Believe it or not, in this week approaching Thanksgiving, we in the United States are faced with a second challenge to Prostate Cancer screening using the PSA test.  Malecare wants you to know.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is asking for pubic comment on a clinical quality measure that would probably lead to financial penalties for providers (your doctor) who order a PSA screening test.  The measure is based on the PSA screening recommendations of the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF).

The USPSTF is the organization responsible for the recommendation against prostate cancer screening.  Their May 2012 recommendation reads:

"The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends against prostate-specific antigen (PSA)-based screening for prostate cancer."

This recommendation has caused massive controversy throughout our health care system.  

Whether you agree with their 2012 finding or not, Malecare feels that our prostate cancer community needs to be heard. The potential for provider penalties for offering the PSA test for prostate cancer screening could hurt tens of thousands of men who might never know that they have advanced prostate cancer until they are months away from death. 

Fortunately, the call for comments is a simple one, where you post your thoughts about PSA screening in just a few sentences.

Unfortunately, the method to post your comments will likely be the most complicated thing you ever do online.  My hair is now fully gray after attempting to comment...but, I feel I have done something important in making my voice hear...I hope that you will feel the same.

Here are the step by step instructions for posting your comments:

Your goal is to post a comment for:

Electronic Clinical Quality Measures for Non-Recommended Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA)-Based Screening

Go to: http://jira.oncprojectracking.org/login.jsp

Article here. Excerpt:

'Bloomfield Hills High School hosted an offseason FIRST Robotics Competition for girls on high school robotics teams Saturday afternoon.

Thirty-two all-female teams from across Michigan and one team that traveled from Indiana to participate.

Fans cheered for their classmates as robots went head-to head in the arena. The machines were designed, built and driven exclusively by female students.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'A Catholic elementary school principal in Cincinnati suspended a 6-year-old boy for three days late last week because he used a pretend bow and arrow on the playground at recess.

The imaginative first grader attends Our Lady of Lourdes School, reports local NBC affiliate WLWT-TV.

The recess incident that led to the suspension occurred on Thursday. The unidentified boy drew back a bow he had invented purely in his mind. He took aim with this nothingness at a friend. He then released a completely nonexistent arrow from some make-believe quiver.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Almost a third of universities are now running outreach activities targeted at young men as they try to tackle the growing gender gap in student applications, according to the Office for Fair Access. They are being offered taster subject sessions, talks with role models and mentoring through local football clubs to encourage them to consider a university degree.

Young women were around a third more likely than men to enter university in 2014, according to Ucas, the universities admissions body, and female applicants dominate entrance to courses in medicine, law and biology.'

Also see: The gender gap at universities: where are all the men?

Article here. Excerpt:

'During the Democratic debate on Saturday, Hillary Clinton claimed that Republicans were against equal pay or equal work.

This is false.

No one is against equal pay for equal work (it's also already the law). The problem for Clinton is that what she is referring to — the gender wage gap — is not about women making less money for doing the same job as men.

The wage gap compares the median salary of all women with the median salary of all men. But on aggregate, women work fewer hours than men, and take more time off from work. Women also tend to enter lower paying occupations than men. This is not a wage gap — it is more accurately described as an "earnings gap."'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Last week Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat and an eager Hillary Clinton surrogate, opened a new front against men — it's difficult to categorize this as a front for women — by ridiculing half of her constituents (and half of America) on national television.

Sitting in what appeared to be an office for a segment on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” she urged women to run for office and told men to “shut the hell up.”

She was bristly, unfunny and strident. What was meant to be a parody of public-service announcements was, in truth, her attempt to hit the sweet spot that Hillary Clinton and Democrats are chasing to win the presidency next year: the female and millennial vote.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'One day in the spring of this year I was engaged in conversation with two women. The subject turned to the suicide of a man only peripherally known to the two of them. It took place almost exactly one month after the sudden and unexpected death from natural causes of the man’s wife.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Justice for Men and Boys, a British political party whose founder, Mike Buchanan, is a familiar face to those interested in men’s affairs, is hosting an International Conference on Men’s Issues in London in July.

I am not a men’s rights activist, but I am keenly interested in men’s affairs – and I don’t just mean the married blokes I like to spirit away from their wives. I share something in common with the men’s rights movement and the manosphere more generally, you see: a visceral loathing of vindictive, bullying and sociopathic third-wave feminists, whose ugly prescriptions are damaging men and women alike.

