An amazing turn of events occurred five months after Rick completed his first                                    Row for a Cure -- A Fight Against Cancer
This man who had dedicated so much of his life to the fight against cancer was diagnosed with malignant melanoma and suddenly found himself fighting for his own life in addition to fighting for the lives of other cancer patients.

A lifelong Long Islander and father of five, Rick became involved in ocean rowing in 1969, his ocean rescue training year, and his passion for the sport continues today. In partnership with Bay Shore High School physical education teacher Bill Blackman, Rick worked with Dowling College administrators and crew team coaches to help Bill establish the first high school rowing program on the south shore of Long Island.

Rick has worked for the New York State Parks Department as an ocean lifeguard for 39 years. During the early part of his professional career, while lifeguarding on summer weekends at Jones Beach and Robert Moses State Parks, Rick worked as an animal health technician before branching out into veterinary equipment and pharmaceutical sales in 1979. Making the transition from veterinary to human health care in 1990, he became the New York District Manager for medical test kit manufacturer SmithKline Diagnostics (SKD), and advanced during the next several years to become SKD's Integrated Health Care Programs Manager in 1994.

In 1996, while juggling responsibilities as President-elect of the Northeast Chapter of the Medical Marketing Association and Integrated Health Care Programs Manager, Rick spearheaded SKD’s sponsorship of a nationwide colorectal cancer education campaign and other elements of the Digestive Health Initiative, a massive outreach program conducted by a consortium of professional medical associations under the umbrella of the American Digestive Health Foundation. This multidimensional physician and patient education campaign, focused on prevention and early detection, was so successful that Rick was asked to participate in highly confidential discussions pertaining to potential strategic alliances between SKD and various pharmaceutical manufacturers with a vested interest in selling the therapeutic products that are ordered following a confirmed diagnosis. These experiences and his attendance at many FDA Advisory Committee meetings gave Rick both a comprehensive and an "up close and personal" view of the medical industry -- a rather unique perspective of the diagnostics and pharmaceutical sectors separately and collaboratively -- a perspective that even the most most seasoned veterans on each side of the industry rarely ever have an opportunity to see.        This eye-opening view of what goes on behind the scenes in the world of the “drug lords” gave rise to so many disagreements that Rick, standing on principle, finally submitted his resignation in November, 1997.

Currently working as an independent consultant and dedicating much of his free time to helping other athletes utilize their respective sports for charity, Rick devotes most of his time to the fight against cancer. 

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A Question for Senator Clinton is the title of an acclaimed opinion editorial (op-ed) that was published in Suffolk Life, the largest weekly newspaper east of the Mississippi River, reaching over 545,000 Long Island homes.  Rick Shalvoy wrote the editorial during the spring of 2006 after spending two days in Washington, D.C. speaking with the health policy advisors of various members  of Congress about the Health Freedom Protection Act.

Please take a moment to read the op-ed, reprinted below along with a copy of the editorial as it appeared in the newspaper. Please note as well that the Health Freedom Protection Act, referenced in the 2006 op-ed as H.R. 4282, has been reintroduced in the 110th Congress as H.R. 2117. 

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Suffolk Life Newspapers    May 17, 2006

A Question for Senator Clinton
by Rick Shalvoy

Senator Hillary Clinton recently hosted an open-to-all conference call focused on health care in America. While registering for the call, I submitted the following question prefaced by the following introduction to emphasize the enormity of the impact my question might have for the future health of all Americans:
H.R. 4282, the Health Freedom Protection Act, introduced by Congressman Ron Paul, M.D. (R-TX) et al., is clearly the most important piece of health-related legislation in Congress at this time. The act would allow dietary supplement producers to exercise their First Amendment right to notify the public when scientific evidence regarding a supplement's health benefits has been validated.

All such claims would be scrutinized by the FDA before being approved, and the FDA would retain its authority to attack false or misleading claims. The agency would not, however, be able to continue its present practice of either completely prohibiting or arbitrarily censoring all dietary supplement health claims, which it has done even when overwhelming evidence confirms lifesaving health benefits accompanied by huge health care cost reductions.

