There is some good news; the New York State Legislature has passed the Oral Chemotherapy Equity Bill. However, before this bill can become law we have to have Governor Cuomo sign it, we need all of our New York Residents to contact the governor and ask that he signs it. […]
My recent Letter to the Editor of the New York Times in response to the Op-Ed piece decrying the cost of cancer treatments: Your recent editorial about the high cost of cancer drugs missed a number of very significant points which must be considered. Yes, newly developed cancer drugs are expensive, but when treatments like [...]
We dodged a bullet… for now! I’m pleased to report that the House just approved the FY12 DoD Appropriations Bill by a vote of 331-83. No amendments were offered to reduce or eliminate CDMRP (the Department of Defense Medical Research Program) funding. At this time we have managed to maintain the funding for the Prostate [...]
Yesterday there was an amendment passed on the House floor to restore the Prostate Cancer Research Program's 2012 funding to $80 million. The Department of Defense (DoD) Appropriations Bill (H.R. 2219) originally was slated to allocate only $64 million to the Prostate Cancer Research Program (PCRP), a 20% reduction from last year’s funding. Restoring these [...]
Yesterday Dendreon, the producers of Provenge, received word from the FDA that their plant in California had been approved to manufacture Provenge. This afternoon they received a positive response from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that a final National Coverage Decision (NCD) for Provenge has been issued requiring Medicare contractors to cover [...]
Today’s New York Times carried a front page article about the high cost of the new prostate cancer treatments. This article seems to be the talk of the town and the talk (based on the comments that have been entered on-line) has been anything but positive. Unfortunately, many of the comments have made with the [...]
The Naval Fleet Reserve Association recently provided the following information regarding updates of the Veterans Administration list of vessels exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam conflict. This will include many more veterans eligible for VA care for the many diseases attributed to this product. […]
YOUR DEADLINE: WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 2011 On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10:00 a.m. for Morning Hour debate and 12:00 p.m. for legislative business. H.R. 2219, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2012 (Rep. Young (FL) - Appropriations), has been placed on the House calendar for then. As part of H.R. 2219 [...]
From Anthony Hardie, Madison, Wis. All: I've just gone through the full Defense Committee bill (before yesterday's markup) and the corresponding report language on the various CDMRP programs. The results are below. FY12 Defense Appropriations -- Full Committee Bill (before yesterday's markup): 1. Several programs would not be funded at all: most notably the sort [...]
The new federal health care reform’s goal is to create a situation where all Americans will have health insurance, a goal that I support 100%. One of the problems that the regulations actually create is the simple fact they further empower the health insurance companies, not patients. We all have found out that much of [...]
