings and blood drive will be conducted on a first-come, first serve basis from 10am – 6pm on Friday September 18th at Tulsa Promenade Mall (41st & Yale) next to the covered parking lot in front of the 41st Street main entrance.

Read more at Drive Against Prostate Cancer bus returns to Tulsa Bartlesville Live

Phil Masley, now living in Orlando, FL, since his treatment in 2005 has been active creating newsletters and press releases for 13 support groups in Central Florida. Prior to his volunteer work to help raise prostate cancer awareness, Phil was in advertising and sales promotion at GM and involved in PR for four charities in Indianapolis with NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt.

Phil’s two-page newsletter The Florida Prostate Cancer Connection includes items like these below.

Not only during PC Awareness Month
each September, but all year long

BY PHIL MASLEY

Although prostate cancer does not receive the attention it deserves, here is what the President of the United States has to say, along with information on a growing number of events designed to increase awareness and raise funds for research.

University of Mississippi Health Care
UMHC TO OFFER FREE PROSTATE CANCER SCREENINGS
Sep 16, 2009 – Sep 24, 2009
JACKSON, Miss. – The University of Mississippi Health Care Cancer Research and Registry will conduct free prostate cancer screenings for African-American men age 40 and older, men age 40 and older with a family history of prostate cancer, and all other men age 45 and older, from 4-7 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday, Sept. 16-17, and Wednesday-Thursday, Sept. 23-24, in the University Physicians Pavilion. The screenings will include a digital rectal exam and a PSA blood test. The screenings are by appointment only. For more information or to make an appointment, call (601) 984-1095.
For more information contact Bruce Coleman at (601) 984-4743 or ([email protected]).

Rep. Joe Wilson (R: Columbia, SC) — actual name Addison Graves Wilson Sr. — received 40% of his campaign money from PACs. Wilson yelled “You lie!” at President Barack Obama during the President’s address to Congress on health care reform.

Joe Wilson voted for illegal migrants’ healthcare before he was against, took drug company campaign contributions, and sponsored an earmark to give taxpayers’ money to a pharmaceutical industry project.

Wilson’s top donors include major drug companies: Astrazeneca Pharmaceuticals, Glaxosmithkline, Novartis, and Eli Lilly. Among his other corporate sector donors are lobbyists for insurance companies, the beer industry, auto dealers, and the defense industry.

In 2003, Rep. Wilson voted for the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act. This landmark legislation provides seniors and individuals with disabilities with a prescription drug benefit under Medicare. But it has also been criticized for securing “big benefits for Big Pharma & the private insurance industry at the expense of real benefits for seniors.”

The 2003 act, for which Wilson voted under President George W. Bush, includes Section 1011 authorizing $250,000 annually of taxpayer money to reimburse hospitals for treatment of illegal immigrants. In 2009, after Pres. Obama stepped into office, Wilson changed to his current position opposing public funds for healthcare of illegal immigrants.