the 4th C2 Academic Retreat (C2R) being organized jointly by the Canadian Urologic Oncology Group (CUOG) and the Canadian Urology Research Consortium (CURC) is scheduled for the weekend of September 25 to 27, 2009 at the fashionable hotel called W in Montreal.

According to UroToday, “this three-day educational event will include provocative ‘Town Hall’ sessions on the topics of Hormone Replacement and Cancer Risk, Prostrate Screening Controversies and the use of Robotic Technology in Surgery (Is it ready for prime time?).” “The line-up of topics and the caliber of presenters is unsurpassed in all the years we have been conducting these events,” says Dr. Laurence Klotz, Chair of the CURC and immediate past president of the Canadian Urology Association (CUA).

The Retreat allows the sponsoring (and often competing) pharmaceutical companies (i.e. Amgen AstraZeneca, Sanofi Aventis, GlaxoSmitKline, Merck Frosst, Novartis, Minoque Medical, Genesis Genomics, and Pfizer) to actively participate in the academic portion of the agenda.

TULSA – For the fifth year in a row, KJRH 2 Works for You has partnered with Saint Francis Health Systems to bring the National Prostate Cancer Coalition’s free prostate cancer screenings to Tulsa onboard the Drive Against Prostate Cancer bus.

In addition, this year’s event will also include free screening services by the Tulsa Downtown Lions Club’s Mobile Health Unit (MSU) as well as a blood drive being conducted by the Oklahoma Blood Institute (OBI). The Lions Club will offer free screenings for diabetes, blood pressure, glaucoma, visual acuity, hearing and bone density.

The free screenings and blood drive will be conducted on a first-come, first serve basis from 10am – 6pm on Friday September 18th at Tulsa Promenade Mall (41st & Yale) next to the covered parking lot in front of the 41st Street main entrance.

Read more at Drive Against Prostate Cancer bus returns to Tulsa Bartlesville Live

Phil Masley, now living in Orlando, FL, since his treatment in 2005 has been active creating newsletters and press releases for 13 support groups in Central Florida. Prior to his volunteer work to help raise prostate cancer awareness, Phil was in advertising and sales promotion at GM and involved in PR for four charities in Indianapolis with NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt.

Phil’s two-page newsletter The Florida Prostate Cancer Connection includes items like these below.

Not only during PC Awareness Month
each September, but all year long

BY PHIL MASLEY

Although prostate cancer does not receive the attention it deserves, here is what the President of the United States has to say, along with information on a growing number of events designed to increase awareness and raise funds for research.

University of Mississippi Health Care
UMHC TO OFFER FREE PROSTATE CANCER SCREENINGS
Sep 16, 2009 – Sep 24, 2009
JACKSON, Miss. – The University of Mississippi Health Care Cancer Research and Registry will conduct free prostate cancer screenings for African-American men age 40 and older, men age 40 and older with a family history of prostate cancer, and all other men age 45 and older, from 4-7 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday, Sept. 16-17, and Wednesday-Thursday, Sept. 23-24, in the University Physicians Pavilion. The screenings will include a digital rectal exam and a PSA blood test. The screenings are by appointment only. For more information or to make an appointment, call (601) 984-1095.
For more information contact Bruce Coleman at (601) 984-4743 or ([email protected]).

The EPA should not permit mining operations based on regulatory loopholes and lax enforcement practices that have allowed mountain waterways to be treated as waste dumps. The people in Appalachia, like all Americans, have a right to clean streams, rivers, and drinking water — and it’s up to the EPA to look out for their interests. Today the agency fulfilled that duty, and now we expect the EPA to follow-up with the necessary actions to end — not to mend — the practice of mountain removal. Rob Perks, a blogger at the National Resources Defense Council , September 11, 2009.

People in Appalachia have lived and worked with coal for generations. Mining communities have endured countless struggles and tragedies associated with harsh conditions of mining underground and also with harsh environmental results of strip mining.

Since the 1970s, scientists, politicians and voters have debated economic, environmental and health effects of reliance on coal-fired energy. In 2006, Appalachians witnessed the Sago Mine underground disaster in West Virginia (photo, left), in which 13 men were trapped for two days and all but one lost their lives.

Now concerns are growing about about impact of the latest coal-mining method on water quality. This method is known as mountaintop removal.

Rep. Joe Wilson (R: Columbia, SC) — actual name Addison Graves Wilson Sr. — received 40% of his campaign money from PACs. Wilson yelled “You lie!” at President Barack Obama during the President’s address to Congress on health care reform.

Joe Wilson voted for illegal migrants’ healthcare before he was against, took drug company campaign contributions, and sponsored an earmark to give taxpayers’ money to a pharmaceutical industry project.

Wilson’s top donors include major drug companies: Astrazeneca Pharmaceuticals, Glaxosmithkline, Novartis, and Eli Lilly. Among his other corporate sector donors are lobbyists for insurance companies, the beer industry, auto dealers, and the defense industry.

In 2003, Rep. Wilson voted for the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act. This landmark legislation provides seniors and individuals with disabilities with a prescription drug benefit under Medicare. But it has also been criticized for securing “big benefits for Big Pharma & the private insurance industry at the expense of real benefits for seniors.”

The 2003 act, for which Wilson voted under President George W. Bush, includes Section 1011 authorizing $250,000 annually of taxpayer money to reimburse hospitals for treatment of illegal immigrants. In 2009, after Pres. Obama stepped into office, Wilson changed to his current position opposing public funds for healthcare of illegal immigrants.

The Prostate Net will host a daylong, dual-track educational symposium targeting patients, caregivers and medical professionals on Tuesday, October 6, 2009 at New York University, Kimmel Center for University Life in New York City. (http://theprostatenet.org/Symposium.html)

Us TOO University Presents:
Estrogen Deficiency Side Effects Due to Androgen Deprivation Therapy.

This free webinar/teleconference with speaker Samir Taneja MD will
take place Wednesday, September 23, 2009, at 8pm Eastern,
7pm Central, 6pm Mountain, 5pm Pacific.

For more information and to RSVP today, go to:
http://www.ustooevents.org/site/Survey?ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS&SURVEY_ID=2700

Dr. Robert Getzenberg, research director at Johns Hopkins Brady Urological Institute, said this morning that the EPCA-2 prostate cancer blood test is moving ahead and the law suit filed against him and the University of Pittsburgh is “for money.”

We spoke with Dr. Getzenberg by phone at 9.50 this morning after leaving a message yesterday with his staff. He returned the call from his Johns Hopkins office, sounding up-beat.

“The science remains the same,” Getzenberg said about the progress of the EPCA-2 prostate cancer diagnostic test. “Everything is solid.”

Dr. Robert H. Getzenberg, a leading University of Pittsburgh and Johns Hopkins cancer researcher who claims to have developed superior new blood tests to detect prostate cancer, colon cancer, and bladder cancer has been accused of making false claims over a period of years and selling these false claims to keep his laboratory working.

Onconome, Inc. a biotechnology company, earlier this month filed an action in Federal court charging that from 2001 to 2005 the University of Pittsburgh and one of its researchers, Dr. Robert H. Getzenberg, committed scientific research fraud and breach of contract.

Dr. Getzenberg has also worked at Johns Hopkins, a leading US center for treatment of prostate cancer and other urological diseases.

Dr. Getzenberg’s best-known scientific project is the EPCA-2 biomarker, a discovery claimed to detect prostate cancer better than the currently used PSA blood test.