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Advocacy Action Team, Making Our Voices Heard
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Not a blue, blue Christmas December 2008 |
Greetings!
What an exciting time of year! If you listen carefully amidst the ho-ho-ho's, jingle bells and holiday greetings you can hear an excited buzz. "The changing of the guard;" a new administration and a new congress are busy setting their agendas.
As you know, access to quality health care has been the number one priority of Linda Creed and the National Breast Cancer Coalition for many years. We have recognized and focused on this growing need in every visit we have made to our elected officials. The sense of excitement from hearing our newly elected officials' goal of finding a plan that will finally address this need is overwhelming. With promises of increased research funding and the focus on healthcare for next year, we are already celebrating.
Pennsylvania will be saying goodbye to two congressmen: Representative Phillip English, who was a strong supporter; and Representative John Peterson, who is retiring. We wish them and all of their staff the very best in all future endeavors.
We will be welcoming two new members of congress next month. We want to congratulate Mr. Glenn Thompson, R, 5th District and Mrs. Kathy Dahlkemper, D, 3rd District. We hope to bring you their statements on breast cancer early next year.
Every year at this time you listen to nightly news blurbs about the latest and greatest in breast cancer treatment. This information comes from the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. There are some very informative blogs from Musa Mayer and Kevin Begos available about this conference at CR, the consumer magazine from AACR. Another view of the conference is provided by Oncology STAT. Many of the findings presented received funding that you made possible.
One of our advocates, Linda Camerota, attended for the first time. She was amazed at the number of sessions and poster presentations. They covered every topic imagineable and some will no doubt spur further research. She also felt that it was good for breast cancer (and medicine in general) that opposing views were discussed and studied.
"Being in the same rooms with so many dedicated and talented doctors, scientists and advocates was inspiring," said Linda. "It gives me great confidence that major advances in the fight against breast cancer will come from their efforts".
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Many thanks for all you have done this past year. May your holidays be happy and healthy.
until next time.... |
