FitSugar

Parents Agree to Chemotherapy for 13-year old

stephley — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:09:56 -0700

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_forced_chemo

NEW ULM, Minn. – The parents of a Minnesota boy who refused chemotherapy for his cancer told a judge Tuesday they now agree to the medical treatment, and the judge ruled their son can stay with them. Daniel Hauser, 13, has Hodgkin's lymphoma.

He and his mother missed a court appearance last week and left the state to avoid chemotherapy and seek alternative treatments. Colleen and Anthony Hauser told a Brown County District judge they now understand their son needs chemotherapy.

When Judge John Rodenberg asked an emotional Colleen Hauser if she now believes chemotherapy is necessary to save her son's life, she replied, "Yes I do."

Daniel is scheduled for a round of chemotherapy on Thursday at Children's Hospital and Clinics of Minnesota.

Daniel and Colleen returned to Minnesota on Monday after almost a week on the run. Dr. James Joyce evaluated Daniel at the family's home in Sleepy Eye, and then made an appointment for Daniel to see an oncologist.

That exam showed a tumor in Daniel's chest has grown - and is larger than it was when he was diagnosed in January, according to a medical report read in court by Rodenberg. The tumor is pushing against Daniel's trachea, causing pain that Daniel rated as a 10 on a scale of one to 10.

My friend needs chemotherapy ... what can I do to support him during this tough time?

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 04:43:55 -0800

A close family friend of mine has had a long battle with prostate cancer and is now beginning chemo. Although he has had cancer for several years now, his health has begun to rapidly deterioriate in the past months and we're all worried about him. Of course, when we visit, I make sure to stay strong and positive but it's really difficult once we leave the hospital. He has been understandably down recently since the most recent tests he's had done haven't had the most positive results. Often, I'm not really sure what to do or say when I see him. Have you or anyone you know ever been through chemotherapy? I know it's terrible and tough - I just want to know what's the best way for me to provide support for my friend. Did you want visitors or not? If there was one thing that anyone could have done for you (or did), what would it be? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Last Day Of Chemo!

tammera — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 11:28:38 -0800

My grandaughter (Sammy age 3) anxiously waiting for her oncologist to arrive after her last chemo treatment. Sammy has been fighting High Risk A.L.L. Leukemia for 2 years. Today (Valentine's Day) she left with her family to go to Disney World through a gift from The Make A Wish Foundation.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg diagnosed with cancer

liliblu — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 10:40:15 -0800

Updated 1:19 p.m.By Ben PershingNew Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D) has cancer and will begin receiving chemotherapy to treat it, his office announced Friday.
"After several days of hospitalization and testing, Senator Lautenberg's doctors have diagnosed that he has a B-Cell Lymphoma of the stomach," his office said in a statement. "This is a curable tumor, and will require treatment over the next few months."
Lautenberg's treatment means he will not be on hand Monday for a key procedural vote on the Senate, on Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) $15 billion jobs bill, Lautenberg's office confirmed.

B-cell lymphoma is more commonly known as non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of cancer that starts in the body's lymphatic system, according to the American Cancer Society.
The statement from Lautenberg's office added that he is being treated by James F. Holland and Martin Goldman of Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, and included a comment from Holland on his prognosis: "We expect a full and complete recovery for Senator Lautenberg. The Senator will be treated with chemotherapy administered approximately every three weeks. We anticipate that he will receive between six and eight treatments, and in between treatments, the Senator is expected to be back at work in the Senate."
Lautenberg was hospitalized Monday after falling in his Cliffside Park, N.J., home, and underwent surgery Tuesday for what was thought then to be a bleeding ulcer. At 86, Lautenberg is the second-oldest senator currently serving, behind only Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.).
Senate Democratic leaders will now have to consider Lautenberg's condition and his treatment schedule when they slot important bills for floor consideration. The party now has 59 votes, meaning that Democrats need all of their members present plus at least one Republican to invoke cloture.
Other lawmakers receiving cancer diagnoses have tried to balance their official duties with their treatments, with varying degrees of success, depending on the severity of their condition.Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) underwent chemotherapy in 2005 and again in 2008 for a different kind of lymphoma and brain cancer. He missed very little time in the Senate as a result. The late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), by contrast, returned to the Senate for only a few votes after being diagnosed with brain cancer.
Lautenberg served in the Senate from 1983 to 2001, and then returned to the chamber after replacing scandal-plagued Sen. Robert Torricelli (D) on the 2002 ballot. Lautenberg was reelected in 2008 and has said he plans to run again in 2014."This doesn't change any of that," Lautenberg aide Dan Katz told the Newark Star-Ledger following Lautenberg's diagnosis. "After he receives his treatment, back to normal."
If Lautenberg is forced to leave office, his interim successor would be appointed by Republican Gov. Chris Christie, who captured the statehouse in November following a high-profile contest. Before Christie was sworn in and mindful of Lautenberg's age, Democrats in the New Jersey legislature tried to take away a governor's power to appoint replacements, but their effort failed.

