No one wants to find a cure more than myeloma survivors like me.  Kathy Giusti, mm survivor, runs the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation- MMRF.  Kathy has done a tremedous job raising money for myeloma research.

However, I think the first step in any cancer diagnosis is "awareness" or learning about your particular cancer.  Beating-myeloma.org's mission is to foster awareness of myeloma for survivors and caregivers be it information about convention, non-conventional, integrative, complementary or alternative therapies.

A diagnosis of cancer or other serious disease can be devastating to one's financial as well as physical health -- even for people with insurance. But there are a handful of programs that can help ease the monetary burden.

The programs, run mainly by nonprofit and charitable groups, offer financial aid to patients with specific life-threatening or chronic diseases to help cover the cost of co-payments, deductibles and other medical expenses. Patients usually must meet specific income and treatment guidelines.

Omega-3 fatty acids, from fish like salmon and other sources, have for years been shown to help lower levels of heart disease and cardiac death.

New research suggests the fatty acids may possess an even more fundamental benefit: Heart patients with high omega-3 intake had relatively longer "telomeres," which are stretches of DNA whose length correlates with longevity.

James Mannett rarely thought about medical bills or insurance during 41 years of near-perfect health. Then he got cancer and became an expert.

When it comes to cancer, it’s important for patients to have an advance care plan -- a healthcare proxy or a living will or both. A proxy carries out healthcare choices in the event the patient cannot.

It's bad enough to have cancer. Paying for it pushes some patients toward financial ruin, adding a layer of stress that the medical system is not addressing adequately, a Philadelphia-based organization for social workers says.

The Association of Oncology Social Work released results today of a survey of cancer patients and caregivers that found significant financial problems even among patients who had insurance. The survey sample was small - 169 patients and 131 caregivers. Ninety-five percent of patients had insurance.

Abstract

Cancer-related pain is a major issue of healthcare systems worldwide. The reported incidence, considering all stages of the disease, is 51%, which can increase to 90% in the advanced and terminal stages. For advanced cancer, pain is moderate to severe in about 40–50% and very severe or excruciating in 25–30% of cases.

Forget about the health-reform debate for the moment. Should you have a living will specifying the kind of care you'd want at the end of life if you couldn't speak for yourself?

Forget about the health-reform debate for the moment. Should you have a living will specifying the kind of care you'd want at the end of life if you couldn't speak for yourself?

While lawmakers are home for the August recess, they’re likely to get plenty of questions from constituents about the big health bills being debated in Congress.

Here’s the newest batch of answers to questions we’ve received from readers about what those bills could mean. Keep in mind that the details of a final bill – if there is one -- are far from settled.

Send any other queries to me at anna.mathews@wsj.com, for answers in future Healthy Consumer columns.

I couldn't hear this video on my computer but the title looked so interesting that I decided to post the video to the forum- Can anyone hear this video?  What do you think?  David

Safety, Efficacy, and …Value??

John L. Marshall, MD

Authors and Disclosures

Published: 07/30/2009

Is there anyone on the list that has to contend with the medicare plan D "donut hole?"

"Medicare's prescription drug plan, initiated in 2006, has provided coverage for many beneficiaries who previously went without. But it has been widely criticized as unnecessarily confusing by both doctors and patients—and particularly expensive for beneficiaries unlucky enough to fall into its notorious gap in coverage, dubbed the "donut hole" (see "Medicare Part D: The Basics," right)."

http://www.medscape.com/v...

Members-

Below is an email sent from Avalere Health to Lori Puente, on of our members who writes her own blog "Riding the Wave- multiple myeloma."  Lori and I each searched Avalere on the internet and they seem to be legit- a health research company hired by the LLS to write a report about myeloma.

I think that b-m.org members are a pretty intelligent bunch and anyone who would like to contact Avalere to find out if they want to survey you, the info is below.

David

Even as U.S. lawmakers seek new ways to rein in health-care spending, drug companies are quietly circumventing a proven tool for controlling prescription-drug costs: insurance co-payments.

Drug makers are increasingly subsidizing these "co-pays" -- the share of prescription costs that insured patients must pay out of their own pocket. Insurers require co-pays to give patients an incentive to be price-sensitive and pick generic drugs over pricier name brands.

A diagnosis of cancer is usually a life-changing event, and helping patients with this realization can be as important as reviewing their physical well-being, says Robert Fisher, MD, a medical oncologist from the Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers, in Longmont, Colorado.

Excessive attention is given to the active treatment of the cancer and not enough on the period that follows, when patients may be struggling with "the burden of survivorship," he suggests in an essay published online June 29 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Cancer—the word resonates in people’s nightmares and strikes fear in the hearts of millions. Can there be a positive side amidst the panic, anxiety and hopeless feelings that often accompany the word? The answer is yes according to Dr. Patricia Mumby, associate professor Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences Department and director of Loyola Cardinal Bernadine Cancer Center Psychosocial Oncology Service.

Pesticides have been associated with excess risk of multiple myeloma (MM), albeit inconclusively. We included 678 men (30-94 years) from a well-characterized prospective cohort of restricted use pesticide applicators to assess the risk of monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS). Serum samples from all subjects were analyzed by electrophoresis performed on agarose gel; samples with a discrete or localized band were subjected to immunofixation.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The shock of a cancer diagnosis leaves those hearing the
news numb and psychologically powerless, but medical experts say we have the
ability to fight back. That power, they say, lies in the form of information
and advocacy.

Breast cancer survivor Victoria Sharp learned that the hard way. The
43-year-old Kansas City woman initially responded passively to doctors'

Results from an ongoing study of workers employed at plants that used or produced formaldehyde continue to show a possible link between formaldehyde exposure and death from cancers of the blood and lymphatic system, particularly myeloid leukemia. The report, by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, provides an additional 10 years of follow-up data to build on previous findings from this study. The report appeared online May 12, 2009, and in print May 20, 2009, in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

A 30-year-old patient of mine is in intensive care now after his bowel perforated one night without much warning. The doctors weren’t sure he would survive the emergency surgery to remove his colon, but he did. They’ve also operated on him four times in the past eight days to try and stop the bleeding in his gut. Now he’s breathing on a ventilator. It’ll be a while before he’s back on the oncology floor.

n 1971, flush with the nation’s success in putting a man on the Moon, President Richard M. Nixon announced a new goal. Cancer would be cured by 1976, the bicentennial.

There was a time when the New York Times could be counted on to invariably promote the US government's "war on cancer." In previous decades it touted every hopeful sign of progress and often conveyed the feeling that a cure was around the next corner.

WASHINGTON, November 1, 2007) – Multiple myeloma is one of the most common and devastating bone marrow cancers in the U.S., but survival rates have risen dramatically over the past decade. Recent analyses suggest that this trend may be attributed to new types of drugs and aggressive therapeutic interventions such as stem cell transplantation, according to the results of two studies prepublished online in Blood, the official journal of the American Society of Hematology.

The era of personal genomic medicine may have to wait. The genetic analysis of common disease is turning out to be a lot more complex than expected.