Dave,

It was great to scan the web see your story on the Tour of Hope! I rode this past Saturday as a member of Team BMS (Bristol-Myers Squibb) and agree that the ride was spectacular! I am looking forward to your pictures and stories.

Enclosed is a copy of the Washington Post article regarding the TOH and my co-worker's response. I thought you might find them of interest.

--------------------------------------------------
Below is the piece fromt the Post.

'Live Strong' Tour Cruises to the Mall
Area Cyclists, Cancer Survivors Join Armstrong

By Susan Kinzie
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 10, 2004; Page C01

Early yesterday before the mist had burned off, bicyclists strapped on sleek helmets around their ears, safety-pinned numbers on friends' backs and waited. Then a black SUV rolled into Georgetown Preparatory School in North Bethesda. People ran after it and crowded around cheering, reaching over their heads to snap photos, a bright yellow band on almost every other wrist.

Lance Armstrong had arrived. Riding a wave of popular support after his historic sixth Tour de France win this summer, Armstrong has taken his message -- to live strong -- and turned a yellow rubber band into an increasingly visible sign of strength for cancer research.

John Kerry wears one. Serena Williams wears one. And Phil Gastilo, a computer technician from Fort Washington who has lost several relatives to cancer, never takes his off.

Yesterday morning, Armstrong hopped on a bike for a fundraising ride into Washington, the final leg of a cross-country tour. "This is dramatically different from last year," Armstrong told the Maryland crowd from his bike at the front of the pack of nearly 1,000 riders, all of whom had raised at least $500. "The people along the sides of the roads . . . all times of day . . . it's been awesome."

People strained to see him, teetering on tiptoes or squeezing through the crowd with pictures for him to sign. A woman with blond curls wiped away tears. A little boy on his dad's shoulders grinned like crazy.

As techno music crackled through speakers, the cyclists were off, headed south on a 27-mile route to the Ellipse. "See all those Live Strong yellow bands?" the announcer asked the crowd as the riders rolled by, and they cheered.

Armstrong was a world-class cyclist when his cancer was diagnosed at age 25. He began treatment with the same kind of determination that he brought to races and went on not only to recover, but also to win the Tour de France. And then he did it again, and again, setting a record this summer with his sixth win.

Then there are those bracelets.

The bright yellow mirrors the color of the jersey that the leader wears at the Tour de France. Since this spring, when Nike launched the Live Strong campaign with a gift of $1 million and 5 million wristbands, the Lance Armstrong Foundation has sold 17 million. Orders take three weeks to ship because of the backlog. Some people, to the foundation's chagrin, have been reselling the band for a profit on the Internet.

The foundation has raised millions of dollars from the sale of the $1 bands, but that's not all. As people log on to the Web site to buy the bands, they often make a donation directly to the foundation.

Gail Van Tassell arrived at the Ellipse yesterday with a yellow band on each wrist. One was for a friend whose sister is very ill, and she plans to give it to her now that she has finished the fundraising ride. "This one is from a cancer survivor, a patient of mine that gave it to me," Van Tassell said. The 56-year-old nurse from Harpers Ferry, W.Va., has lost family members to cancer, loves Armstrong and loves to ride. "It feels really good," she said, walking off, bike chain clicking.

Event organizers estimated the crowd at more than 8,000, as much as five times larger than the first Tour of Hope last year.

Twenty cyclists left Los Angeles Sept. 30 and rode 3,500 miles to Washington. The riders were doctors, nurses, researchers and people such as Kristen Adelman, a teacher from Elkridge who has been in remission for two years.

Max Owens, 5, was waiting at the Ellipse for his dad, who was riding with the national team. Jim Owens has a brain tumor, and its growth has slowed under treatment during clinical trials of a new drug, said his brother, John Owens. Armstrong has strongly supported more clinical trials for cancer medications.

John Owens said he worried about his brother riding cross-country, becoming so nervous that he put on a second wristband. But waiting at the Ellipse, he said that riding through the Rocky Mountains had made his brother feel as though he had beaten cancer for good.

The crowd pressed up against mesh fences to see the cyclists arrive. People cheered as they caught glimpses of helmets flickering by and lifted their arms to take photos and videos, yellow bands on their wrists.

Someone lifted Max so he could see his dad, and Lance Armstrong.

-------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------
Below is my co-workers response to the Washington Post article from this past weekend. I hope they print the editorial.

