Grassroots
The ACS Shredder
American Cancer Society
Tried to Censor Awareness Stamp, Leaks Show
Dr. Gabe Feldman Urged "Checkups and Tests" Message Changed or Erased
by Les Winick
Former Consultant to USPS Stamp DivisionThe Field Notice discussed in this column is online at this site.
For background see Upfront TOC and Grassroots TOCMarch 6, 2000. Survivors are wondering why there isn't greater support for the Prostate Cancer Awareness issue across all postal regions of the USA. Perhaps I have the answer.
The ACS is the largest private source of money for cancer research and it has a big stick. In a report to the ACS Field Offices on April 23, 1999, Dr. Gabriel "Gabe" Feldman, ACS's Director of Prostate Cancer, relates his attempts to try to get the USPS to drop the stamp. I'll quote directly from the report.
Gabe initiated a meeting with the Postmaster General and the Stamp Services Division to discuss the stamp. The request, made on several occasions, was denied. The PMG explained to Dr. Feldman that the Citizens Stamp Advisory Council controls its own decisions about stamp designs and is totally independent of the organized public health and scientific community.
The Stamp Services Division stated that they feel they have the right to freely express themselves on this important health issue without guidance from the public health community. My comment here is that Dr. Feldman evidently must have made a number of people in Washington, DC, very, very upset to get this reaction.
The report goes on: ACS has repeatedly asked the Stamp Services Division to either revise or simply delete the text from the stamp so that the ACS might endorse the stamp and the Postal Services' awareness raising efforts. The Postmaster General's office and Stamp Services Division have refused to consider changing, tweaking or eliminating the text.
As a former consultant to this department of the USPS, I can understand the feelings that they had under this constant badgering about a stamp that was already printed and distributed. Obviously they did not like receiving ACS's threats not to support this stamp.
The ACS stand against the stamp is so convoluted that it doesn't make sense, even to their own field representatives. One poor soul is a PC survivor and he had to tell people that testing is something they should discuss with their doctor, not ask to have done. ACS received thousands of telephone calls after they condemned the Prostate Cancer Awareness Stamp, and the field people did not know how to respond.
In a conference call on April 7 with 113 people from ACS offices, the brass tried to explain what they were doing; but the 39-page transcript shows that they did not make their point, even with their own employees.
A Wendi Klevan, who joined ACS in November 1999 as manager of Cancer Control Communications, has done nothing but reply to questions on the ACS stand on prostate cancer.
They even spread conspiracy theories. For example they say that they had heard an underground rumor that prostate cancer screening is an attempt to emasculate African-American men by making them impotent in treating them for PC. But an African-American ACS field representative is recorded in the transcript stating that he has never heard of that report or rumor. I myself was one of a handful of whites on a committee set up by the Illinois Department of Public Health to encourage African-Americans to take a PSA test, and I never heard that rumor.
Articles and letters to the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine state that the Prostate Cancer Awareness postage stamp should be withdrawn. The editors recently admitted that many of their articles are authored by people with a vested interest. While I have absolutely no proof, I certainly would love to know if the ACS or if Dr. Feldman contacted some of his buddies to write those articles and letters.
Dr. Feldman quotes a letter to the editor of NEJM denouncing the stamp from a group called the Dartmouth Foundation for Informed Decision Making. I could not find this letter in any of the group's journals. If it was not printed, then the letter-writers either sent a copy to Feldman prior to sending it to the editor or Feldman authored it.
Any way you look at it, the situation stinks. And it gets worse. As we know, the NCI's clinical trial of prostate cancer screening will run for 16 years. Anyone care to wait before taking a PSA until those results are in? The chairman of the prostate cancer division at NCI is Dr. Otis Brawley, who has stated that he is never going to let anyone put a finger up his ....
It is up to us, the survivors, to work together to publicize prostate cancer awareness. Incidentally, if any post office claims they are out of the PC stamp, ask to see the postmaster and request that he order some from his Distribution Center. Tell him or her that you will take x amount of sheets as soon as they arrive.
If they refuse to do this, ask where the Consumer Complaint Form is, you would like to fill it out. Play hardball at the local level. They have so many different stamps, it really is a pain for them to stock everything, but most post offices do want to keep their customers happy.
Les Winick was in charge of the largest international stamp show ever held in the USA, in Chicago in 1986. As a consultant to USPS Stamps Division, he mounted a major exhibition for them in Washington, D.C. He has served as a marketing consultant to postal administrations throughout the world. Winick's stamp collections have won national and international awards. He is an accredited philatelic and literature judge, writes for stamp collecting magazines and newspapers worldwide, and contributes a column to Linn's read by 60,000 readers. He is preparing a weekly online stamp newspaper to launch April 2000. Adding to his books and monographs on stamp collecting, Winick's latest book, The Reference Guide to Prostate Guide, is in final review. It explains more than 3,000 medical terms in layman's language and includes acronyms, abbreviations, drugs, alternative medicine, and more
N Engl J Med 1999 Mar 18;340(11):884-7 The U.S. Postal Service and cancer screening--stamps of approval? Woloshin S, Schwartz LM Veterans Affairs Outcomes Group, White River Junction, VT 05009, USA. [email protected]
J Gen Intern Med 1996 Jun;11(6):342-9 The importance of patient preference in the decision to screen for prostate cancer. Prostate Patient Outcomes Research Team. Flood AB, et al Department of Community and Family Medicine, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH
The Dartmouth Foundation for Informed Decision Making claims to help people make health decisions by use of a knowledge base. The Dartmouth Foundation is allied with Health Dialog, a group that markets videos and provides nurse consults. Health Dialog's mission is "To improve the quality of health decision making and health care by helping patients and their doctors communicate about the personal side of illness prevention and treatment." The main topics in their "dialogue room" are BPH and prostate cancer.
Health Dialogue seeks to intervene between patient and doctor to reduce costs to health insurers. They say that when patients play a larger part in decision-making, costs fall.
The officers of Health Dialog are from the health insurance and health care industry.
George Bennett, Chairman and CEO, an entrepreneur, founded Symmetrix, Inc., Braxton, Associates, Inc., and was one of the three original founders of Bain and Company, Inc.
Chris McKown, President of Health Dialog Services Corporation, was the founder of Response International Services Corporation, an insurance direct marketer.
Raymond Caron, their COO, was the President of the Cigna Systems Division.
Jonathan T. Lord, President of Health Dialog, Inc. was the COO of the American Hospital Association.
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