They Want What We've Got (For Once!)

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and clinicians and others are trying to imitate the success of women's grassroots activism in securing more government funding for breast cancer research. However, the breast cancer movement is primarily a consumer-driven movement, made up of hundreds of local groups and thousands of individual activists. In contrast, the Journal of the National Cancer Institute reported on January 15, 1997 that the newly formed National Prostate Cancer Coalition emerged from the American Foundation for Urologic Disease, a "patient-oriented" group founded by the American Urological Association and funded through a grant from Zeneca Pharmaceuticals, manufacturer of tamoxifen.

Prostate cancer is at least as common in men as breast cancer is among women, but is much less likely to kill at a young age. Women who die of breast cancer lose an average of 19 years in contrast to men who lose an average of 9 years if they die of prostate cancer. (JNCI, July 15, 1995, p. 956.)