My brother died from pancreatic cancer in 1988- I understand your frustration--we need to find a way to prevent and cure this terrible cancer. I also don't want to see another family go through what our's did-my brother was only 33 and his son was only 11 months old when his father died.

That is a highly irresponsible comment, GraceScalia. I work at a cancer research institute, and I can tell you that many people develop cancer even when they don't have any of the known risk factors for that type. For example, more and more non-smokers, especially women, are getting lung cancer, for reasons we don't understand. Exposure to herbicides and pesticides (ever use RoundUp on your garden?) are causing a rising incidence of lymphoma in the U.S. There are environmental (external) causes for cancer and mutations that occur spontaneously for no apparent reason. Your comment is cruel and unjustified.

Emily - I lost two people I care about to pancreatic cancer over the last year. Neither drank heavily, went into space or did anything that you would think put them at risk. They lived healthy, active lives and were taken way too soon.

One died 5 days after diagnosis, the other died 3 weeks after diagnosis... Cancer is evil and does not have a 'reason' much of the time.

@Grace Scalia...I take great exception to your assumption. My wife's mother died of pancreatic cancer and was NOT a drinker. How dare you imply this.

By the time she was diagnosed, it was too late.

I am very sorry for your loss.. They don't know what causes most cancers, though there are some known risk factors..... I hate when people assume that if someone has cancer they brought it on themselves..My BIL passed away from esoph. cancer. The first thing a lot of people asked me was , "was he a drinker" I lost my mother to uterine cancer, a good friend's sister was just diag. with pancreatic cancer. I belong to an online cancer survivors network. Many of the people on those boards led active healthly lifestyles, had no family history, no known risk factors. We can pat ourselves on the back... that we're doing everything right, we're never going to get cancer, we're too healthy, too savvy, too this , too that but I think it often comes down to the luck of the draw, perhaps a perfect storm of factors, stress, lifestyle, genetics or perhaps there are risk factors we're not aware of that have been overlooked or downplayed..

@Mae - I thought Emily's question was interesting. Space travel does expose astronauts to radiation.

What I thought was a "high irresponsible comment" was your unfounded assertion that Round-Up causes cancer. Unless you have evidence of a direct link between Round-Up and lymphoma then you're really not helping things with your comment.

try second hand smoke ...i hear its worst than the real thing. Mae i didnt see anything wrong with his/her comment

That is not true that the only way that you can get pancreatic cancer is from drinking. It can be caused by medicines also. I have just been in a class action lawsuit for a medication that the Dr.'s gave me over 5 years ago and the #1 on it's list of side effects was pancreatic cancer!!! So Grace Scalia get your facts straight!!!!

It is not caused by drinking. Alcohol and a greasy diet MAY add to risk factors. My husband died at 54 only seven weeks after diagnoses. He had only had a back ache as a symptom. He was active, did not eat red meat, butter. Was a very moderate drinker (2 beers a week maybe). Steve Jobs was a vegan, and also did not drink. It is not a life style issue. I have heard a theory that we all make a few cancer cells in our bodies everyday but our imune system destroys them. This can be why older people tend to get more cancers then the young. I have seen a number of people who survive one primary site cancer only to die of a totally different one years later. I think that there are some people who just do not have the imune sytems to destroy those individual cells and they just replicate. Pancreatic cancer is not discovered until there are millions of those cells present, so it is too late. We must find a way to detect it earlier.

Then it's just bullcrap!

Yes, that day will be THE END OF THE WORLD. If you believe in the Bible, it CLEARLY states that "there will ALWAYS be wars and rumors of wars." So, maybe when the end is HERE, it can ALL cease and we can simply have PEACE, but no-more Earth.

Take your hatred elsewhere, "Conservatives are trash". It's not welcome here.

That day will come but not for everyone.

Which people would you screen -- just the people who have the risk factors for the disease, or -- since people who don't have the risk factors can also get the disease -- everybody? And how often would you screen -- every year? Because the scan might show you're OK now, but the disease could develop next year, and keep in mind that numerous CT scans also increase a person's risk for cancer.

Even if we had a screening test, screening guidelines require a hard look at risk vs. benefit. We can't and shouldn't screen everybody for a disease that affects less than 2% of the population. That would mean that 98% of the population was undergoing (and paying for) screening that would not help them. Right now there's no simple solution.

We need both. They are not mutually exclusive, and all sciences benefit from the the space program. It will be a sad day indeed when we only spend money on what we HAVE to. When that happens, imagination, adventure, and dreams will die. Human beings will no longer be living. They will be only existing.

MIchael, when monies are tight, we need to focus indeed on what we have to. And we have to cure this and other cancers. Imagination, adventure and dreams die when one dies of cancer.

When did medical research become a government program? If the government takes over medical research, the piddling space budget isn't going to cover it (or are you planning to pick and choose what diseases the government programs are going to fund research for?). I find it interesting though that people always think the government should be spending money on whatever they care about today (and tomorrow it will be something else). If you think more money needs to be spent on pancreatic research, why not organize an event to raise awareness and funds for that express purpose? Sort of like the breast cancer people do. You know, work for your beliefs instead of expecting the government to fix everything for you. Right now only 2% of the budget goes to science and medical research. That includes the space program. Interest on debt is 6%. Get rid of that and look what you'd have to spend.

happy2008 - there will always be incurable things to work on and tragedies. Life is a balance. We mourn the tragedies and work on the causes but we don't abandon the future because money is tight. There are always sick people and money is always tight! We still have to keep moving forward! I personally believe the majority of people who have left this world through death would want us to keep moving forward. I sure would!

