EXCLUSIVE 'Holy grail' cancer therapy gives terminally ill men new hope in major breakthrough
A groundbreaking cancer treatment hailed as a 'holy grail' is offering fresh hope to patients previously given just months to live.
A new study in California looked at 15 men who were 'knocking on death's door' due to late-stage prostate cancer like the one suffered by former president Joe Biden.
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The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
CVS under investigation for sending text messages to customers lobbying against proposed bill
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill has launched an investigation into CVS, probing whether or not the company has been improperly using its customers' personal information to send text messages lobbying against a state law. She said she also plans to issue the company a cease-and-desist letter to halt the texts, according to ABC News. Lawmakers debating the failed bill at the center of the controversy shared images of CVS's texts during a hearing on Wednesday. 'Last minute legislation in Louisiana threatens to close your CVS Pharmacy — your medication cost may go up and your pharmacist may lose their job,' one text said, according to the Associated Press. The bill would have prohibited companies from owning both pharmacy benefit managers and drug stores. CVS owns retail pharmacies as well as CVS Caremark, which is one of the nation's top three pharmacy benefit managers, meaning the law would have directly affected its business. CVS Caremark and other pharmacy managers essentially act as middlemen by purchasing prescription drugs from manufacturers and determining the terms for how those drugs are distributed to customers. In 2024, the Federal Trade Commission issued a report saying that the managers "may be profiting by inflating drug costs and squeezing Main Street pharmacies." In Louisiana, CVS's text messages included links to a draft letter asking lawmakers to reject the legislation. 'The proposed legislation would take away my and other Louisiana patients' ability to get our medications shipped right to our homes,' the letter read. 'They would also ban the pharmacies that serve patients suffering from complex diseases requiring specialty pharmacy care to manage their life-threatening conditions like organ transplants or cancer. These vulnerable patients cannot afford any disruption to their care – the consequences would be dire.' State Representative Dixon McMakin said CVS was "lying" and using "scare tactics" to oppose the legislation. CVS reportedly sent "large numbers" of texts to state employees and their families to lobby against the legislation, according to Murrill in her statement. Amy Thibault, a spokesperson for CVS, told ABC News that the texts were sent out in response to a last-minute amendment to the bill on Wednesday without holding a public hearing about the change. 'We believe we have a responsibility to inform our customers of misguided legislation that seeks to shutter their trusted pharmacy, and we acted accordingly,' Thibault said in an email to the broadcaster. 'Our communication with our customers, patients and members of our community is consistent with law.' The bill failed to pass the state Senate, which decided not to take it up for the 2025 session.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
The one thing you must discuss with your dad on Father's Day
On Father's Day, many of us will call our Dads for a chat. We'll discuss many things: the news, sport, the family. But few of us will touch on our health. For we men aren't very good at addressing that: I am the son of a GP but even my dad and I don't talk enough about health. In fact he's had a prostate cancer test, but it took him a while to get around to it. It's not that the topic is taboo, more that it never seems quite the right moment to ask a delicate question. But talking about health with your dad, and particularly the misconceptions around prostate cancer, could save their life. It is one of the best things you could do this Father's Day, and a true act of love. I have been an ambassador for Prostate Cancer Research for three months now, and what has really struck me in this time is how alien it is for men to proactively ask to be checked for a disease. Our assumption is that if everything is working fine, it is fine. I've been talking to men about the disease in Yorkshire, in London, in Southampton and it's worrying how many misconceptions there are about Britain's most common cancer. When I raise prostate cancer and the need to get checked, men regularly tell me that everything is functioning down there, so they don't need a test. But that is not right: and this confusion is costing lives. An Ipsos poll found that just 7 per cent of people know that prostate cancer – which one in eight men will be diagnosed with during their lifetime – is symptomless in the early stages. If you wait to take action until you are in pain, there's blood in your urine or you are having trouble peeing, you will have left it dangerously late. The cancer will almost certainly be advanced at this point, and treatment far less certain to succeed. This ignorance is costing lives. It is why we need a targeted national screening programme to make sure that the right men are being checked at the right time for the disease. If we can make this happen, we can save thousands of lives. So, this Father's Day, talk through with your dad the risk factors for prostate cancer. Does he have a close relative who has had the disease? If so, he's more at risk and should make getting checked a priority. Are you black? If so, your risk is significantly higher – one in four black men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer. The benefit of getting checked is that if the disease is caught early, it can be treated relatively easily and with a high success rate. But if it is caught after the cancer has spread then that makes treatment far harder and is bad news for survival chances. Once the cancer has spread, the success rate of treatment is below 50 per cent. Thanks to the work of charities such as Prostate Cancer Research and the bravery of individuals hit by the diseases who have spoken out about the need to get checked, people are far more aware of prostate cancer than they were. I know my friend President Biden's fight against the disease will raise awareness too. I also salute the thousands who will join the March for Men in Battersea Park today. But despite all this work, too few people know that prostate cancer is generally symptomless in the early stages. I've even heard from consultants treating patients who were initially denied a PSA screening test on the basis that they had no symptoms. The National Screening Committee will decide later this year whether to introduce a targeted national screening programme. I would urge them to commit to this without delay. It is a move that will save lives and with the number of prostate cancer cases having increased by 25 per cent in the past five years, the problem is too urgent to wait any longer. We need a screening programme for the UK's most common cancer now.
