A post from Alan on the Advanced Prostate Cancer On-Line Support Group shared a link, which should interest all of us. It should interest us all because it will have an effect on each and every one of us, whether we are a prostate cancer survivor, if we become one in the future. Actually the effect could implicate pretty much any serious illness we might find our self fighting.

Alan’s Post – “Here is a link to a very short interview with Dr. Francis Collins,

Director of the US National Institutes of Health, in which he talks
about the effect of “sequestration” on research funding.

It looks like the cutback in research has been very substantial.

http://mms.tveyes.com/PlaybackPortal.aspx?SavedEditID=5eacbe63-f267-4706-a9cf-225b1992d77c

The printed text is computer generated by voice recognition software. A
lot of it is garbled. Click the buttons to hear the audio for a better
rendition of what Dr. Collins said.

The cuts are hitting research pretty hard but also hit all other aspects
of NIH operations. As I understand it, the agency I work for in the
National Cancer Institute (part of NIH) has been cut 34% (not adjusted
for inflation) since 2006.

For those of you who don’t live in the U.S., “sequestration” is the name
of budget cuts automatically applied to almost all US government
agencies when the two American political parties failed to agree on a
national budget.”

The impact will be staggering. Spurred by this and the constant struggle that we all share in each fiscal year with even maintaining the current level of funding for the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program for Prostate Cancer we at Malecare have started the program I have mentioned before called Start A Cure (www.StartACure.com) where we as survivors and our families can find prostate cancer research programs that “speak” to us.

I know that this program will not make up for the draconian losses, but it will help very specific projects go forward.

I urge that after you listen to the radio broadcast Alan posted that you do you share and go to Start A Cure and do your part, make a commitment to a prostate cancer research project that has meaning to you.

Joel T. Nowak, M.A., M.S.W.