By Ben Pershing | February 19, 2010; 12:20 PM ET
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/02/lautenberg-has-stomach-cancer.html?hpid=topnews

Was Toxic Water Making Lejeune Families Sick?

stephley — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:36:34 -0800

WASHINGTON - Paul Akers was in his oncologist's office last summer when his adult daughter handed him a magazine.

He saw a half-page ad from the Marine Corps, alerting former residents of Camp Lejeune, N.C., that if they lived on the base between 1957 and 1987, they might have been exposed to contaminated water.

Akers thought about his mother, the wife of a Marine, who died in 1960.

He remembered his little sister, whom he called Penny. She died of cancer in June at 61. She'd been diagnosed last spring, when she went in to be tested as a bone marrow match for her ailing brother. She was dead within a month.

Akers thought, too, of his own struggle, undergoing chemotherapy for non-Hodgkins' lymphoma.

"You can see why I'm angry at the military," Akers told McClatchy.

Akers, 64, lived on base for years as a young child, building forts among the pine trees and splashing in a plastic kiddie pool with his little sister, cooling off in the sweltering Carolina summers.

The water, it turned out, was poisonous.

Although that was discovered a quarter-century ago, neither Akers nor his sister had known that residents of Camp Lejeune drank contaminated well water for decades. The Marines have registered thousands of people across the country who say they've been plagued by illnesses related to the toxic water, but the Department of the Navy, which includes the Marine Corps, still refuses to pay for a $1.6 million study into the deaths of former residents of Camp Lejeune.

"We ate food cooked in the water. We drank the water. We bathed in the water," said Akers, now a primary care doctor in Columbia, S.C. "Everything we did, we did in the water."

Some estimates are that over a 30-year period, as many as 1 million people were exposed to well water that contained trichloroethylene (TCE), tetrachloroethylene (PCE), benzene and vinyl chloride. The chemicals were dumped into storm drains, leaked from fuel tanks or buried in pits across the base. They seeped through the groundwater and into the wells that fed the base areas of Hadnot Point and Tarawa Terrace.

A 2007 law required the Marine Corps to warn former residents of the potential danger, but many, such as Akers, say they've never been contacted.

Meanwhile, members of Congress have grown increasingly impatient with the Navy Department's refusal to pay for a mortality study. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., has blocked two Navy presidential appointees and vowed to stop every nominee until the department ends its "continued intransigence."

The mortality study is to be done by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, an arm of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that was created to assess the health hazards from environmental Superfund sites.

The study is required by law under Title 42, but Navy Secretary Ray Mabus told Burr last month that because previous research released last summer found no link to the toxic water, the mortality study is unnecessary.

Burr also is pushing legislation that would require the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide health care to family members with illnesses that could be linked to toxins in the Lejeune water.

It's unclear how many people the toxic water may have sickened.

Still, 133,000 former Marines, family members and civilian employees have registered with the Marine Corps as potential victims of the contamination. After North Carolina, the states with the most registrants are Florida and California.

"I want the government to be responsible. I think the term is 'man up,'" Akers said. "(We) got poisoned while they turned their back and looked the other way."

When news of the contamination in water wells on the base was first reported in a base newspaper and then in The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., 25 years ago, officials said the main contaminants were volatile organic solvents, which they blamed, in part, on a nearby dry cleaner.

A year ago, however, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry learned that the water had been contaminated in part with benzene, a component in fuel and a carcinogen.

The finding was so significant that the agency retracted decade-old research because it didn't include the new poison.

Now, newly revealed documents reviewed by McClatchy indicate that the base's fuel storage farm may have had much greater significance than previously known.

In fact, 800,000 gallons of fuel were thought to have been spilled over the years from the fuel farm, close to the main well that serves Hadnot Point, the location of the base's enlisted barracks, some officers' quarters and the base hospital, where Paul Akers' mother volunteered for years.

