A Victim's Noble Battle For Prostate Research 4-17-1999

[Guest guest]

A Victim's Noble Battle For Prostate Research

Newsday 4-17-99

By Saul Friedman

I'M SORRY that I never met Jerry Donohue. I did not even know that his

given name was Gerard. Nor did I know until a few days ago that he was

born in Queens on April 2, 1936, educated at St. 's Prep in Brooklyn

and Manhattan College, and served Nassau County with distinction as an

environmental engineer.

All I really knew is that Jerry Donohue of Bellmore was a genuine

hero and a valiant fighter almost until the moment - on March 26 -

when he died of prostate cancer a few days shy of his 63rd birthday.

Jerry first called me two years ago about this time after " Gray

Matters " had pleaded for an end to what I called " the war of the

glands " - the unequal treatment by the federal government in providing

funds for research and early detection testing - for breast cancer and

prostate cancer.

I argued that while Medicare rightly paid for routine (biennial)

mammograms, it did not pay for the comparable screening for prostate

cancer - the digital rectal examination, or the more precise prostate

specific antigen (PSA) blood test that could indicate the presence of

cancer cells.

I noted that while about 185,000 women develop breast cancer, and

44,000 die from it each year, more than 330,000 men are diagnosed with

prostate cancer annually and 41,400 die from it. Still, each year the

government rightly devoted $550 million to breast cancer research, but

only a fifth of that amount to prostate cancer research.

The facts were enough to make any guy angry, especially a guy with

prostate cancer. But Jerry Donohue was special. There was no anger in

his voice, only frustration, when he called to tell me he was losing an

uphill and terribly painful struggle against the prostate cancer that

had been diagnosed in 1995 and had spread beyond the prostate.

His cancer might have been caught early, before it got out of the

prostate gland, he said, if he had had PSA testing after he turned 50.

Now, it had become his mission to spread the word to other men.

He had no quarrel with the activists who had fought for and won

special attention for the problem of breast cancer. Indeed, he said,

" Hat's off to the ladies, because they have shown men how to fight

prostate cancer. Macho men haven't wanted to talk about prostate

problems. It's time for us to come out of the closet and raise awareness

among men about the growing problem of prostate cancer and the need for

PSA testing and more research. "

As he told me once: " I am speaking out while I have strength. I am

trying to wake up other men to the problem so that they will get

screened early. " And, he asked, " How do I get anyone to listen? I am

just one guy with no connections. "

Jerry did not know it then, but his efforts in New York were making

a connection to a national movement that was slowly gathering momentum.

Like prominent women who had made public their battles with breast

cancer, prominent men - Bob Dole, Arnold Palmer, Len Dawson,

Milken and Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf - acknowledged their struggle with

prostate cancer.

Despite teatments that sickened and weakened him, Jerry's activism

brought him to the steering committee of Cancer Care Inc. of Long

Island, which counsels cancer victims while fighting the wider

anticancer war. And he spoke tirelessly before dozens of groups, anyone

willing to listen.

As a result of his efforts, the New York State Assembly passed

legislation in 1997 to provide education, research and money to fight

prostate and testicular cancers; just before his death, Jerry was

appointed to its advisory council.

Last year, with the backing of the Long Island Breast Cancer

Coalition, Donohue won Nassau County's approval to set up a prostate

cancer screening facility similar to the county's mobile mammography

unit. Last September, despite his pain, Jerry was on hand for the L.I.

Prostate Cancer Awareness Walk.

On a more personal level, Margaret Burke, a retired social worker

who ran a support group for Cancer Care, recalled that Jerry often

helped advise and console " newly diagnosed members, and even accompanied

a frightened and confused patient to his physician in order to advocate

the best care and treatment. "

In late March, Theresa Donohue, Jerry's wife of 40 years - a

reminder that women are indirectly among the victims of prostate cancer

- notified friends that her husband was dying and she wrote: " Please

advise how I can use his death to get out his message. "

After Jerry Donohue began speaking out, the fight against prostate

cancer moved higher on the public agenda, and Medicare will pay for

biennial PSA testing beginning next year.

When I wrote about Jerry Donohue a year ago, he was determined to

attend the wedding of his daughter - one of three children - and to

enjoy one more Father's Day. It was to be his last.

As I said, I never met Jerry Donohue. But I knew his heart. And he

would have said, " For this Father's Day, test your PSA. "

Write to Saul Friedman, Newsday, 235 Pinelawn Rd., Melville,

N.Y.,11747-4250, or by e-mail at sfriedannap.infi.net.

Copyright 1999, Newsday Inc.

Saul Friedman, A Victim's Noble Battle For Prostate Research., Newsday,

04-17-1999, pp B07.