Proton therapy offers best chance for cancer victims
Printer-Friendly
Email this Letter
Post a Comment (0)
Since Jo Ann passed away in October, nearly seven years after becoming Virginia’s 1st District congresswoman and less than two years after doctors confirmed that the lump in her breast was cancerous, I have done quite a bit of soul-searching and investigation into what I could have done to save her life.
Yes, we had access to good doctors at wonderful hospitals offering what they believed was the best advice and treatment alternatives available. Surprisingly I was never told about one that might have been able to eradicate her tumor with precision and without the side effects we all associate with cancer.
It’s called proton therapy, described to me as the most precise form of radiation treatment existing today.
It targets the tumor site, leaving surrounding healthy tissue and organs intact. No, it is not recommended for patients whose cancers have spread throughout their bodies; but for those with breast, lung, liver, brain, prostate and many other cancers, it can be a godsend.
Proton therapy is more than 50 years old but the first hospital-based treatment center for this physics-driven modality did not open until 1990 in California. Four more have come on line since, and now we have an opportunity to have this life saving technology here in Virginia.
Jo Ann knew a little bit about it. I have since learned more and have made its completion a personal priority, both to honor my late wife and parents and also for the one in three Virginians who will discover they have cancer sometime in their lives.
Virginia’s proton therapy center, the only one between Pennsylvania and Florida, will be in Hampton. It is now under construction, thanks to the wisdom and vision of William Harvey, the president of Hampton University.
Yes, a small but highly regarded historically black university has agreed to foot the bill if necessary for the largest proton therapy treatment, research and educational center in America. If this prestigious, courageous little school is willing to go out on a limb to create a facility that will bring relief, not just to its core constituency of African Americans but for Virginians of all races, can’t the Commonwealth of Virginia and Congress of the United States provide financial assistance?
That’s why I have signed on to help. Using whatever relationships I developed during Jo Ann’s three years in the House of Delegates and nearly seven in the House of Representatives, and, more importantly, my conviction that we need additional proven options to treat cancer and extend lives, I am urging the General Assembly, governor, Congress and the president to do what’s right.
In Illinois, the legislature allocated $10 million for a proton therapy center before the state had even granted it a certificate of public need. The federal government has appropriated more than $8 million for it.
Hampton University’s 100,000-square-foot center, rising now off Magruder Boulevard, has a COPN, has support from Sentara Healthcare and other medical organizations and is eagerly awaited by Children’s Hospital of the Kings Daughters in Norfolk and Eastern Virginia Medical School.
Why? Because it will kill tumors in their tracks and offer hope to those who are as fearful of cancer’s traditional treatment methods as they are of the disease itself.
If Virginia would appropriate $10 million over four years, that would represent just four percent of the $225 million budget for Hampton University’s Proton Therapy Institute and the programs it will house, including one proposed specifically for military personnel, veterans, retirees and their families — groups Jo Ann believed deserved our greatest thanks and access to America’s most advanced medical services.
As a fireman for 30 years, I lost many colleagues to lung cancer. As a son, I watched my mom and dad die before they could experience the fullness of old age. As a husband, I saw my wife of 33 years and mother of our two sons leave this earth well before her prime. Proton therapy might have kept her alive, and I am anxious to lend a hand to Hampton University so that future generations of cancer victims can have many more years on this earth.
Chuck Davis of Yorktown is the husband of former Virginia Rep. Jo Ann Davis (R-1st), who died of cancer in the fall.
You must be logged in to post a comment.