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Old Fri Jul 15, 2011, 11:30 AM
Bob Macfarlane Bob Macfarlane is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Soutwest Ranches, Florida
Posts: 126
In your face -- my response to the bureaucrat w/copy to the NCI Director

I very specifically asked if MDS should be considered anemia or cancer. In the selected paragraph from your response, it seems that while "the NCI is not involved in the classification of diseases" you are indicating that MDS is a precancerous condition . Where does that classification come from?

Is it anemia, pre-cancer or cancer? If you cannot answer that question, who can answer?

Please supply a straight forward answer this time --- Vietnam veterans dying of MDS/AML do not have time for a slow dance or double speak. My letter was mailed to you on June 18, 2011 --- 2011 not 1984.

Allow me to supply you with a few facts before you blow me off again with bureaucratic minutia:

From the National Cancer Institute
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/t...oproliferative

Definition of myeloproliferative disorders*: A group of slow growing blood cancers, including chronic myelogenous leukemia, in which large numbers of abnormal red blood cells, white blood cells, or platelets grow and spread in the bone marrow and the peripheral blood.

*NCI listings of myeloproliferative disorders contains:
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/t...tive-disorders

Myelodysplastic Syndromes Includes refractory anemia, refractory anemia with excess blasts, refractory anemia with ringed sideroblasts, refractory cytopenia with multilineage dysplasia, unclassifiable myelodysplastic syndrome, and myelodysplastic syndrome associated with del (5q).

American Cancer Society

“Definition of myeloproliferative disorders: A group of slow growing blood cancers, including chronic myelogenous leukemia, in which large numbers of abnormal red blood cells, white blood cells, or platelets grow and spread in the bone marrow and the peripheral blood. “

Leukemia-Lymphoma Society (LLS)
http://www.lls.org/diseaseinformatio...sticsyndromes/

“MDS is a diagnosis of cancer.”
“Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) is a term that is used to describe a group of cancers of the blood and marrow. “

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
http://www.newswise.com/articles/con...ancer-syndrome

Newswise — The recent death of Robert Matsui "" the 14-term Congressman from California who succumbed to myelodysplastic syndrome on Jan. 1 at the age of 63 "" has placed a national spotlight on a group of poorly understood and often incurable blood cancers.

Journal of Clinical Oncology
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0426182000.htm

ScienceDaily (Apr. 27, 2010) — Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) -- a group of serious blood cancers

MDS UK Patient Support Group

“Blood cancers cover a number of very rare conditions including: myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), multiple myeloma (MM), acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), chronic myelo-monocytic leukaemia (CMMoL), chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML), chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL), follicular lymphoma (FL), Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL).”

Dr. Guillermo Garcia-Manero, Chief, Section of Myelodysplastic Syndromes, MD Anderson Cancer Center
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1221161939.htm

“A new scoring system for a form of leukemia known as myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). . .”

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