Federal censorship of the valid claim that adequate consumption of omega-3 fatty acids significantly reduces the risk of sudden death heart attack, for example, absolutely contributes to the fact that America's heart attack death rate remains so appallingly high. During the past 12 years, while heart attacks have taken the lives of an estimated 6 million Americans, we have known all along that a substantial percentage of these deaths could have been prevented with the omega-3 nutritional intervention. Why, then, does the FDA-approved language for omega-3 fatty acids shortchange the truth that can literally save lives?

While acknowledging my StopFDACensorship.org membership, I must tell you that I am not a paid lobbyist or a dietary supplement industry insider. I'm a cancer survivor who supports clinical and in vitro cancer research.

Dietary supplements that happen to be extraordinarily effective as anti-cancer agents would represent an enormous economic threat to the therapeutic sector and to the many people who have collectively invested astronomical amounts of money in the public corporations that profit from the cancer therapy status quo. If such supplements exist, they should be thoroughly studied and the data should be published.

In fact, such supplements do exist, and the FDA is doing everything in its unrestrained power to undermine these supplements by sabotaging the science that supports their safety and efficacy.

One characteristically vicious campaign began on the morning of February 16, 2005 with an ambush at the home of a board-certified oncologist in Reno, Nevada, who is using a remarkably safe palladium lipoic supplement to save the lives of many Stage IV cancer patients -- patients who have already tried and failed conventional therapy. This oncologist, Dr. James Forsythe [Retired Colonel, U.S. Army Medical Corps], has been conducting an outcome-based cancer study and periodically reporting the unprecedented data to his colleagues.

Federal agents forced Dr. Forsythe to lie down on the floor of his home exercise room, held a gun to his head and raided his entire house while another squad was raiding his medical offices, seizing confidential patient files, computers, and many other business and personal items, obviously terrifying his wife, staff and patients in the process. The government's attempt to justify these horrific raids is mind-bogglingly absurd, involving some convoluted story about "the supplier of one of his suppliers." Although the "supplier's supplier" story has absolutely nothing to do with Dr. Forsythe's impeccably administrated cancer study, obstructing the cancer study ultimately became the focus of the raiders' obsession.

The FDA's seek-and-destroy tentacles have now stretched from Nevada to New York. Once again finding the science to be unblemished, the FDA has resorted to intimidation tactics to make life miserable for a prominent scientist at Stony Brook University who has identified exactly how palladium lipoic complexes induce apoptosis (cellular suicide) in cancer cells while supporting natural healing processes in normal cells.

An enacted Health Freedom Protection Act may clear the way for the free flow of truthful health information, but the FDA's outrageous abuse of power will likely intensify as the agency will surely redouble its efforts to attack scientists who are engaged in research that may give rise to such information.

In this great nation, government censorship that contributes to our horrendous morbidity and mortality statistics and police-state raids on the homes and offices of honorable, superbly credentialed health care professionals are atrocities of unspeakable magnitude.                                                    
My question, Senator, is simply this:
Will you please continue to fight for the health and freedom of all Americans by sponsoring the Health Freedom Protection Act in the Senate?

Senator Clinton did not address my question during her conference call, but I think she's working on it. Hillary has a history of becoming actively involved when she sees an opportunity to save lives, prevent suffering and nosedive the cost of health care.

Click here to see a copy of the editorial as it appeared in the newspaper.

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This 800-word version of the op-ed (above) was submitted to dozens of newspapers and magazines during the spring of 2006. Many editors who seemed interested in publishing it requested to see Rick's commentator qualifications and insisted on a disclosure statement confirming the absence of any conflicts of interest. They failed, however, to disclose their own glaring conflicts of interest. At the end of the process, Suffolk Life was the only major publication that agreed to publish the editorial.  The others clearly did not want to ruffle the feathers of the pharmaceutical industry, an industry they rely upon for a significant percentage of their advertising revenue.

