‘We need the funding’ for cancer research

Lynn Penix was there to commemorate her mother.

Fred Dennis, of Belvidere, came to remember friends and family he has lost. Robin Edwards, of Rockton, was making a statement in her fight against breast cancer.

They were among the Rockford-area people who signed petitions today and wrote their names on the Fight Back Express bus, an effort by the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network to lobby government for increased funding for cancer research and broader access to health care for all Americans. The bus was parked at CherryVale Mall as part of a six-month tour scheduled to continue through Nov. 4.
The bus stopped in Sterling later in the day before heading to Davenport, Iowa, to continue the tour.

“The public is asked to come out, stand up and say we need to defeat cancer, and we need our government to help us do it,” Volunteer Bus Captain Betty Clementz said. “We need the funding, we need the laws and we need the legislators to devote what they need to devote to make it a priority.”

Clementz said the push to make sure cancer is a priority is essential with a new administration and a new Congress set take office next year.

She said the goal is not only to continue government funding for cancer research, “but to increase it. We’ve been plateaued for the last five years, and if we’re going to really nail this disease we’ve got to give it our all. The statistics say that one in three Americans will be diagnosed with some type of cancer in their lifetime. That shouldn’t be that way in America.”

Penix, whose mother died last Nov. 30 of pancreatic cancer, said the costs of her mother’s medications quickly outpaced her insurance coverage and Medicare was able to offer only limited relief.

“My remembrance is of pulling up to a drug stores to get a medication and the lady saying it was $1,800,” Penix said. “I thought she said $18, but no it was $1,800, and that was minus what Medicare did pay. We didn’t have the funds and we had to go to some other resources before we could go back and get her that medication, and then get it again every month.”

David Riggs, regional vice president of the Illinois Division of the American Cancer Society, said studies show that people without insurance coverage who have early-stage diagnoses are more likely to die of cancer than those with insurance who get late-stage diagnoses.

“We want to make sure that the issue of access to health care is part of the debate,” Riggs said, “so we’re hoping the individual voters, the community, are asking the candidates the right questions and making their voting decisions based on how they answer those questions. What good is a treatment that will save your life if you can’t afford it?”

More information about the bus tour and lobbying effort is available at acscan.org.

Staff writer Mike DeDoncker can be reached at 815-987-1382 or mdedoncker@rrstar.com.