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Scientists pinpoint way to check if you're going to get early-onset colon cancer with up to 92% accuracy
A little-known at-home test can detect early-onset colon cancer before symptoms develop, increasing the chance of surviving a disease that is surging among young people. The fecal immunochemical test (FIT) costs $49 and screens a person's feces for flecks of blood, a warning sign of the cancer — as tumors cause bleeding. The test is FDA-approved and allows younger people a chance to screen for colon cancer before they reach the recommended age for a colonoscopy, 45 years. If blood is detected, a colonoscopy is performed, increasing the chances of catching colon cancer early when it is more treatable. And the American College of Surgeons says it is generally accurate, able to detect about 80 percent of all cases. If someone opts for the $600 FIT with DNA screening, which checks for abnormal changes in cells' DNA, accuracy rises to 92 percent. A colonoscopy is about 99 percent accurate at detecting all cancers. A recent study found people that use the FIT method between the ages of 40 to 49 years old are 39 percent less likely to die from colon cancer than their peers who wait to get the test until they are 50 years old or above. An increasing number of younger people are seeking screening, as the US experiences a surge in colon cancer among people under 50, with young patients today about twice as likely to be diagnosed with the disease than their grandparents. The rising rates are prompting some physicians to urge Americans to start getting screened for the disease before the age of 45 years, which is when US doctors recommend. For the test, which can be ordered online, customers are sent a package containing a collection tube. They are asked to collect a sample of their feces from the toilet bowl, place it in the tube and mail it to a lab. Results take about five days to come back. In the lab, scientists expose the feces to antibodies that can bind to human hemoglobin - a protein found in red blood cells. If they bind to an area of the feces, a positive test result is issued - and patients are advised to undertake further screening. In the FIT with DNA, scientists also analyze cells found in the stool for abnormal changes - which could indicate cancer. Patients over 45 years old who have an average risk — meaning no family history of the disease — may be recommended the test, which is free for the group under health insurance plans. But people can also buy the test, which is sold by labs like Everlywell for $49, or opt for other tests like Cologuard, which is priced at $121. While the test can be extremely helpful, doctors caution that about five to 10 percent of patients who get a positive result do not have colon cancer or advanced polyps. The number of false positives after a colonoscopy is below one percent. It is important to follow up with a doctor to discuss results. Patients undertaking the test are recommended to do it every year, as this can help to catch early-onset cancers which are typically slower growing. Among patients to have their cancer caught after using an at-home stool-based test is Christine Bronstein, who was diagnosed with the cancer at age 48. The Hawaii local exercises regularly, and avoids sugar and alcohol. But after seeing blood in her stool in 2021, she became concerned and ordered a stool-based test. After results came back positive, she rushed to see her doctor and was eventually approved for a colonoscopy - which led to a stage three colon cancer diagnosis with a two-inch tumor found in her rectum. Bronstein told TODAY: 'I'm very lucky that I did my test when I did. This thing really takes people down right in their prime... I think the problem why this is becoming the No.1 killer for younger people is because their symptoms get denied.' Colon cancer cases are surging among under-50s in the US in an uptick that has stunned researchers, with adults born in the 1980s having double the risk of suffering from the cancer compared to their parents. Among adults aged 25 to 29 years, colon cancer cancer rates have spiked 85 percent in two decades according to CDC data. At the same time, over the last 30 years cases have dropped among over-50s by 30 percent.
