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June 16, 2008
The Honorable Arlen Specter
United States Senate
711 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-3802
Dear Senator Specter:
I am writing to you today to implore you to take a lead roll in the effort to substantially increase the federal research funding levels to the National Cancer Institute for pancreatic cancer research. As you may be well aware pancreatic cancer is the deadliest cancer known to man and patients once diagnosed have an average life expectancy of 6 months and a five year survival rate of 5%. Given these extremely grim statistics one would expect the federal government to do everything in its power to fund research to find a cure or at least develop better detection methods for this lethal killer which afflicts over 37,000 U.S. residents every year and causes over 33,000 deaths each year making it the 4th leading cause of cancer deaths.
Unfortunately the current funding level of $73.3 million a
year towards pancreatic cancer research is woefully inadequate. As a comparison
breast cancer (which causes a little more than 40,000 cancer deaths each year)
garners $572 million in research dollars alone from the federal government each
year, nearly 8 times that of pancreatic cancer, yet the 5 year survival rate is
now 89%.
Worse yet, this level of funding actually contributes to the continuing
lethality of this disease. The 5 year survival rate has only increased 2 points
since the 1970s (up to 5% from 3%) and researchers are no closer to finding
early detection methods or better treatment options than they were 30 years ago.
I have attached an article I wrote that was recently published in the Bucks County Courier Times (June 2, 2008) to this letter. You and your staff can also read about other important statistics concerning the lack of adequate funding for pancreatic cancer at the website of the non-profit group I am establishing at http://www.fundacure.com. My father only has a few months if not weeks left to live. I will continue my fight for a major effort to be launched to reprioritize funding so that $1 billion a year can be directed towards finding a cure for pancreatic cancer.
While this may seem like a huge increase please keep in mind that the federal government spent $23.4 billion on care, research, education and outreach just on AIDS alone last year ($2.9 billion just on research). Currently there are only an estimated 40,000 new cases of AIDS in the United
States each year which makes the affliction rate almost equal to that of pancreatic cancer. Additionally while AIDS was a very deadly disease in the early 1980s, scientific advances have made the 5 year survival rate jump to 95% and the average life expectancy after diagnosis is now 24 years which is 48 times longer than that of a pancreatic cancer patient.
As a cancer survivor yourself I implore you to use your influence and position in Congress to help those who suffer from this disease the most and those are the families who have to watch their loved ones wither away to nothing right in front of their eyes in a matter of months. As a fellow elected official (Newtown Township Supervisor), I know and understand how you are besieged by many constituents asking for your assistance, but I must ask for your special attention immediately to the huge funding disparities between the various cancers and other funded disease research.
Without a major investment in research dollars which will bring a large group of talented young medical researchers to this field, I do not hold out much hope for finding a cure for this disease.
I do not wish to have my children writing to you or the Senator who follows you in 15 years asking what you will do to keep their father’s efforts and their grandfather’s struggle against pancreatic cancer to be left in vain. As the Ranking Member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education & Related Agencies you can see to it that pancreatic cancer research receives the appropriations it deserves based on how many lives pancreatic cancer takes each year and its awful survival rate.
I would ask if we could set up a time and day to meet so I could work with you and your staff on this very important issue.
Sincerely,
Robert L. Ciervo, Ph.D., Founder and Chairman
Fund A Cure for Pancreatic Cancer Research
12 Kuhars Way
Newtown, PA 18940
215-932-3200