In response to requests for commentator qualifications and disclosure statements, Rick submitted the following:

COMMENTATOR QUALIFICATIONS

Founder and Director, Row for a Cure Foundation  
The Row for a Cure Foundation is an all volunteer project of the National Heritage Foundation. Please feel free to visit CharityNavigator.org, generally regarded as the leading nonprofit rating entity in the United States , for confirmation of our four-star rating. The Row for a Cure Foundation supports research designed to further evaluate the mechanisms of action and clinical efficacy of nontoxic, noninvasive products and procedures that have already been shown to be safe and have reportedly benefited patients who have been diagnosed with cancer. The Foundation recognizes and accepts the fact that the word ‘cure’ is far too broad and all-encompassing a word to be used in an actual claim for any treatment or therapeutic modality. Indeed the word ‘cure’ may never be fully defined from a regulatory standpoint, but it does provide at least a conceptual goal for us to work toward, and I honestly believe Row for a Cure Foundation is a much better name for the organization than            Row for a Complete Remission Followed by Significant Long Term Survival With No Recurrences and Good Quality of Life Foundation.

My only regret during the 9 years that I’ve been "rowing for a cure" is that I should have been more careful while climbing onto Billy Joel’s boat.  During the 4th annual Row for a Cure event, a short while after Billy called my cell phone to tell me that he was coming out to meet up with me, I accidentally hyperextended my right hamstring during my rather clumsy attempt to hop from the transom of my boat onto the starboard gunwale of Billy’s boat, a beautifully designed and crafted vessel that is as much the product of Billy's creative genius as any of his songs. The injury prevented me from thoroughly enjoying how funny it was when Billy's little Pug puppy urinated all over me while I was holding her. "Everybody's a critic," said Billy as he rinsed the stern deck with a bucket of water. I finished the event several days later, in pain as usual, but it was a good kind of pain.

Cancer Survivor
I was diagnosed with malignant melanoma in January, 1998, five months after completing the first Row for a Cure. After examining the lesion and obtaining a biopsy specimen, my dermatologist told me that I should see an oncologist immediately -- without even waiting for a biopsy report. I refused all conventional treatment, took the dietary supplement form of palladium lipoic complex, experienced a complete remission and have remained cancer-free since October, 1998. But I am not here to offer my own anecdote, or anyone else's story of remission after taking the same supplement, as evidence of anything. (Many such cases have been documented, but they are far too numerous for me to include here in any event.) I am well aware of the fact that such anecdotes can and will be dismissed as a coincidentally large collection of randomly occurring spontaneous remissions with no scientific basis whatsoever. That is exactly why the need for valid data is so great, and why it is so important for the public to be aware of the powerful wall of resistance that legitimate scientific investigators are faced with when they endeavor to conduct the research that is necessary to evaluate the efficacy of anything that isn't produced by a large pharmaceutical or medical equipment corporation. With such  poor numbers (response, survival and quality of life) coming in from the conventional medical arena for the great majority of the cases that are diagnosed during the later stages of the disease, the "powers that be" will do virtually anything to prevent the truth from being told. The truth is that America has invested untold billions of dollars over the years in cancer research that has given us such a horrible return on our investment that the therapeutic mess we are now faced with is nothing short of a national disgrace. I have personally seen the inner workings of the cancer industry from the inside out and from the outside in, and I regret to report that it is an ugly sight to behold. I am submitting the attached op-ed because I believe the American people are entitled to know the truth. I also believe that when enough people learn the truth, we will somehow muster the political strength to stand up to the power brokers in the cancer industry and take corrective action.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENTS

