Opinion: Shining a light, a purple light

Oct 22, 2022

To the editor:

Election Day 2022 is just weeks, really days, away and while I am a proud conservative Republican and it may seem obvious to any who read this for whom I am voting, I want to be completely and absolutely nonpartisan as my goal is not to sway your vote but instead to shine a light, a purple light, upon the candidates. I write "purple light" as November is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month and Thursday and Nov. 17 is World Pancreatic Cancer Day 2022. Purple is the color for pancreatic cancer awareness. 

I want to acknowledge, and to profoundly thank, several elected officials throughout the SouthCoast for their co-sponsorship of An Act to reduce incidence and death from pancreatic cancer. This legislation, written largely by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network of Massachusetts, and sponsored in the Senate by Senator Joanne Comerford & House by Representative Carmine Gentile, had 77 co-sponsors - including all the legislators of greater New Bedford and the majority from throughout the SouthCoast. Co-sponsors were both Democrats and Republican, and from across the Commonwealth. This purple legislation is totally non-partisan, as the fight against cancer should and must be! Purple is appropriate as it is made by mixing Blue (Democrats) & Red (Republicans). The legislation was recommended as it ought to pass by the Joint Committee on Public Health and sent to the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing, before facing the tsunami of activity at the end of the current legislative session.

In no particular order, I must say thank you to Sen. Mark Montigny, and Reps. Christopher Markey, Paul Schmid, Bill Straus, Chris Hendricks, Antonio F. D. Cabral, Chris Hendricks, Carole Fiola, Susan Gifford, Carol Doherty & Norman Orrall. Others, like Sen. Michael Rodrigues, who as Chair of the Senate Committee on Ways & Means, does not co-sponsor bills, was very supportive. 

I have already been in contact with the Lead Sponsors, and WE WILL REFILE in January 2023 at the start of the 193rd General Court! 

To all those who were co-sponsors of this legislative session, I respectfully ask for your support in the new session. For anyone who joins the legislature in January after a successful November election, I humbly ask for your support! 

A profound thank you must also be given to Governor Charlie Baker, who has been a friend to and supporter of the pancreatic cancer community since Day 1 of his administration. I will never forget when Governor Baker descended the Grand Staircase of the State House, and I handed him my own purple "Fight Pancreatic Cancer" wristband and he exclaimed: "I know what this is all about!" Governor Baker has both repeatedly proclaimed November as Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month and also personally donated to fight pancreatic cancer through PurpleStride Boston, the walk to end pancreatic cancer hosted by the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN).  

Thank you to gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl, and during the primaries to Chris Doughty and Ben Downing. All three pledged to sign An Act to reduce incidence and death from pancreatic cancer into law. Similarly, thank you to Anthony Amore for Auditor who has expressed his profound support for the bill. Sheriff Tom Hodgson has also been a tremendous supporter, who has himself been touched the disease. Sheriff Hodgson submitted written testimony in support of An Act to reduce incidence and death from pancreatic cancer

Maura Healey, our current Attorney General, has not responded to my attempts to seek a pledge but I have faith and trust that she will rise to the occasion if she is elected as our next Governor and sign An Act to reduce incidence and death from pancreatic cancer into law. Ms. Healey, I ask for your pledge of support. 

Locally, thank you to Mayor Jon Mitchell of New Bedford and his Administration, as well as the Dartmouth Select Board, for your tremendous support in recognition of November as Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month! That New Bedford City Hall has been lit purple in November in honor of pancreatic cancer awareness makes my heart soar!

If you are asking yourself, why do these elected officials care so much about this cause and why should you care, then here is some sobering information. 

Pancreatic cancer is the second deadliest form of cancer in Massachusetts, behind only lung cancer. Pancreatic cancer is the 11th most diagnosed cancer in Americans and it's the 3rd deadliest in America (behind only lung & colorectal). The 5-year survival rate is only 11%, and that's increased one percentage point from last year! Pancreatic cancer has been called the world's toughest cancer. Over 70% of pancreatic cancer patients, like my father - Norman Cordeiro of Dartmouth on March 30, 2014 - will die within the first year of diagnosis. This year in the Commonwealth, 1,400 people will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and 1,110 will die per the American Cancer Society (ACS). Nationally, per ACS in 2022, 62,210 people will be diagnosed and 49,830 will die. There are only vague symptoms and there has been no effective test for early detection for pancreatic cancer, making it extremely difficult to diagnose until it is in the late stages.

In recent years, we have lost several high-profile individuals to pancreatic cancer. To name just a very few, those include Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Congressman John Lewis, Congressman Alcee Hastings, Alex Trebek, and Aretha Franklin — among very many others. 

However, not all is bleak! There is hope! When my dad developed pancreatic cancer the survival rate was only 6%, the only major cancer in the single digits. Things are progressing but ever so, and far too slowly! Federally, funding for pancreatic cancer research has increased. Private research funding for such things as genetic testing and precision medicine is growing as support for organizations such as PanCAN and the Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research has increased Here in the Commonwealth, we are leading the way! As the Chair of the Special Legislative Commission to Study Pancreatic Cancer in Massachusetts, I was honored to speak at the ribbon cutting of the new offices of Immunovia which developed the first blood-based test dedicated to the early detection of pancreatic cancer! Thank you, Senator Jamie Eldridge, who also spoke at the ribbon cutting and is a co-sponsor of the bill. Touring Immunovia’s laboratory was a personal transfusion of hope and considering my father's death from this cancer it is a test that I plan to take! 

Please talk to your doctor about pancreatic cancer and pay very close and careful attention to the often vague symptoms of abdominal pain that radiates to your back, loss of appetite or unintended weight loss, yellowing of your skin and the whites of your eyes (jaundice), light-colored stools, dark-colored urine, itchy skin, a new diagnosis of diabetes or existing diabetes that's becoming more difficult to control, blood clots, and fatigue.

I have written much about a variety of politicians and some of the partisan minded among us may take offense to my saying laudatory things about members of the other party. It is likely that I shall land myself in trouble. Well, so be it! This is not an endorsement but a public acknowledgment that some things are more important than mere politics. As the late Rep. John Lewis (1940-2020) famously stated, "Never be afraid to make noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble." 

Brock N. Cordeiro,

Dartmouth