Do you really think Sally who pioneered space for women would want us to abandon space in order to spend more money on the cancer that killed her? No way! She would want us to do both in balance.

..I guess I am not a dreamer, but I am optimistic. Many things were believed to be incurable, until we found the cure. Cancer is some day going to be one of those diseases. That would be a pioneering discovery, speaking of moving forward!

I totally agree that cancer knows no boundaries and that you should pay immediate attention to changes in your body. After seeing my doctor for some symptoms I was having, I was diagnosed at 45 with stage 3 colon cancer and then it showed up in my liver pushing me into stage 4. There was no history of any kind of cancer in my family and I also am a non-smoker, non-drinker, so you never know who will get cancer. For some reason, I'm still here - 4 1/2 years in remission. :-)

cancersurvivortwice! Continued success on your incredible journey! You obviously have a strong body and a fighting spirit! Best wishes!

The 'pink ribbon' nonsense started as a conversation over a kitchen table (because of one woman who wasn't going to survive), then one woman went on a mission. Perhaps pancreatic cancer is your mission. Or do you think the people who have organized the successful breast cancer events should abandon their cause and do it for you? All it takes is someone who cares enough to get it done. I hear people complaining too because prostate cancer is just as common as BC but doesn't get the attention. Well, whose fault is that? You want it out there, maybe you need to work to get it there. Those breast cancer research foundations didn't build themselves.

JanieJane - Would I have seen you at a PanCAN 5k sporting a purple ribbon? If not, then I think your post is somewhat hypocritical.

btw, I do Susan G. Komen, too.

I feel the same way sometimes, stop with the PINK.......... what about all the other cancers. Men and Women are losing their lives to all kinds of cancers. But as a good friend once said to me, they aren't mutually exclusive. Perhaps, as strides are made in BC fields, it will carry over to other cancers as well.

Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers among women. Before the hype about it began, many women diagnosed DID NOT survive, unlike the much higher (although nowhere near perfect) survival rate that we have now. That rate was at least in part achieved by all the hype. Because breast cancer is a cancer that is easier to detect, and now, easier (although I really should put that into quotation marks, as no cancer is truly easy to treat) to treat, it has achieved a higher rate of remission and cure.

Personally, I feel strongly about three cancer fields...digestive (of which pancreatic cancer is included, but I also put it separately), pediatric and pancreatic. Digestive cancers are often hard to detect, such as small intestinal or stomach cancer. My mom died at the age of 54 from adenocarcinoma of the small intestine. She had no risk factors whatsoever, besides a family history. She never smoked, pretty much never drank, had a much better diet than most, was not overweight, exercised daily, pretty much never took any medications, ate lots of vegetables and drank green tea. Yet, she still was misdiagnosed with IBS 2 1/2 years before her diagnosis. Had she been correctly diagnosed at the time, it's possible that it could have been effectively treated. However, by the time she was properly diagnosed with ANY cancer (they diagnosed that incorrectly twice as well-first it was ovarian cancer, then it was a different rare cancer called pseudomyxoma peritonei), it was already stage 4. After suffering through close to a year's worth of failed chemo treatments and an incomplete surgery, she was finally granted rest, having dropped from a normal weight of 120 pounds to 70.

Pediatric cancer is the NUMBER ONE DISEASE KILLER OF CHILDREN IN THE UNITED STATES/CANADA/EUROPE/AUSTRALIA (the developed world, in other words). Yet, it receives almost no funding, because "Kids don't get cancer". They do, and while there is a 75% survival rate, most of those children will have some degree of aftereffects from the cancer and treatment, ranging from mild joint problems or sun sensitivity to infertility to brain damage. Most kids are treated with adult drugs that aren't even fully approved for treating children.

And now, pancreatic cancer. In just the past year, two people that I am connected with-the husband of my accompanist died of pancreatic cancer after a VERY painful seven months in January, and a close family friend's sister has just a few months left. She is only in her 30s, and after struggling for years to have a child, she had her first child less than a year ago. Her daughter was only about 2 months old when her mother was diagnosed, and will likely only remember her mother through pictures and family stories. It makes me cry just to think of it.

Many researchers believe that by focusing on the toughest cancers to treat-for instance an almost exclusively pediatric brain tumour known as a DIPG-Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma- that is almost universally fatal (1% five-year survival rate, it is impossible to operate on and because of the blood-brain barrier most chemo drugs do little to no good), that effective treatments will be found for those that are less challenging to treat.

God you're dumb...I'm not sure if you'll get this, but try is analogy on for size: "What the hell man, you're still homeless? What happened to all that money I gave you last week? Go get a house already and start being a productive member of society." See that? Not as easy as it sounds. It's not like there's a section on eBay labeled "pancreatic cancer screening tools". It takes years of research to know what to look for, then years more to develop methods to distinguish those symptoms from other benign ones.