In a November 1996 meeting among federal, state and base environmental officials, a contractor estimated that 500,000 gallons of the fuel had been recovered, according to a memo documenting the meeting.

"The other 300,000 gallons? I know what happened to it," said Mike Partain of Tallahassee, Fla., who lived at Camp Lejeune as an infant. "We drank it."

Three years ago, Partain was diagnosed with male breast cancer at age 39.

Since then, he's found dozens of other male breast cancer patients across the country - 55 in all - with connections to Camp Lejeune. Some of the men have died.

Male breast cancer is so rare - fewer than 2,000 men are diagnosed each year - that Partain's findings have raised questions among some epidemiologists.

The Marine Corps says that science has yet to show a link between Camp Lejeune's water and families' illnesses. A report by the National Research Council released last summer found no definitive cause.

Burr and Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., along with numerous scientists, question those results.

Documents reviewed by McClatchy indicate that there were repeated warnings about the poisonous water before the wells were shut down in late 1984.

Capt. Brian Block, a Marine spokesman, said officials at Lejeune spent several years testing the water to find the source of the contamination before tracing it to the affected wells - which were then immediately shut down.

Akers, the doctor who lost his sister in June, said he's still angry at the Marines.

It was too late for his mother, Akers said. However, had he and his sister known a decade ago that they drank and bathed in toxic water and were at risk, they would have paid attention.

"There are things that could be done if you know about it," Akers said.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/washington/story/84454.html

Christina Applegate Is Ready to Fight

FitSugar — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 04:30:42 -0800

When the new guidelines for breast exams came out late last year, I admit that I was surprised. They were announced just as National Breast Cancer Awareness month was ending: women in their 40s should no longer have annual mammograms, and women between the ages of 50-74 should have one exam every other year. The United States Preventive Services Task Force also recommended that doctors stop teaching women how to examine their own breasts.

The panel defended its choice by stating that the harm of early testing far outweighs the benefit. The research it looked over indicated that mammograms produce false-positive results in about 10 of cases, which leads to more tests, anxiety, and unneeded treatments like chemotherapy, radiation, or surgery. According to the study, early screening did little to prevent breast-cancer-related deaths or mastectomies in younger women.

To hear what breast cancer survivor and actress Christina Applegate thinks of the new testing guidelines, read more.

It wasn't surprising that this announcement sparked a huge debate on both sides. The American Cancer Society vehemently opposes the new guidelines and says that routine mammograms are key in detecting early cancer and preventing mastectomies and breast-cancer-related deaths.

Recently Christina Applegate added to the debate, saying this about the issue:

"Don't even get me started. Look, I just started to sweat. I get a little angry. I don't mind being outspoken about that. I think that is the most atrocious thing that I've ever heard. I was 36 years old when I had breast cancer, and you're going to have people wait until like their 50 to get screened? It irks my whole body. I'm telling you it's not going to happen. We women will fight against that as much as we can."

It's clear that this debate will continue to pick up steam on both sides - it will also be interesting to see if these new guidelines change current health insurance policies. How do you feel about the new testing guidelines? Are you as upset as Christina? Share your thoughts with me in the comments section below.

Christina Applegate Is Ready to Fight

FitSugar — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 04:30:42 -0800

To hear what breast cancer survivor and actress Christina Applegate thinks of the new testing guidelines, read more.

Recently Christina Applegate added to the debate, saying this about the issue:

"Don't even get me started. Look, I just started to sweat. I get a little angry. I don't mind being outspoken about that. I think that is the most atrocious thing that I've ever heard. I was 36 years old when I had breast cancer, and you're going to have people wait until like their 50 to get screened? It irks my whole body. I'm telling you it's not going to happen. We women will fight against that as much as we can."

Dancing with other girls

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:48:48 -0800

So my boyfriend and I have been together for two years now, we've been through a lot of stuff together, he stuck it out with me when I went thru chemotherapy and that was during our senior year of high school , so we have a lot of things we've already went through a lot as a young couple but have overcome major obstacles. but.....
The other day I was on Facebook and I was looking at his brothers facebook and saw tagged pictures of my BF , freak dancing with other girls, this shocked me because everytime my friends have ever seen him at a party he's nowhere near any girls... it was just hurtful to see, I confronted him about how he would feel if i danced with other guys he said it's fine as long as he's not there, and they don't touch "inappropriate" places and no kissing obviously. We had never set up clear boundries around this because I just assumed he wouldn't be doing that
I asked my male cousin & a female friend and they have the same mindset on the whole "dancing issue" idk if I should make an issue out of it , or if its really not that serious , what do you guys think? What's your stance in your relationships?

