Maybe things are poised to bring about some changes in funding for prostate cancer research. President Elect Obama’s administration does offer the potential of increasing funding for prostate cancer research. During the campaign, he made many statements about increasing healthcare. Obama’s maternal grandfather was a prostate cancer survivor and our new Vice-President Elect Biden’s son, Hunter, is a board member of Project Zero.

Despite these connections, we will have to work hard and long to see the funding increases we so desperately need. It is going to take letter writing, emails and a constant barrage of telephone calls to the White House and to our congressional representatives if we hope to have these connections pay off and bring us additional funding. Additionally, we are going to need to meet with our representatives on a regular basis to let them know how we feel about increasing the funding for prostate cancer.

Project Zero has set as a goal increasing the DOD prostate cancer fund by $20 million in 2009. I am in total support of this goal. Repeatedly, I will be contacting my members to let them know how I feel. I will be contacting my family and my friends and ask that they too let their members know that we want an increase of $20 million in 2009 for prostate cancer research.

There is no better time than now. We need to seize the opportunity and let our new government know how we feel; we want additional funding for research into prostate cancer.

The first thing you can do is go to the national petition to fight prostate cancer and sign it. Then have your spouse, partner, friends, co-workers and family sign the petition.

Joel T Nowak, MA, MSW