October 10, 2004
The Washington Post
letters@washpost.com

To the Editors,

As a rider who participated in the fundraising ride mentioned on the front page of the Metro section on Sunday, I appreciate your coverage. Unfortunately, you misrepresented the event and missed the point of it. This ride was not the “Live Strong Tour” as you cited in your headline. It was not just “area cyclists” as you said in your subhead. It was not about Lance Armstrong and his yellow LiveStrong wristbands.

This tour was the Tour of Hope sponsored by Bristol-Myers Squibb and Lance Armstrong, a cross-country ride whose goal was and is to promote the promise of cancer research and to raise awareness of clinical trials. Although “Tour of Hope” was to be seen everywhere on the Ellipse—on banners hung over the stage and at the entrance to tents to informational posters all over the Ellipse to a huge touring bus to the jerseys, shorts, jackets and caps of hundreds of riders (take a good look at the picture you ran)—you didn’t even mention “Tour of Hope” until the tail end of the article.

This was about 20 courageous riders touched by cancer personally or professionally who rode 24/7 for 8 days to cover the 3500 miles from Los Angeles to DC, telling their stories and inspiring hope in those fighting cancer, personally or professionally. (Lance himself acknowledged the immensity of this feat, noting that the Tour de France covers only 2500 miles and he get 3 weeks to do it.)

This was about 900 riders from all over the country who rode the 27-mile DC ride in honor or in memoriam of family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and even strangers with whom their only contact was hearing their story from someone else. I’m from Connecticut and I met people from Maryland, New Jersey, Iowa, California, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts.

This was about the woman who rode for her 21-year-old son, recently diagnosed with a rare form of sarcoma, a soft-tissue tumor, in his lungs for which there is no effective treatment available. He is undergoing an experimental treatment at the National Institutes of Health: After being placed on heart-lung bypass, his lungs will be perfused with TAXOL, a BMS oncology drug, and then the temperature of his lungs will be raised in an attempt to increase the effect of the drug. A radical treatment, but if it works, it may save this young man’s life, and it can then be used on the next person diagnosed with the same disease, and the next, and the next to save theirs.

This was about the woman who at 17 was diagnosed with stage IV (advanced) ovarian cancer with metastases to numerous other organs and who was treated with a regimen including another BMS drug, cisplatin, 3 months out of clinical trials. Today she is a 21‑year survivor, who when she lagged along the ride told herself if she could beat cancer, she could ride 27 miles.

This was about a young man in his prime diagnosed in June with acute myelogenous leukemia who rode wearing a surgical mask because his white blood cell count was so low he is at increased risk for infections. He’s already beaten the 3 months his doctors gave him to live and is awaiting a stem cell transplant to cure his disease. He wasn’t going to miss this ride for anything.

This was about the woman who hadn’t been on a bike in years, but who lost 70 pounds and trained for a year to do this ride because her mother is currently being treated for colorectal cancer.

This was about me, who 23 years ago as a technologist in hospital laboratories heard stories of leukemia patients fighting insurance companies because they refused to pay for the “experimental” bone marrow transplants that could save their lives. Six years ago when I was diagnosed with leukemia, bone marrow transplants were standard care, paid for by insurance without question.

This was about Lance, but not because of his Tour de France championships or his LiveStrong campaign. But because 8 years ago he was diagnosed with advanced testicular cancer and was treated with three BMS drugs, brought to market through clinical trials, drugs that saved his life. As he said at the finale, if it weren’t for those clinical trials, there wouldn’t have been those drugs, and without those drugs, there wouldn’t have been the last 8 years for him and his family, and there wouldn’t have been six Tour de France championships.

As a cancer survivor, I am a Lance fan. There’s no question he should be famous for his athletic accomplishments, but I admire him because he has chosen to use his fame not for self-aggrandizement but rather to promote the cause of cancer research, clinical trials and survivorship. He considers his survival his greatest victory.

I also proudly wear a yellow LiveStrong bracelet. But the LiveStrong campaign is distinct from the Tour of Hope. LiveStrong is the brainchild of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, and although it has become a phenomenon and the LAF is involved in organizing the Tour of Hope and ultimately will administer the monies raised by the TOH, this ride was not about LiveStrong.

Finally, as a BMS employee, I am honored to be working for a company that not only is dedicated to extending and enhancing human life but one that could pull together such a monumental feat as the cross-country ride and such an inspiring event as Saturday’s finale. I only hope that I, too, am contributing in some small way to giving hope to the next person diagnosed with cancer.

You did your readers and the whole cancer community a disservice by focusing on Lance’s celebrity and the yellow bracelets. There was a much larger message here, one that unfortunately more and more people need to hear but didn’t get the chance to through your paper.

Mary K.