[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 48 (Thursday, March 25, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3543-S3544]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    NEW YORK YANKEE MANAGER JOE TORRE'S BATTLE WITH PROSTATE CANCER

 Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, last year the New York Yankees set 
a new baseball record--125 wins in a single season, the most ever in 
major league history. Today, I want to speak about another--sadder and 
more tragic--legacy that has befallen current and former members of 
this great baseball team. That legacy is cancer.
  We remember that the house that Ruth built lost its founder, the 
great Bambino, ``the sultan of swat,'' to cancer. During last year's 
season, Darryl Strawberry was stricken with colon cancer. Former 
General Manager Bob Watson is battling prostate cancer. Earlier this 
month, Joe DiMaggio lost his life to lung cancer. And recently we 
learned that Yankee manager, Joe Torre, is another victim of prostate 
cancer.
  I join millions of New Yorkers--and millions of Americans--in wishing 
Joe Torre a continued recovery, who joins a team of almost 200,000 
American men who will learn they have prostate cancer in 1999. It is 
the most commonly diagnosed non-skin cancer in this country. And, like 
other cancers, prostate cancer must be stopped. For, it will claim the 
lives of nearly 40,000 Americans this year. My own state, New York, has 
the third highest rate of diagnoses and deaths due to prostate cancer.
  Unfortunately, this country invests only about one of every twenty 
cancer research dollars trying to stem the epidemic of prostate cancer, 
which accounts for about one in every six cancer cases. It is a 
disproportion that

[[Page S3544]]

must be corrected, Mr. President. On behalf of Joe Torre, Bob Watson, 
Senator Bob Dole, General Norman Schwarzkopf, Andy Grove, Harry 
Belafonte--and millions of other men and their families whose lives 
have been affected by prostate cancer--now is the time to renew those 
efforts.
  I am pleased that Congress established a prostate cancer research 
program in the Department of Defense in 1996. I supported the 
establishment of that program, just as I supported last year's increase 
in funding of the National Institutes of Health, with strong language 
to assure that $175 million become dedicated to prostate cancer 
research in 1999.
  We must continue to develop these critical research initiatives. I 
congratulate Senators Stevens, Inouye and many others in the Senate for 
their championship of the important program at the Department of 
Defense, and I hope to work with you to help fully fund this program 
over the next three years. We must work collaboratively with NIH to 
accelerate their sponsorship of clinical prostate cancer research, and 
I look forward to reports, due next month, by the NCI and NIH directors 
about their five-year investment strategy for prostate cancer research. 
Even though this year promises some daunting budget challenges, we must 
not let our commitment to end the war on cancer waver.
  One in six American men will develop prostate cancer in his lifetime. 
As frightening as that statistic may be for the general population, it 
is even more pointed in the African-American community. African-
Americans have the highest rates of prostate cancer incidence and 
mortality in the world, with occurrences 35% higher than among 
Caucasians and death rates twice higher than white males.
  The battle that Joe Torre faced gives testimony to the fact that 
prostate cancer does not affect men only in their retirement years. 
About 25% of cases occur in men younger than 65 years old, and, with 
the aging of our baby boom generation, we can fully expect both 
incidence and mortality to increase if the disease is unchecked.
  Mr. President, I call on our membership to join with national 
organizations, like the National Prostate Cancer Coalition, CaP CURE, 
the American Cancer Society and 100 Black Men, and take action to end 
the toll prostate cancer takes on American men and their 
families.

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