FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: NOVEMBER 13, 2001
Contact: Gwen Fariss Newman gnewman@umm.edu 410-328-8919
University of Maryland Greenebaum Cancer Center
Vanessa Wasta wastava@jhmi.edu 410-955-1287
Johns Hopkins Oncology Center

FOLLOWING THE MONEY TRAIL: COMMUNITY USES BIG TOBACCO MONEY TO BEAT CANCER

Cancer, a disease attacking Baltimoreans at an alarming rate, costs the lives of more than 10,000 Marylanders each year. Screening tests that can provide early detection and cure are vastly underused by minorities and the poor who suffer disproportionately from prostate, breast, oral, and cervical cancers.

Now through the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Cigarette Restitution Fund Program (CRFP), Johns Hopkins, University of Maryland, the Baltimore City Health Department and Sinai Hospital, are working together to bring cancer screening into these communities. Officials are setting up sites in Baltimore City community health centers to offer simple screening tests and provide information that could save lives.

The screening program kicks off on November 13th at the Park Heights Community Health Alliance. Secretary of Health, Dr. Georges Benjamin, members of the Maryland General Assembly representing Baltimore City, Baltimore City Mayor Martin O’Malley, City Council Members, and other community leaders have been invited to help promote the event. Other community sites include the Urban Medical Institute, UniversityCare at Edmondson Village, Bea Gaddy’s Cancer Education and Prevention Center, the Hispanic Apostolate, Garden of Prayer Baptist Church, the Korean Resource Center, the Baltimore City Health Department Oral Health Services Program and Morgan State University.

“Our goal is to reduce the number of deaths in Baltimore City from breast, cervical, prostate and oral cancer through early detection," says Jimmie Drummond, Jr., M.D., M.P.H., Medical Director of UniversityCare, which is part of University of Maryland Medicine. "This innovative program offers mammograms, pap smears and oral and prostate cancer screenings," adds Dr. Drummond, who is director of the University of Maryland's portion of the CRFP.

Among the screening tests offered for free are prostate specific antigen (PSA) tests and digital rectal exams for prostate cancer; oral swabs for head and neck cancers; Pap smears for cervical cancer and breast exam and mammography for breast cancer. Individuals diagnosed with cancer as a result of screening will be provided free therapy.

“The only thing to fear about cancer, is not knowing you have it,” says James R. Zabora, Sc.D., Associate Director, Community Programs and Research, Johns Hopkins Comprehensive Cancer Center and Program Director, Baltimore City CRFP at Johns Hopkins. “With early detection, it can often be cured.”

“If my mother had regular screening for breast cancer, she might be alive today,” says Sandra Briggs, Executive Director of Bea Gaddy’s Family Centers, Inc. and daughter of community activist and city council member Bea Gaddy, who recently died of breast cancer and for whom one of the Centers is named.

Funding for the cancer-screening program is providing through the Maryland Cigarette Restitution Fund Program (CRFP) in the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The CRFP was established with awards from the multi-state suit against cigarette manufacturers.

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