Insurance Company: No arm for 12-year-old Boy

spacekatgal — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:31:52 -0800

Benjamin French was born with his right arm missing below the elbow. In his 12 years, he has been fitted with seven prostheses. His most recent replacement will cost nearly $30,000 and his doctor says he will soon grow out of it.
But, according to his insurance company, the boy is ineligible for further coverage of prosthetic devices because he has already spent his lifetime maximum benefit.
Benjamin's family happens to live in Michigan, one of 33 states where insurance companies are allowed to set annual and lifetime caps on prosthetic coverage. The family's policy with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan covers a maximum of $30,000 per lifetime for prosthetics, plus $1,000 per year for repairs. In states such as Colorado and Maryland, the law says there can be no such cap on prosthetics.
"It seems really unfair," said Benjamin's mother, Kristen French. "The insurance company can do this in one state, but not in another? It's ridiculous."
The French family represents one small part of a health care system rife with inequities and inconsistencies: Some people have insurance, some do not. [Clarification Nov. 17, 2009: Original language implied Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan is a for-profit insurer; it is nonprofit.] For those who are insured, individual policies operate under different rules than group policies. Each insurance company and every individual policy has different requirements, exclusions, and benefits.
And, as in the case of Benjamin French -- people with nearly identical health problems may have vastly different experiences with their private health insurance companies depending on their state of residence. Another example of the inequity: If Benjamin's family were poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, most if not all of the cost of his new arm would be covered.
The French's case emerged from the Huffington Post Investigative Fund's citizen journalism project, which is calling on readers to help provide information, data and anecdotes about the inner workings of the insurance industry. One common theme among the responses is the wide variation in state rules.
States hold the primary regulatory authority over health insurance and each has different laws governing which benefits must be offered to its residents. Some of the state rules deal with major health issues and sometimes - as happened with treatment for mental illness - they have prompted insurers to expand coverage nationwide. Some states have adopted mandates for more specialized coverage, including the removal of birthmarks and varicose veins. Arkansas, Georgia and Vermont even require insurers to pay for personal trainers for people who need to lose weight for health reasons.
When a state lacks a mandate for a specific benefit, that doesn't necessarily mean insurance companies won't cover it anyway. For example, a handful of states do not require insurers to provide coverage for chemotherapy or treatment for Alzheimer's disease - though that coverage is common in many insurance plans. Fourteen states do not require insurers to cover prostate cancer screening, though many plans may offer the benefit anyway.
Prosthetics is one area where the lack of a mandate seems to cause problems for many patients.
Within this decade, 17 states have passed laws requiring that insurers pay for prosthetics on par with federal programs such as Medicaid, but in the other 33 states, insurers do not have to offer coverage for prosthetic devices and also can set annual or lifetime caps on coverage. These caps on prosthetics are similar to the caps on mental health coverage that were recently made illegal by a federal mental-health parity law, scheduled to go into effect in January.
"These rules are illogical and arbitrary," said Kimberly Hoyt, a specialist in Denver, Colo., who designs and fits prosthetic limbs. "You have to be an investigative reporter to figure out which states have parity laws and which states don't." Since Colorado became the first state to pass prosthetic parity legislation in 2001, Hoyt said, she has seen fewer denials overall for prosthetic limbs, but gets frustrated when she sees patients, such as college students, who cannot get coverage because they are insured in states with looser rules.
According to a Web survey conducted by the Amputee Coalition of America, amputees reported a wide variety of caps placed on their personal prosthetic coverage. Some said their insurance would pay no more than $1,000 per year. Some reported lifetime limits as low as $7,000. Many said their insurance would cover the cost of one prosthesis per lifetime, with no coverage for replacements or repairs. By comparison, Benjamin French's lifetime cap of $30,000 seems generous.
But French said her son's new arm will cost more than half of the family's combined income. The couple has four children. Her husband, William French, was laid off from his job at DHL delivery in February. He just started a new job with a salary of about $30,000. Kristen French works part-time at Sam's Club, where she expects to make about $12,000. The family has long had health insurance through their union affiliation.
Having to change her son's prosthetic is like "buying a brand new car every two years," French said.
A spokesman for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan said the insurance company could not comment on individual cases.
Health care legislation pending in Congress could lead to some increased national consistency in insurance plans, but none of the bills would remove the right of states to require different types of coverage.
Insurance companies generally oppose state mandates, saying such rules complicate policies rather than help consumers. "I'm not going to talk about any one mandate specifically. There are already too many on the books," said Susan Pisano, spokeswoman for the health insurance industry's largest trade group, America's Health Insurance Plans. "Too often the responsibility for this issue is laid at the doorstep of the insurance companies, when it needs to be shared with consumers, employers, and health care providers."
Others say the mandates force insurers to offer more comprehensive coverage. "Insurers try to argue that some of these mandates are absurd, but I think it's telling that there are some states that don't offer, for example, maternity coverage," said Edwin Park, a health insurance analyst at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, which focuses on programs and policy that affect low and moderate-income families. "It depends on the state, but it can be a crapshoot."
Both the health care reform bills in the House and Senate have provisions that would push the states toward more uniform insurance laws, but health care would still remain patchwork from state-to-state. Both bills would identify at the federal level a minimum amount of essential benefits, but states could legislate stronger mandate laws.
The Senate Finance Committee's health care bill would also enable insurers to put together nationwide plans. These plans would only have to include benefits mandated by a majority of the states. However, states could decline to offer these plans to their residents if they felt they were inadequate.
But some argue that adding a layer of federal regulations will not make the insurance laws seem any less arbitrary.
"These mandates tend to depend on which political constituency is the most organized and vocal. Some people suggest that federal mandates might be more rational than they are from state to state, but I'd argue that you'd find the same problems or worse problems at the federal level," said Joel Ario, Pennsylvania's insurance commissioner and an official at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.
Ario said that the federal government could play a role in creating minimum standards, but that the states should have the ability to mandate stronger coverage. "We've seen how this has worked in the past with environmental laws, with civil rights laws," he said.

