Research, reform and relay!

Health care policy and cancer research will probably be on top of my social priorities for the rest of my life as a way to honor Garrett’s fight by helping those who must follow after him suffer less. The following link is about a specific research project and clinical trial by Tgen that I have been following the progress of for more than a few years. It is one of the best chances other people with advanced basal cell carcinomas have to finding successful treatments. Although it will always be frustrating when research could have helped Garrett, this is outweighed by my appreciation for researchers getting closer to treatments that will work for others, so they must not go without targeted treatment options.


"New drug effective against the most common form of skin cancer"

This kind of progress is also a great reminder why support for medical research should remain a high priority in our agendas and budgets. We can all keep research of importance funded by writing or calling our politicians or making financial donations as we are able to organizations like Tgen, Stand Up To Cancer or American Cancer Society - Cancer Action Network which all support collaborative research in important ways.


Also, my favorite economist and health care policy advisor has a new blog article highlighting how our current employment-based health insurance system works by publicly subsidizing community rated insurance and how the health care reform recently passed is not radically different, but expands the system to be more available and affordable to all Americans instead of just those employed by companies who choose to or are large and thus required to provide health insurance to their employees.  Getting the rest of us closer to the insurance model which members of congress enjoy.

"The economics of privately sponsored social insurance"

Soon Garrett’s friends and I will be starting the 5th year of fundraising for the American Cancer Society through Relay for Life… look out for that post and then make your tax deductible donation, donate blood/stem cells/bone marrow at your local blood bank or get your own cancer screenings done for the year in honor of Garrett and all those who must fight cancer after him!