Senator Clinton 
During the summer of 1998, when the Clintons (the President and First Lady) were vacationing at the home of Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw in East Hampton, the Secret Service had established a “No Boat” security zone in the Atlantic Ocean that spanned a 3-mile radius from the Spielberg-Capshaw property. A news story about the Row for a Cure event, which was in progress at that time, had apparently come to the attention of the Clintons, and Jamie Lee Curtis made a comment on an evening talk show about how ridiculous it was that the Secret Service was going to force me to row around the security zone. After surfing my boat into a treacherous inlet that was navigable by no other means in a 19-foot vessel (this was before I was scheduled to row past East Hampton), collapsing and drifting off into a deep sleep in the Row for a Cure motor home, I was awakened about two hours later by a volunteer who told me that we had arrived at an East Hampton firehouse for a meet-and-greet event with the Clintons. Forcing my mop-headed body to walk and my eyes to remain open, I looked like a poster boy for the 1936 horror film, The Walking Dead.  [And....as if that wasn't mortifying enough, I made a "faux pas fool" out of myself at another event that week.  After darting into the bathroom at the Baldwin-Basinger home, upon exiting I realized that President Clinton did not just so happen to be standing next to the bathroom door -- he had been waiting on line to get into the bathroom!]  In any event, back on the water after all of that inadvertent irreverence, when I finally did reach  the edge of the “No Boat” zone, I was greeted by Secret Service personnel and a Coast Guard crew that had been ordered to escort me through the zone, saving me quite a bit of time as I did not have to row around the 3-mile zone. This episode was followed by a congratulatory letter from Hillary and, later in the year, a holiday greeting card from the Clintons.

During the 1999 Row for a Cure, when the First Lady was house shopping in Westchester County and preparing for her listening tour of New York, Hillary called my cell phone to wish me well as I was rowing in that same area of East Hampton. Several photo ops and letters from the White House, another holiday greeting card and one Row for a Cure later, I found myself standing in a ballroom at the Grand Hyatt on Election Night congratulating the First Lady for winning the Senate seat that Senator Moynihan (may he rest in peace) had been keeping warm for her.

VIEW The White House letters and
CLICK HERE for The New York Times article

StopFDACensorship.org Coalition
My StopFDACensorship.org Coalition membership is disclosed in the submitted text. It is important to note, however, that I am not being paid for any work I do in connection with generating support for the Health Freedom Protection Act. Please note as well that I have no financial interest whatsoever in the dietary supplement industry. All of my efforts in support of this legislation are being conducted strictly as a consumer and a concerned citizen.

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Nobel Laureate Dr. Harold Varmus, President and CEO of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, has been my rowing partner for the East River segment of the Row for a Cure course for the past several years. My friendship with Dr. Varmus has as much to do with an interconnected personal history as it does with a shared interest in rowing and, of course, cancer research. My former newspaper delivery customer, the famous public works emperor and New York State Parks Commissioner Robert Moses (I was a "paperboy to the stars"-- Guy Lombardo was one of my customers after I moved from Babylon to Freeport), had appointed Dr. Varmus’ father, Dr. Frank Varmus, Chief Medical Officer of Jones Beach State Park. I had been an unwilling patient of the elder Dr. Varmus on more than one occasion as one of the many children who needed to have boardwalk splinters removed at the Jones Beach Central Mall First Aid Office, which, at times, looked more like a hospital emergency room than a first aid office. Dr. Harold Varmus and I graduated from the same high school (13 years apart) and, during our June 15, 2001 meeting in his office, we were able to answer a number of "Where are they now?" questions for one another regarding family members and mutual friends. Carefully following his outstanding career over the years, I was delighted to learn that Dr. Varmus had won a shared Nobel Prize in 1989 for his groundbreaking discovery work regarding the genetic underpinnings of carcinogenesis. After serving as Director of the National Institutes of Health for 6 years beginning in November, 1993, Dr. Varmus accepted the president and chief executive titles that were offered to him by Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in 1999. While this may seem to be a rather unusual disclosure for someone who has a reputation for eschewing "conventional" cancer therapy, the underlying fact is that I have a great deal of respect for good science no matter where the data path leads. I am simply trying to support paths of research that have traditionally been ignored due to a lack of corporate and government interest. 

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The "Row 2001 finish with Dr. Varmus" photo below was taken on July 10, 2001.  This photo was taken in the East River with the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in the background --            63 days before the September 11 terrorist attacks.  Rick Shalvoy (left, in bow seat) and Dr. Harold Varmus were rowing toward South Street Seaport at that time.

Three years later, the "2004 Row for a Cure" photo was taken while Dr. Varmus (left, in stern seat) and Rick were in the boat adjacent to Pier 16 at South Street Seaport.

 

 

	2004 Row for a Cure
Row 2001 Finish with Dr. Varmus

 

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