Seniors’ access to a screening colonoscopy is at risk and YOU can help!

We need you to continue to add your voice and urge your Representative to support H.R. 4120! Simply submit an Action Alert.

H.R. 4120, the Removing Barriers to Colorectal Cancer Screening Act of 2012, will fix a regulation that requires Medicare beneficiaries to pay coinsurance when their screening colonoscopy involves the removal of a polyp. The current policy can cost patients $100 to $300 and serve as a deterrent to screening.

We need cosponsors for this legislation if it is to pass into law & YOU can help!

Congressman Donald Payne (D-NJ) died early this morning from colon cancer.

Representative Payne announced last month that he had been diagnosed with colon cancer but expected to make a full recovery. However, last week he took a sudden turn for the worse and was flown home to New Jersey where he was placed in hospice care at St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston. He was 77.

The first black member of Congress from New Jersey, Representative Payne served the 10th Congressional District for 23 years. He was planning to run for a twelfth term this year, vowing to run again only last month.

A strong champion for human rights in Africa, militants fired mortar shell at his plane as it left Mogadishu in 2009. He was the author of the Sudan Peace Act, which condemned genocide and helped bring famine relief to civilians starving in the Sudan.

He was also a tireless advocate for education, saying in 1991,

Education and training get you jobs. Jobs get you your housing, health care and other needs. It’s really the key to all the social problems of the district.

President Obama has ordered flags at the White House lowered to half staff. Governor Christie has ordered all flags in New Jersey lowered as well.

Fight Colorectal Cancer mourns the loss of Congressman Donald Payne and the nearly 140 Americans who will die of colon or rectal cancer today.

This weekend, Congress completed work on a large spending bill that maintains funding for colorectal cancer research and prevention. In the current budget-cutting environment, holding the line on research and prevention programs is a remarkable accomplishment and reflects the power of grassroots advocacy.

I congratulate the Fight Colorectal Cancer volunteers who took action this year to protect colorectal cancer research and prevention funding. We should be proud of our achievements, but we cannot become complacent. We must prepare for the Fiscal Year 2013 budget battle that lies ahead. Please register to attend Fight Colorectal Cancer’s Call-on Congress next March – where advocates from around the country will be urging their legislators to continue to protect colorectal cancer research funding.

The following are the spending outcomes on Fight Colorectal Cancer’s three appropriations priorities:

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Quick update

Fight Colorectal Cancer is watching the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health hearing Examining the Increase in Drug Shortages.

The hearing began at 9:30 this morning, September 23, 2011, and will continue after a recess.

You can watch it with us on UStream Live.

Testimony already from Howard K. Koh, Assistant Secretary for Health, Department of Health and Human Services, who was accompanied by Dr. Sandra L. Kweder from the FDA.  Both answered questions from Subcommittee Members.

Legislation in Congress will help raise money for colorectal cancer research without increasing federal spending.

Representative Charlie Dent

Pennsylvania congressman Charlie Dent has introduced a bill that would direct the U.S. Postal Service to sell a semipostal stamp to raise money for federally funded colorectal cancer research and prevention programs. Semipostal stamps are regular postage stamps that are sold at a surcharge over their postage value. The additional charge is a voluntary contribution by the purchaser to a designated cause.

Under the “Fight Colorectal Cancer Stamp Act” (H.R. 893), funds raised from a semipostal colorectal cancer stamp would be used for colorectal cancer programs at the Department of Defense Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.

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