HIV used to halt 2 boys' rare brain disease

bluesarahlou — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:36:29 -0800

WASHINGTON – French scientists mixed gene therapy and bone marrow transplants in two boys to seemingly halt a brain disease that can kill by adolescence. The surprise ingredient: They disabled the HIV virus so it couldn't cause AIDS, and then used it to carry in the healthy new gene.

The experiment marks the first time researchers have tried that long-contemplated step in people - and the first effective gene therapy against a severe brain disease, said lead researcher Dr. Patrick Aubourg of the University Paris-Descartes.

Although it's a small, first-step study, it has "exciting implications" for other blood and immune disorders that had been feared beyond gene therapy's reach, said Dr. Kenneth Cornetta, president of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy.

"This study shows the power of combining gene therapy and cell therapy," added Cornetta, whose own lab at Indiana University has long researched how to safely develop gene delivery using lentiviruses, HIV's family.

The research was published in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

In 20 years of gene therapy research, there have been few home runs and some headline-making setbacks - including a risk of leukemia caused by otherwise successful gene therapy for another rare disorder, "bubble boy disease." That's a risk that specialists hope a lentivirus-based gene therapy will eliminate.

Best known from the movie "Lorenzo's Oil", adrenoleukodystrophy, or ALD, is a rare genetic disease that, in its most devastating form, destroys the coating of nerve fibers in boys' brains. Without that coating, called myelin, the neurological system breaks down. The disease typically strikes between the ages of four and 10, leading to blindness, deafness, dementia and loss of muscle control, and killing them within a few years.

Bone marrow transplants can halt ALD by letting new myelin-forming stem cells take root. But it's difficult to find a matching marrow donor, and the transplant itself is very risky.

So what if stem cells from the boys' own bone marrow could be genetically corrected, eliminating the ALD mutation? To do that, Aubourg's team had to overcome a technical hurdle: Gene therapy works when scientists harness deliver a healthy new gene by attaching to a virus that can harmlessly infect cells. But none of today's so-called gene therapy "vectors" could penetrate enough of the stem cells needed for an ALD treatment to work.

Unlike most viruses, HIV can penetrate stem cells, and it sticks permanently. So Aubourg's team removed the genetic parts of HIV that make it dangerous, leaving basically a scaffolding to carry the new therapeutic gene.

Then they culled stem cells from two 7-year-old boys in the early stages of ALD, and mixed in the healthy gene. The boys underwent bone marrow-destroying chemotherapy and then had their genetically corrected stem cells reinserted.

Two years later, the boys have shown no sign of worsening brain damage and are functioning well with 15 percent of their blood cells producing the healthy protein, said Aubourg, who plans to test the experimental procedure in more patients. An advocacy group, the Stop ALD Foundation, is working to raise money for a similar U.S. study.

Source