Idaho representatives need to support bill

It is unacceptable in this day and age that there is a cancer for which the relative five-year survival rate is still in the single digits at just six percent. It is particularly unacceptable when you consider that the overall five-year relative survival for all cancers is now 67 percent and the overall cancer incidence and death rates are declining, while the incidence and death rates for pancreatic cancer, the nation’s fourth leading cause of cancer-related death, are increasing. This situation cannot be allowed to continue.

Congress has the power to change these statistics by passing the Pancreatic Cancer Research & Education Act (S 362/HR 733), which will ensure that the National Cancer Institute develops a long-term comprehensive strategic research plan. The bill has overwhelming bipartisan support, including nearly half of the Senate and more than half of the house.

Unfortunately, our congressmen have yet to sponsor this important bill, although Sen. Mike Crapo, in particular, has sponsored similar legislation in the past.

Please join me on June 26 for a National Call-In to ask Sens. Crapo and Jim Risch and Rep. Raul Labrador to pass the Pancreatic Cancer Research & Education Act. Go to www.knowitfightitendit.org to learn more.

In 2009, I lost my beloved husband to pancreatic cancer, and I know many of you have lost loved ones to this disease as well. Please call to support passage of the Pancreatic Cancer Research & Education Act, so that thousands more will not pass away.

TERRI CAPOZZO

Hayden