It is over 7 months since the FDA denied the Provenge Biologics License Application for Prostate Cancer. Last week John Fish, suffering from late stage prostate cancer, was admitted to a hospice without ever having been given the opportunity to receive this immunotherapy to try to strengthen his body to fight for his life. John has however, joined with CareToLive and hopefully although it may be too late for him, he and his wife Marlilyn have courageously stood toe to toe with us, along with many of our other members with prostate cancer, to try to make this treatment available for the rest of the 30,000 men who will surely die this year without it.

Finally! Thanks to the efforts of CareToLive, a non profit, led by attorney Kerry Donahue, and Scott Riccio of ARightToLive, and the many, many members and supporters of CareToLive and Provenge, an immunotherapy voted overwhelmingly safe and effective by an FDA panel of experts to approve this treatment for prostate cancer, and then denied without adequate explanation by the FDA, three of our congressmen, Mike Michaud of Maine, Dan Burton of Indiana, and Tim Ryan of Ohio are asking for a congressional hearing into what happened. We must continue to be vigilant and to contact our representatives in the Congress to keep the pressure on, and to demand a congressional hearing.

CONGRESSIONAL LETTER ASKING FOR A HEARING  PDF (click here) Please fax this letter to your own congressional representatives and ask them to join this action. TIA

An Easy Way To Contact Your Elected Officials - (click here) EVERY VOICE COUNTS!

This is a grassroots movement. We need EVERYBODY’S help. See you at the hearings!

Please visit our website and read our blogs to learn about the 3 “leaked” letters and so much more, whereby 2 of the naysayers who had severe conflicts of interest, and another cohort conspired with some insiders at the top of the FDA to derail Provenge. One of the “leakers” was the lead chair for a competitor and did not disclose that information, as well as denying it on videotape, or that he was a scientific advisor for Proquest Investments, which invests heavily in the prostate cancer arena. This is just the tip of the iceberg. CareToLive, a not for profit corporation, came into being after being outraged at the corrupt decision, and filed lawsuits against the FDA commissioner Andrew Von Eschenbach, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Levitt, Dr. Richard Pazdur of the FDA’s CDER division and Dr. Howard I. Scher, special government employee to the FDA.

An Easy Way To Contact Your Elected Officials - (click here)

Here are the members of the subcommittee that would take up the investigation.
Please give them a call and urge them to hold hearings into what went wrong. (click here)
Phone: (202) 225-2927

Provenge is an immunotherapy that harvests the bodies healthy cells and retrains them to fight off the cancer like your cells did when your immune system was strong. This differs from chemotherapy and radiation which kills off one’s healthy cells indiscriminately along with the cancerous cells.

Congressional Subcommittee on Health

Phone: (202) 225-2927

Frank Pallone, Jr., NJ, Chairman
Nathan Deal, GA, Ranking Member
Henry A. Waxman, CA
Ralph M. Hall, TX
Edolphus Towns, NY
Barbara Cubin, WY
Bart Gordon, TN
Heather Wilson, NM
Anna Eshoo, CA
John B. Shadegg, AZ
Gene Green, TX, Vice Chair
Steve Buyer, IN
Diana DeGette, CO
Joseph R. Pitts, PA
Lois Capps, CA
Mike Ferguson, NJ
Tom Allen, ME
Mike Rogers, MI
Tammy Baldwin, WI
Sue Myrick, NC
Eliot L. Engel, NY
John Sullivan, OK
Jan Schakowsky, IL
Tim Murphy, PA
Hilda L. Solis, CA
Michael C. Burgess, TX
Mike Ross, AR
Marsha Blackburn, TN
Darlene Hooley, OR
Joe Barton, TX (Ex Officio)
Anthony D. Weiner, NY
Jim Matheson, UT
John D. Dingell (Ex Officio)

These are the members of the subcommittee that would take up investigation.

Please give them a call too (click here)

THANKS TO ALL FOR YOUR HELP!!

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Tags: Andrew Von Eschenbach, Attorney Kerry Donahue, Care To Live, CareToLive, congressional hearing, Dan Burton, Dendreon, FDA, Frank Pallone, Hoe Barton, Howard Scher, Jim Cramer, John Dingell, John Fish, Leaked Letters, maha hussain, Mike Levitt, Mike Michaud, Nathan Deal, Proquest Investments, Prostate Cancer, provenge, Richard Pazdur, Scott Riccio, Tim Ryan

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 13th, 2007 at 12:45 pm and is filed under The Cause, The Dysfunctional FDA, The Lawsuit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.