Crapo Asks Fellow Senators To â??Join The Fight Against Prostate Cancerâ??

Washington, D.C. â?? Idaho Senator Mike Crapo hopes that increased prostate cancer research funding will help to find a cure for a disease that is affecting an alarming proportion of American men. He expressed his support for the Department of Defenseâ??s Prostate Cancer Research Program (PCRP) in a letter sent today to the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, the group charged with determining funding levels for the program. The bi-partisan letter cited the large numbers of men affected by prostate cancer to argue for $100 million in PCRP funding for FY 2005. â??This year, an estimated 230,110 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer and nearly 29, 900 men will die from the disease,â?? Crapo wrote in the letter. â??Prostate cancer is the most diagnosed non-skin cancer in America and the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men. While progress is being made, there is still a long way to go. Promising compounds and treatments for prostate cancer await the critical funding of clinical human trials to move them from the scientific bench to the patientâ??s bedside.â??The PCRP is widely recognized as the gold standard in prostate cancer research. The program awards grants when unique opportunities present themselves that fall beyond the reach of broad programs managed by other federal agencies. Notable discoveries of the PCRP include Herpecin which was found to increase survivorship of breast cancer by as much as one-third when used with chemotherapy. This year, the program will also act as co-convener of the Prostate Cancer Research Funders Conference. The Conference brings together all of the government agencies which perform prostate cancer research with their counterparts from the private sector in an effort to stimulate a collaborative approach to prostate cancer research. Crapo was diagnosed with and treated for prostate cancer in January of 2000, and has since become a strong advocate for prostate cancer research and early detection. He is in his fourth year of sponsoring the Mike Crapo Health Awareness Booths at local fairs in Idaho where hundreds of early detection tests for prostate cancer have been performed for free or at a reduced cost.# # #