U.S. Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) on Tuesday introduced legislation to fight prostate cancer. The National Prostate Cancer Council Act would establish a council of federal agencies, patients, and medical experts charged with drafting and implementing a national strategy to combat prostate cancer.
“Prostate cancer is one of the leading threats to the health and lives of the men of this country,” said Boxer. “We owe it to our families to do all we can to fight this deadly disease.”
“I am pleased to join Senator Boxer in this effort to address improved screening tools for prostate cancer,” said Sessions. “Testing and early detection are the keys to combat this disease. When identified early, the survival rate for prostate cancer is very high. We need to ensure that we have the most advanced screening tools available and this legislation is a step in the right direction.”
Prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer in men and is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in men, with 233,000 new cases and more than 29,400 prostate cancer related deaths predicted in 2014. However, current screening techniques result in numerous false-negatives, leaving many men to wrongly believe they are cancer-free, and also many false-positives, which can lead to painful, costly and unnecessary procedures.
The Boxer-Sessions legislation would direct the National Prostate Cancer Council to develop and implement a national strategic plan to accelerate the innovation of diagnostic tools to improve prostate cancer screening and early detection, while also helping to reduce unnecessary treatment. The council would also be responsible for evaluating federal prostate cancer programs and coordinating prostate cancer research and services across all federal agencies.
The legislation has been endorsed by ZERO—The End of Prostate Cancer and the AdMeTech Foundation. The bill is modeled after a similar bill to combat Alzheimer’s disease, the National Alzheimer’s Project Act, which passed Congress with broad bipartisan support in 2010.
