By By JUDY PYLATE
Relay For Life
Each year, those of us involved in the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life are asked about the money that's raised. Where does it go? How is it used? And n in so many words n how does it benefit me and my family?
Maybe the following information will help answer some of those questions.
Cancer research is saving lives in this community, as it does in all communities. The five-year survival rate for people who are diagnosed with cancer has doubled since cancer research became a national priority in the 1940s. In 1990, both the death rate from cancer and the new case rate of cancer began to decline for the first time in history. This would not have been possible without research supported by the American Cancer Society.
Research is not conducted in a lab at the national office. More than 85 percent of the research expenditures goes to support researchers and health professionals all across the country.
The grant applications to be funded are selected through a two-level review by committees of nationwide volunteer experts, including two "stakeholders," non-scientists with a personal experience with cancer. Only the very best science with the very best hope of curing or preventing cancer is funded.
Ten percent of the national research expenditures goes towards research studies done by National Home Office ACS epidemiologists and behavioral researchers; however, the participants in these studies are grass roots, community volunteers. Moreover, the results of the studies will benefit everyone in determining risk factors for cancer, lifestyle choices to prevent cancer, and how to meet the needs of cancer survivors, particularly survivors from diverse populations.
Ninety-five percent of the research expenditures goes directly for research n 85 percent for nationwide grants and 10 percent for in-house research using volunteers all across the country
Research results have no geographic boundaries.
Did you know:
a child who has been cured of leukemia?
a man whose prostate cancer was caught early with the PSA test?
a breast cancer survivor who had a lumpectomy or was treated with tamoxifen?
women who have annual Pap tests and mammograms?
someone who was treated with for colon cancer with 5-FU?
anyone who quit smoking because they knew it caused lung cancer?
Then you know someone who has benefited from ACS research.
Researchers build on the work of those who have gone before. The final "breakthroughs" are never possible without the years of painstaking and often seemingly irrelevant basic research carried out by others throughout the world.
We need more funds for research. Only one out of five excellent projects is funded. What about the other four? One of them may hold the cure for one of our loved ones or friends.