Upfront
BACKLASH
against Bob Dole's
Viagra spot
March 3, 1999. Former U.S. Senator Bob Dole's ad for Pfizer speaks for millions
of men by bringing a few seconds of talk
about ED (erectile dysfunction) into Americans' homes.
For men who, like Dole, become impotent because
of prostate cancer treatment, whether surgery, external beam radiation,
seeding, or hormonal therapy - Viagra doesn't always work. Many
insurance companies won't pay for it. And there are murkier problems.
Some men with a history of heart disease have died after taking
Viagra.
Still, even with a blurb
across his brow, Bob Dole encourages
other men to deal with a tough problem. Why the backlash? If
it came from people who wished Dole would speak out about prostate
cancer more directly, and without commercial ties, it might be more
understandable.
No. It's coming from people who seem to want to
wipe prostate cancer right off our TV screens. What's wrong with men speaking openly
about impotence and prostate cancer?
"Plenty," says ABC-TV
medical columnist Nicholas
Regush, taking a hard, scientific-sounding line. Dole, says Regush,
"will help spread a misconception about prostate cancer."
Such as what? A pie-in-the-sky notion that
this is not a problem cancer at all? That it is "only" an older men's disease, that men die with it not of it? Or it's totally curable
for any man who gets his prostate zapped or cut out - no worry about recurrence? No.
Dole, Regush fears, will lead
men to believe they should get a PSA test. And to get a PSA test, says
Regush, "may inevitably cause a lot of men to suffer needless pain and stress."
That's right - some men may have
to get tested more than once to find out they don't have prostate
cancer. Those who learn that indeed they might have the disease
will face biopsy. Those who do have cancer will face treatment
choices, side effects, and uncertain outcomes.
Now, to be sure, one reason for questioning
a stampede into the urologist's office is the fact that some
of the prostate tumors most curable by radical intervention are
those least likely to prove fatal in the average man's lifetime.
Does this mean that men would be better off to go back to what their
grandfathers and fathers were forced to do for lack of early detection - leave their prostates in the dark unless symptoms developed?
Regush
says Dole sounds like "a bleeding-heart liberal." Well,
Regush, even though he never points to the genuine dilemma above,
sounds as though he's been hyped by some health policy wonk. But
his numbers are way off track. He claims no one under 60 or over
69 should get a PSA test. No responsible health authority
in the USA would agree with that.
And you really can't take him seriously,
when he seems to views prostate cancer awareness as a conspiracy to raise
Pfizer's profits.
Men who have this cancer are not
statistics. But advanced prostate cancer has been killing forty thousand American men a year. Let those who have the heart to ask what
those men go through - and to rejoice with men like Dole, who
may be cured - share their opinions. Let pundits have the grace
to listen.
Screening for early detection of
prostate cancer is controversial. The discussion gets polarized; evidence is crucial. We'll
take a crack at putting the pro's and con's four square, which Regush
does not do. But this issue reaches far beyond intellectual debate.
Sneers at "crusty" Bob
Dole slur the 39,000 men expected to die of prostate cancer this year.
To fail to alert all men about this threat to their health says that real men are worth less than imaginary men. That is, less than the imaginary men who "may inevitably" undergo "needless pain and stress" from taking a PSA test.
This is propaganda worse than any TV commercial. Regush and other columnists and health reporters have been led to equate the PSA test with forced mass screening. With so little concern for real
men who have prostate cancer, this hoo-ha about pain and stress of statistical men is phony.
You'd think Bob Dole had committed
a crime. All he's done is overcome shyness and reticence to talk
in a warm, calm tone about a scourge that's not supposed to be taken
too seriously. The shocker for some members of the medical and media establishment, maybe,
is seeing a patient-to-patient kind of counseling, which goes on
all the time in support groups and online.
Sure, Bob Dole conveys the impression
that for him cancer hasn't been too bothersome. But he
cares about other men. He wants other men to take this cancer seriously
and give themselves a chance of beating it, as he has done.
Better get a pundit in quick before
more survivors swap tips on the best brand of PSA test
and how to read biopsy reports and use Partin tables.
Nicholas
Regush's column
On the Viagra Dole: What the Former Senator DoesnÂt Say in
Those Ads
will open in a separate window
Regush's update:
Bob Dole for President of the United States of Viagra
Related stories
The
ABC News Report online
Gabriel
Feldman, PSA Screening & Sound Bites
Jim Fulks Gives ABC
2 Thumbs Down
Ralph Valle: Replying to Regush
Can
the Prostate Test Be Hazardous to Your Health?
at Science/Health section of The
New York Times on the Web
You might also be interested in a New York Times health section article on how to become an active cancer patient: Don't
Take Your Medicine Like A Man by Robert Lypsite.
ACS
says on their site
"The American Cancer Society recommends that both
prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test and digital
rectal examination (DRE) should be offered annually,
beginning at age 50 years, to men who have at least
a 10-year life expectancy, and to younger men who are
at high risk."
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