I would like to share with the world my tips for beating these dreadful people in debate, on the rare occasion they deign to emerge from behind their Macbooks. So I will be giving a short lecture at the conference provisionally entitled: How To Beat Feminists In Debates. I will endeavour to provide as many practical tips as belly laughs.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Women here earn 83 cents for every dollar paid to men, 4 cents higher than the national statistic. Disparities persist across age groups, industries and companies, researchers have found — even when colleagues of the opposite sex hold identical education levels and job titles.

That’s why Boston is offering free, two-hour salary negotiation classes to every woman who works in the city. They started in October, two years after former mayor Thomas Menino pledged that Boston would become the first U.S. city to achieve pay parity.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Much has been made, and will continue to be made, of the past week’s events at the University of Missouri and, closer to home, at Yale. These flashes in the pan do signal something important, but not what most folks think. What is at stake is the death of pluralism.
...
Here's how the new rhetoric works: If you are a person of color, a woman, Hispanic, gay, transgender, Indian - whether Asian or American - or otherwise simply feeling as though the world hasn't "validated" you, then demand recognition. If you don't get it, then find a white male to blame. Claim that you don't have all you want, or that all you think you should have is kept from you, because of "white male privilege."

Article here. Excerpt:

'"People have this preconceived idea that states that are led by women engage in less conflict," says Oeindrila Dube, an assistant professor of politics and economics at New York University. But historically, that's just not true. Not only did queens fight more wars than kings, they were also more likely to start them, Dube and NYU Ph.D. candidate S.P. Harish show in research presentedSaturday at the American Political Science Association's 2015 annual meeting in San Francisco.
...
Overall, women are less violent than men—they commit fewer than 1/10th of the murders in the United States—and, when elected to office at the local level, enact different policies than their male counterparts. But on the global stage, perhaps women can be more aggressive—Margaret Thatcher and Indira Gandhicertainly were. But were Thatcher and Gandhi just particularly aggressive women who fought their way to power and then on to war? Or would many other women in power do the same thing?

Article here. In the heated exchange on “The Sunday Talk” segment of CBC’s The National (Nov 8), I was incredulous at the politically-willed ignorance and prejudice on display. The two opposing panelists were both ardent feminists who approve denial of official status to men’s groups. Excerpt:

'What viewers witnessed in microcosm in those 12 minutes is the despotism of the left exercising its tyranny over straight white males, the only group in Western culture upon which any and all collective slanders may be heaped with impunity. If directed at women (except for Christian pro-lifers), blacks, aboriginals, Muslims, or gays, some of the erroneous claims Adam and Scaachi adduced as settled truth would be deemed hate speech.

Story here. Bear in mind, McAuliffe is a dyed-blue Democrat and been a cheerleader for The Hildebeast in years past... and even *he* has "concerns". Excerpt:

'The University of Virginia waged an intense fight over the summer to influence the conclusions of a federal investigation into sexual violence at the school, newly obtained documents show, while Virginia’s governor personally pressed the nation’s top education official to ensure that the elite public flagship would not be unfairly tarnished.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) [link added] urged U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan to give U-Va. a chance to review the findings of the four-year investigation of the school’s record on sexual assault before they were made public, saying he feared that U-Va. was being denied “very basic requirements of due process.”

Article here. Excerpt:

'"I fully accept my bias," Pentico said. "A well-trained, well-toned, football player cold-cocked his fiancée and dragged her out of an elevator without any emotion. It was an assault. It was a violent, blood-curdling assault. If that was my daughter, I would lose my mind.

"I own that there's a double standard here," Pentico continued. "Until the tables turn in our society, it is going to be that way."

Story here. Excerpt:

'A 9-year-old Florida boy could face sexual harassment charges for penning love notes to a girl in his class, his furious mother said.

The tiny admirer gushed about his crush, telling her she's "pretty and cute" while boldly revealing his feelings for her in the handwritten loose-leaf letter, ABC Action News reported.

"I like you," the Tampa fourth grader in the Hillsborough County Public Schools district wrote inside a heart drawing. "I like your hair because it is not sloppy. I like your eyes because they sparkle like diamonds."

The romantic proclamations landed the little boy in the principal's office, where school officials threatened they'd get authorities to slap him with sexual harassment charges, according to ABC.

They said his pining was inappropriate and came in several "unwanted" letters.

It also prompted other students to tease the young writer, saying he wanted to see the girl naked, though the notes never expressed any sexual intentions, the news station said.