UPDATE DEC 19, 2009:  Your calls made the difference!  The Brown-Hutchison clinical trials provision is included in the Manager’s amendment.

The Senate is rushing to get 60 votes to wrap up a health care reform bill before the end of the year.

However, the Senate health care reform bill does not currently ensure patients coverage for the costs of routine care in clinical trials like they would if care were provided outside of a trial.  You can help change this!

Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) have introduced an amendment that would prohibit insurers from dropping coverage because an individual chooses to participate in a clinical trial and it would require insurers to cover the costs of routine care for patients enrolled in clinical trials.  It also ensures that states that have stricter clinical trials coverage rules will not have those rules pre-empted by new federal legislation.

Call Senate Majority Leader Reid at (202) 225-3452 today and tell him to include the Brown-Hutchison clinical trials amendment in the manager’s amendment he is writing.

You can help ensure that the Senate doesn’t rush to pass a health care reform bill without protecting clinical trials coverage!

Read on for talking points you can use during your call.

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Carolyn "Bo" Aldige

C3 congratulates the Prevent Cancer Foundation on their 25th anniversary this month.

We are proud of the work they do, especially in encouraging screening to prevent colorectal cancer.  This March they will sponsor the 12th Dialogue for Action Prevention Hits the Headlines.

Prevent Cancer also sponsors the Super Colon Tour, an educational program accompanied by a large crawl-through colon.  2010 tour appearances are being scheduled now. Read the rest of this entry »

Changes in CRC Deaths

New diagnoses and death rates continue to decline for colorectal cancer, and the positive trend is expected to continue into the future.  Increasing the numbers of people who are screened could make the rates fall even faster.

Increased screening probably has had the greatest impact on decreasing rates, according to the Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, but improved treatments have also contributed. Read the rest of this entry »

Chemotherapy and Erbitux® (cetuximab) reduced liver tumors from colorectal cancer enough for patients to have them removed surgically.

Although their cancer was initially too extensive to be surgically removed (resected) chemotherapy combined with Erbitux allowed about a third of patients to have surgery that completely removed all visible signs of liver tumors.  Tumor shrinkage occured in about two out of three patients, despite which chemotherapy was used.

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African Water Frog

The Centers for Disease Control are warning of an outbreak of Salmonella Typhimurium connected with handling water frogs, including African Dwarf Frogs.  More than 50 people, mostly young children, have been diagnosed with the disease since June of 2009.  About one in four have had to go into the hospital, but none has died so far.

The CDC stresses that people with compromised immune systems, including cancer patients on chemotherapy, should avoid handling frogs and reptiles and anything that comes in contact with them like aquariums, habitats, and water.  These animals should not be in households with children under five. Read the rest of this entry »