While the recently enacted health care reform law will lower the cost of preventive services like colonoscopies for some Americans, it won’t help increase awareness about the importance of early detection and screening. To really see an increase in screening rates and save lives we need a national colorectal cancer screening and treatment program enacted. Today, is your chance to help make that vision a reality!

Call 1-866-615-3375 and ask your Representative and Senators to “cosponsor the Colorectal Cancer Prevention, Early Detection, and Treatment Act introduced by Representatives Kay Granger and Jim McGovern and by Senators Joseph Lieberman and Kay Bailey Hutchison”

Thanks to advocates like you, we have already called over 200 Members of Congress.

But, we need to reach more Members if we are going to get this life-saving piece of legislation enacted into law. So please take 5 minutes to call 1-866-615-3375 and ask your legislators to cosponsor the “Colorectal Cancer Prevention, Early Detection, and Treatment Act.”

Don’t know what to say when you call? We have a detailed script you can use.

For additional information, please visit http://link.fightcrc.org/butt-in.

A large new study has found that people who took aspirin regularly for at least 4 years were 21 percent less likely 20 years later than those taking a placebo to have died from a solid-tumor cancer.  The study has received wide media attention, but there are some important details described in some—but not all—the coverage.

Following up on intriguing hints that aspirin use is related to lower cancer rates, University of Oxford researchers went back to investigate cancer death rates among 25,570 participants in large randomized trials conducted decades ago to test aspirin’s affect on heart disease and stroke. During the trials, which lasted an average of four years, they found about 20 percent fewer cancer deaths in people taking aspirin compared to people taking a placebo.

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Just for today, don’t smoke!

Nearly 47 million Americans risk their lives — and increase their risk for colorectal cancer — by smoking.

But the good news is that 30 years ago, 1 in 3 people in the US smoked.  Today that has dropped to 1 in 5.

Today, November 18, is a chance to try life without tobacco.  The American Cancer Society hopes that people who stop smoking today will stay smoke-free.

Need help? The National Cancer Institute has tools to help you if you are still struggling with smoking.

Colorectal cancer screening programs targeted at the pre-Medicare population (ages 54-64) could pay for themselves in avoided future Medicare expenditures, according to a study released last week at the American College of Gastroenterology’s annual meeting.

Using a computer simulation program, researchers estimated the total lifetime costs for screening and any subsequent treatment of colorectal cancer in people over age 50, using three different kinds of testing (fecal occult blood test, or FOBT; a mix of FOBT and colonoscopy; or colonoscopy alone). Read the rest of this entry »

Only one in five primary care doctors in the U.S. follows all the guidelines for colorectal cancer screening, according to a new National Cancer Institute (NCI) study. Of the remaining doctors studied, about 40 percent followed guidelines for some tests; the remaining 40 percent didn’t follow any screening guidelines.

Robin Yabroff, PhD, an NCI epidemiologist, said that the survey of nearly 1,300 primary care physicians showed that many either overuse or underuse screening tests.

Most doctors did recommend initial screening at age 50, and many followed suggested intervals for a specific test. But only 19 percent followed guidelines for every type test.

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