24/10/96

Normally I wouldn't send out blitzmail like this but I have some saddening news and a very big favor to ask of all of you. My mom, Gunisha Singh, was diagnosed about a month ago with cancer--she has malignant mesothelioma, which is cancer of the inner chest cavity. This is a rare and mostly incurable form of cancer. Standard treatment like chemotherapy and radiation therapy is not very effective against it, and by the time her particular cancer was diagnosed it was judged inoperable by Dr. M.S. Bains of the Memorial Sloane-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. My mom was waiting in New York to get into a gene-therapy treatment program at the University of Pennsylvania, but the FDA just shut down the program because the virus the doctors there were using was having adverse side-effects. Doctors at UPenn have restarted that program using another virus and are now testing on animals. They will not be ready to take human patients for some months. Life expectancy for sufferers from mesothelioma usually ranges from 12-18 months. Please help my family.
We are looking for **other treatment options for MALIGNANT STAGE III MESOTHELIOMA,** including other gene-therapy programs anywhere in the world.

Thanks everyone :)