My wife, Deborah, and I are in Washington D.C. for PanCan National Advocacy Day, June 22nd 2010. Today we learned how to become lobbyists to advocate for helping to solve the problem of Pancreatic Cancer. Tomorrow, almost 500 of us will head to Capitol Hill to meet with our senators and congressmen to ask two things. First, that they co-sponsor the (House or Senate) bill in support of Pancreatic Cancer and second to increase funding for Pancreatic Cancer research.
Pancreatic cancer is the only one of the top 10 cancer killers with a 5-year survival rate in the single digits (6%).
There are currently no early detection tools or effective treatments.
[Update]
We all went visiting the senators and congressmen and visited with their health liaisons to discuss their co-signing the bills (or thank them if they already did) as well as letting them know we want them to increase the Pancreatic Cancer funding level.
Weather was wonderful and we made all our appointments. In some cases, it was simply to drop off the packets of information for the congressmen of other districts.