How to contact your Congressional Representative and provide information to ask for him/her to send a letter to Congress to join with the 3 Representative who are calling for a hearing. At bottom is how to locate the phone, fax and email addresses of your Representative. This information is also on the CTL Ways To Help page.

Call your Representative and thank them for taking your call. Ask for the Health Staffer. Make sure you get their name. Remember to thank them at the end and to tell them you will follow up. It is best to contact the Health Staffer at your Representative’s Washington office for the most clout. (see below for contact info)

Tell them that Congressmen Mike Michaud (D-Maine), Dan Burton (R-Ind.) and Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) and several other Congressmen sent a letter to Congressman John Dingell requesting hearings to look into the role that conflicts of interest played in the FDA determination not to approve a safe and effective late stage prostate cancer treatment.

Tell them CaretoLive (direct them to the CareToLive website http://www.caretolive.com), are joined by A Right To Live http://ARightToLive.com, the Cancer Cure Coalition, Ustoo, Abigail Alliance, Prostate Health education network (PHEN) and others in support of the hearings.

Go to CareToLive website Ways To Help
http://caretolive.com/ways-to-help/

CONGRESSIONAL LETTER ASKING FOR A HEARING
http://caretolive.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/
congressional-hearing-letter1.pdf

Fax, email or snail mail the letter to your own Congressional Representative and ask them to join this action. Here are other documents you may send or compile your own list. There are additional articles on the Articles page and the Research page and About Us page etc.
Articles Page http://caretolive.com/articles
Research Page http://caretolive.com/research
About Us Page http://caretolive.com/about-us

Nature Biotechnology The regulator disapproves
http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v26/n1/full/nbt0108-1.html

THE ROAD TO PROVENGE APPROVAL by Thomas A. Farrington President and Founder PHEN Prostate Health Education Network
http://www.prostatehealthed.org/phen_Detail.php?News=673

Petition for the FDA to Reconsider the Failure to Approve Provenge filed 7/27/07 Docket # 2007P-0297
http://caretolive.com/caretolivepetition.pdf

Robbing Cancer Patients of Hope by Dr. Chuck Bennett 1/26/ 2007
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2007/dec/26/na-robbing-cancer-patients-of-hope/
?news-opinion-commentary

Three Lawmakers Give Terminal Cancer Patients Early Xmas Gift by Evelyn Pringle’s
http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/articles/01723/provenge-fda.html

Flowchart showing The FDA Decision on Provenge: Who’s Who and Who’s Connected
http://caretolive.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/players_provenge_v2.pdf

FAQS

Tell them you are an advocate for late stage prostate cancer.

30,000 American men will die of prostate cancer this year. Since the delay over 8 months ago, more than 22,000 men have died without the option of Provenge.

1 in every 6 men will get prostate cancer in their lifetime.

Each year over 218,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer.

96,000 men will progress to late stage or Androgen Independent prostate cancer (AIPC).

Only one drug has been approved which showed some survival benefits in the treatment of late stage androgen independent prostate cancer in over 42 years ago. It is so toxic and disruptive that most men refuse it.

The Dendreon Corporation has created a treatment called Provenge, an immunotherapy, that has shown it increases survival. The FDA saw the survival, granted Provenge Fast-Track Status, and then called together a panel of 17 experts to advise them on whether Provenge should be approved. The panel did indeed advise them.

By a vote of 17-0 the panel told them that Provenge is safe. By a vote of 13-4 the panel told them that Provenge shows substantial evidence of efficacy. The FDA decided to go against the panel of experts and delayed approval, an unprecedented act given that there are no viable alternatives in a treatment that was voted so overwhelmingly positive which showed survival benefits.
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HOW TO FIND YOUR REPRESENTATIVE

Contact Your Elected Officials

by Zip Code: http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/index.html
by State: http://www.conservativeusa.org/mega-cong.htm

This page will have all of your Congressman’s contact info including his Washington office. Type in their name and then scroll down for contact info.
http://www.congresspedia.com

Call your Rep and ask for their Congressional Health Staffer.

Follow with emails and faxes.

If you can visit their office.

Ask them to join this action requesting a Congressional Hearing. Speak to the health staffer. Don’t take silence for an answer. Be persistent until your Representative commits to support this action. Ask for a reply. If not, WHY NOT! Keep at it. They work for you. We pay their salaries. Sometimes it takes 2, 3 for 4 emails, faxes, calls.

If this does not work contact your Representatives Chief of Staff. Copy the Chief of Staff on a follow up email to the staffer. To find the email address of the Chief of Staff, go to this website

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home
After clicking on your Representatives name, click on staff members below your rep’s picture. The screen will have the Chief of staff’s name listed.

To email him/her enter:
name dot last name@mail.house.gov.
Example: Denzel.Washington@mail.house.gov

If all else fails email me, rk@CareToLive.com with your name, your Reps name, their Health Staffers name and their phone number and we will contact them to try to get them on board.

EVERYBODY PLEASE MAKE A NOISE!!

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Click and send an online form to Representative Dingell, Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce in charge of the Committe on Health asking them to hold hearings.
http://energycommerce.house.gov/membios/contact_form.shtml

Here are the members of the Subcommittee on Health that would take up the investigation. Frank Pallone is Chairman.
You may also fax them at 202-225-2525.
http://energycommerce.house.gov/Subcommittees/health.shtml

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Here is our Citizens’ Petition with the FDA for them to Reconsider the Failure to Approve Provenge filed 7/27/07
http://caretolive.com/caretolivepetition.pdf

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Become A CareToLive Member
http://caretolive.com/join-us/

Donate to the cause!

http://caretolive.com/donations/

Thanks For Your Help!

Popularity: 34%

DUBLIN, OHIO, November 25, 2007 /CTL/ — CareToLive, a not for profit corporation, received a set back in a lower Federal Court last Wednesday in its fight against the FDA on behalf of terminal cancer patients. Undeterred, they announced that they will immediately file an appeal in the 6th Circuit Court in Ohio.

“Men are dying while a safe, effective treatment languishes outside of their grasp,” said CareToLive spokesperson, Melody Davis. “Congress needs to wake up and hold hearings immediately! We are going to intensify our advocacy efforts on behalf of cancer patients. We feel the real reasons for the delay were financial and political conflicts. The FDA continues to ignore the cries of the 30,000 men dying of prostate cancer each year in the United States alone, and refuses to protect their health and well being as they are sworn to do.”

Continue Reading The FDA Fiddles While 30,000 Men Burn »

Popularity: 50%

House Signon Letter for Provenge Hearings

The time is now, the need is great. The attached letter is now available and will be circulated to interested members of the House for their support. Kudos to Congressman Michaud and his staffer for working through this, for caring about the needs of their constituents, and for taking action to protect the patients in need. These issues demand public hearings in Congress and Congressman Michaud and his staff are helping us ask for them.

As a wise and passionate man once said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but rather, what you can do for your country.”

What you can do is politely but passionately communicate with your elected Representatives in Congress that you would like them to support this letter, ask them to sign on to the call for hearings, and explain that this will help protect their constituents from continued dysfunction at the FDA that is, quite literally, killing them each and every day by denying them access to promising and potentially life-saving new therapies. They are being denied the true promise of accelerated approvals that was legislated for them by Congress and passed ten full years ago. Congress needs to right that wrong NOW.

Continue Reading The Time is NOW! »

Popularity: 86%