• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Downwinder Clinic's Funding Renewed

Posted on: Tuesday, 25 October 2005, 15:01 CDT

By Nancy Perkins Deseret Morning News

ST. GEORGE -- Federal funding for Dixie Regional Medical Center's downwinder cancer clinic has been renewed, and that is good news for thousands of people who worry about the deadly disease.

"We are glad to have had such a great response and want to hammer home the point that when dealing with cancer, early detection is the key," said Becky Barlow, oncology nurse and director of the hospital's Radiation Exposure Screening and Education Program (RESEP).

Downwinders are defined as the estimated 40,000 people who were exposed to radiation from above-ground nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site during the 1950s and 1960s.

And thousands of southern Utah downwinders are seeking medical care and compensation from the federal Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), which provides $100,000 or more to qualified cancer patients or their survivors.

"Downwinder patients are at higher risk for certain cancers," Barlow said. "The government has identified 20 cancers that they compensate for. They (downwinders) can't change their exposure risk, but they can be proactive about screening and early detection. This does save lives."

The clinic literally could help several hundred more people now that an important time requirement has been revised, Barlow noted. Under the new guideline, those people who lived in a radiation exposure area between 1951 and 1958 for one year, and not the previously required two years, are now eligible.

"Patients who fit the downwinder criteria should come in for yearly cancer screening exams either at the RESEP or with their own physician," she said. "In fact, we are required to do periodic follow-up with these patients in the clinic."

DRMC's three RESEP clinic locations in St. George, Cedar City and Hildale have screened more than 10,000 people for various cancers since opening in March 2004.

"Among the early diagnoses we have made are two women with breast cancers so small that they couldn't be felt by physical exam," said Barlow. "These women have a much better chance of beating the disease because it was caught so early."

Funding for the clinic is awarded on a yearly basis by the Department of Health and Human Services. HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt, Utah's former governor, announced earlier this month that funding for the nation's seven RESEP clinics, all based in the Southwest, would be renewed.

DRMC's clinic received $322,000 while the Utah Navajo Health System in Montezuma Creek was awarded $224,750 in RESEP funds.

"In the early years of the Cold War, many Americans were exposed to high levels of radiation while mining, transporting and processing uranium and participating in above-ground nuclear weapons tests," Leavitt said in a news release. "These funds will help people who face an increased risk of cancer and other diseases as a result of that exposure."

Clinic patients are sent a letter with the results of their exam and recommendations for follow-up care, and Barlow said staff members routinely call patients to make sure they take that second step.

The most commonly discovered cancers diagnosed at the RESEP clinic are breast, prostate, skin and precancerous polyps in the colon, according to Barlow.

The awards mark the third year RESEP clinics have been funded through the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Amendments of 2000.

For more information about the RESEP clinic at DRMC, call 435- 688-5990.

E-mail: nperkins@desnews.com

Source: Deseret News (Salt Lake City)

More News in this Category