Tobacco Issues: Sample Letter to your Senator or Representative
Address your letter to:
Senator ______
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20515
or
Representative ______
United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
The honorable _________________:
[I am a lung cancer survivor / family member / friend of and I urge you to
take action...]
This year l ung cancer will be the leading cause of cancer death in the United States. Thirty percent of all cancer deaths will be from lung cancer. One person will die every three minutes.
Over 50% of new lung cancer cases will be diagnosed at a very late stage—Stage IIIb or IV— and only 5% of them will live for 5 years. Yet far less research money is focused on fighting lung cancer. According to NCI figures, lung cancer research receives only one-ninth the amount of funding that breast cancer does, per death.
I ask your help in transforming this situation. I urge you to support screening
and early diagnosis for lung cancer, public information campaigns about the
disease, access to effective treatments, and increased medical research. Public
health budgets should support these efforts. I strongly urge you to allocate
some appropriate portion of the money received from tobacco companies - from state or federal settlements,
or tobacco taxes to help fund these goals. It is an opportunity to decrease
the terrible death rates and suffering caused by this disease.
I encourage you to come to the aid of people with lung cancer and to speak out on this issue.
Please support congressional and state legislative hearings of this major cancer killer and help create real hope and change for patients and those at high risk for lung cancer.
Sincerely,
[your name here]
