On June 7, 2010, the Committed To A Cure advocacy team delivered a petition signed by 3.7+ million people who had hoped that the petition would spark debate between our government medical insurance companies regarding genetic testing as an early detection tool in breast cancer screening and treatment.  The photo below are the many footsteps on the path to Capitol Hill that we carried with us.  We have not heard from our lawmakers so we are, once again, asking for your help to gain attention to this topic. 

Our family was affected by breast cancer when my sister, Christine, was diagnosed with the disease in August of 2000.   We are among the many thousands affected by breast cancer.  My sister is survivor still in treatment and I am someone, like many thousands, who has a history of breast cancer in my family and is unable to afford breast cancer genetic testing.  It is deemed a novelty by some insurance companies.  We disagree.  With this petition we want to remind the senators and congressmen, who have our previous petition on their desks, that the desire to have genetic testing covered for families affected by breast cancer is still strong.  We want these lawmakers to realize that we are serious about helping families access what can be a very important tool in the early detection arsenal. 

Committed To A Cure has no desire to note a specific genetic test in our petitions because there are other scientific studies in development.  Insurance companies can not be allowed to put restrictions on genetic testing either.  However we want to ensure that these tests, if positive, can not be used by insurance companies as a marker for "pre-existing conditions" if a diagnosis should occur after genetic testing.

(Our previous petition can be found here:  http://apps.facebook.com/causes/petitions/90 )