Grassroots
NPCC says US Too! Never Paid Into Prostate Cancer Coalition
April 3: US Too! Quits Prostate Cancer Coalition
April 5:
NPCC Saddened As US Too! Quits
| Hank Porterfield In His Own Words |
|
Hank Porterfield chairs Us Too!
International, the support group that he turned to
when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer: In an interview October 2000 he said:
"The main focus of researchers and clinicians should
not be in choosing between the available prostate
cancer treatment options but in offering patients
better choices with fewer side effects....emphasis should be
placed on finding treatments for prostate cancer
that don't have all these side effects. Right now our
options are very limited. A really Herculean effort is
needed to find a way to treat this cancer without
destroying the prostate." Surgery or Radiation: Which Is Better for Early
Prostate Cancer?
By Salynn Boyles
WebMD
|
April 6, 2001. PSA Rising, New York.
Staff at National Prostate Cancer
Coalition, Inc. (NPCC) in Washington D.C. say they were
"very saddened" by the split with leading prostate cancer support and
education organization US Too! International.
"The work continues," Alyn Books LaSure said, "we have the same
enemy," prostate cancer.
NCPP staff Skip
Lockwood, Kathy Meade and LaSure said vice-chair and COO Dr. Atkins "can state confidently" that US Too! never
made annual donations of fifty thousand dollars to NPCC board. "The
figures are not correct," LaSure said, referring to donation levels PSA Rising reported yesterday.
Reacting to our earlier report that this was the donation level set for US Too!'s vote on NPCC board, LaSure replied, "It's possible they were asked" for that amount,
but NPCC "did not receive that."
Our earlier information came from a former board member. So far no one has been able to tell us why NPCC, which reported a loss in 1998, subsidized US Too's financially healthy operations.
"This break up "was long
overdue," Tom Bruckman, Executive Director of American Foundation for Urologic Disease (AFUD) said late today. "As one of the founding members of the Board, I can tell you
US Too! brought nothing to the table except expense reimbursement
requests for their travel and hotels."
" In fact," Bruckman said, "... Hank Porterfield, would sit at the table and take
notes of all the programs, ideas and key contacts .... take that
information back to Chicago and try to implement same. I can not recall
one penny of support coming from Chicago and I've been to every
meeting since the inception of NPCC."
Dr. Richard Atkins, NPCC vice-chair and COO, asked yesterday if the organization would lose revenue, said: "During the
period of time that I have been at NPCC, US Too!, unlike
other board organizations, has made no financial contribution to NPCC.
Rather, financial support has gone in the other direction, both for
Chicago-based staffing and in an 'in-kind' agreement (i.e., that NPCC
would not compete for the same program-based financial solicitations
on which US Too! depends)."
Mr. Bruckman today was even more forthright. "Last year," he said, "the NPCC
secured money ($50,000 approx) for a staff person working out of the
US Too! Chicago office, who was supposed to be working on recruiting
national advocates to be shared by NPCC and US Too!. Yet nothing
ever came back to the NPCC. Apparently US Too! kept all this work for
themselves.
" In the meetings I attended," Bruckman said, "[US Too! chair] Hank Porterfield kept
promising to hold up his responsibilities as a Trustee yet nothing was
ever forthcoming."
The Chicago Office of US Too!, Bruckman said, "torpedoed"
NPCC efforts to create a National Advocacy Corps, " telling their
regional leaders to boycott the meetings, after they had accepted
invitations to participate."
"The ACS, A.F.U.D., Cap Cure and many others have tried to support
the NPCC with grants and joint fundraising efforts, yet the Chicago
branch of US Too! never participated. Curiously, many of the
independent US Too! groups have offered to give 'in kind' support to
NPCC and I think that will be the
upshot of all this. The NPCC will try to work with anybody who will help
in the fight against prostate cancer and many of the support groups and members
will independently come forward. Or, when asked, will do what they
can."
"I know this," Bruckman said, "because I've had the pleasure of working
with so many good people working so hard to find a cure for this awful
disease."
On another positive note, Bruckman said, the Prostate Cancer Funders
Group, which includes representatives from major PCa Research
grant-makers, "calculate that there will be over $400 million spent on
PCa research this year. Much of this increase is due to patient
activism and involvement in the process of raising awareness."
In Fiscal 1998 National Prostate
Cancer Coalition, Inc. reported Contributions of $654,449 and a net loss of $-115,273.
US Too! reported Total Revenue of $488,922, Total
Expenditures of $294,109 for a net gain of $194,813.
Financial Statements in Acrobat Reader format from http://www.guidestar
E-mail [email protected]
April 6, 2001
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