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City proclamation recognizes pancreatic cancer awareness
web 1012 Cancer proclamation
National Pancreatic Cancer Volunteer Advocacy Coordinator Beth Willis-Stevenson and Hinesville Mayor Jim Thomas display a proclamation recognizing November as National Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month in Hinesville. - photo by Photo provided.

The Savannah affiliate of the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network — the national organization responsible for research, patient support, community outreach and advocacy for a cure — recently commended Hinesville community leaders for introducing a proclamation recognizing November as National Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month. The action draws attention to the need for research funding for early detection tools and effective treatment options for patients.

“The Savannah Affiliate of the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network would like to thank the leaders in Hinesville for recognizing November as National Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month,” Volunteer Advocacy Coordinator Beth Willis-Stevenson said. “With the continued support, we will work towards increasing federal funding and local awareness for this terrible disease.”

Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States.

Despite improved survival rates for many other forms of cancer, pancreatic cancer remains the only cancer tracked by the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute that still has a five-year relative survival rate in the single digits at 6 percent.

Pancreatic cancer cases and deaths have been on the rise since 1998 and are expected to increase by 55 percent by 2030.

Currently, research dedicated to pancreatic cancer receives approximately 2 percent of the federal dollars distributed by the NCI, and there is no long-term and comprehensive strategy in place to improve survival.

The Pancreatic Cancer Research and Education Act (SB 362/HB 733) will ensure that the NCI develops a long-term comprehensive strategic plan for developing early diagnostics and treatment options that will increase the survival rate for pancreatic cancer patients.

The bill, introduced in the Senate by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and in the House by Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Ca., and Rep. Leonard Lance, R-N.J., is receiving broad bipartisan support from legislators.

To learn more about the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, go to www.pancan.org.

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From the book 'Outliers' comes proof that good health is more than just genetics
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Friends Jim Young, left, Mike Natale, Jeff Natale and Ryan Kiernan were on Greenwich High School football team together and Jim and Mike were captains. Jim, who was the youngest in Sherry Young's family, was welcome in the homes of the other three boys who still had siblings around and grandparents near. - photo by Sherry Young
As I look back on my life and the lives of others, both personally and in the reading I have done, I am convinced of the necessity of positive human contact in our lives. We are doubly blessed when we are able to make good friends or are a part of a family where we are accepted and loved.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers tells of a time in the 1950s when Dr. Stewart Wolf met a physician who practiced in the area of Roseto, Pennsylvania. Roseto was settled by a group of Italian families from Roseto, Italy, who re-created their life again in America.

This was in the 1950s before drugs and measures to prevent heart disease became important. In their conversation the physician said, You know, Ive been practicing for 17 years. I get patients from all over, and I rarely find anyone from Roseto under the age of 65 with heart disease.

Wolf was surprised by these words as, It was impossible to be a doctor, common sense said, and not see heart disease.

Wolf enlisted the aid of a sociologist and friend John Bruhn to help him. They found, There was no suicide, no alcoholism, no drug addiction, and very little crime. They didnt have anyone on welfare. Then we looked at peptic ulcers. They didnt have any of those either. These people were dying of old age. Thats it.

They checked into diet, genetics and possibilities of something in the foothills of eastern Pennsylvania but nothing made sense.

What they found was that Rosetans visited one another, stopping to chat in Italian on the street, say, or cooking for one another in their backyards. (Researchers) learned about the extended family clans that underlay the towns social structure. They saw how many homes had three generations living under one roof and how much respect grandparents commanded. They went to Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel and saw the unifying and calming effect of the church. They counted 22 separate civic organizations in a town of just under 2,000 people. They picked up on the particular egalitarian ethos of the community, which discouraged the wealthy from flaunting their success and helped the unsuccessful obscure their failures.

What they found eventually convinced the medical establishment to look beyond the individual and understand the culture people are part of their friends, families and town they came from. They determined that the people we surround ourselves with and the values of the world we inhabit have a profound effect on who we are.

Likely, this study could have been done with other ethnicities. However, my family's experiences with the Italian families in Connecticut ring true to the study. Our hungry and growing sons, especially our youngest son, Jim, who was left home alone with two beady-eyed parents, all had some memorable experiences being fed and loved in the Cos Cob multigenerational families. Proof of the African proverb, It takes a village to raise a child.

We live in an age when the contact we have with people often is on the internet, and many of us live among strangers. Unless we make the effort to reach out, we will become isolated, especially as we age. The Rosetan study is proof that reaching out and communicating may be good for our health.
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