The news is in, and it is bad. It is as bad as many of us feared. The National Institute of Health (NIH) has announced that their across-the-board budget sequester cuts are going to equal 1.71 billion dollars.

The NIH is responsible for the majority of cancer research performed in the United States. For the last number of years their budget has been shrinking and now we are faced with an additional loss of 1.71 billion dollars from the already diminished 2012 budget.

Each year we continue to struggle to just maintain funding for the Department of Defense Prostate Cancer Research Program (DOD PCRP). We used to have hopes of seeing an increase in what has been a flat $80,000,000 budget, now we celebrate the flat budget. Next year, the program may not even be around!

In light of this terrible situation and in consideration of a common complaint we hear at Malecare that people do not believe that the research that is being funded is often not what they want to see move ahead, we have launched a new program.

Our new program is called Start A Cure. We have reached out to a number of top-level researchers and asked them to submit to us prostate cancer research programs they are looking to fund. We have put together 17 proposals from institutions like The Johns Hopkins, Harvard and UCLA. Their projects all require less than $50,000 in funding.

We have put together a new funding platform where these projects can get funded despite the economic situation I described. We are asking that you go to www.startacure.com and read the researchers description of their research project. Find one two or even three projects that strike a chord with you and make a pledge to support the research. Your support can be for as little as $1.00 or as much as you can give.

It is time that we take some personal control of the research that is going to help us beat this beast, prostate cancer. Become a sponsor of break through research. Let the researchers know that we appreciate the work they do and their commitment to finding a cure for us.

Go to www.startacure.com and speak loudly. Join me in directing research that moves us closer to the cure for prostate cancer.

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