LungBlog

 Lung cancer didn’t stop Bonnie Addario, 60, from giving a big voice to those suffering from the same cancer as her.
The San Carlos resident began a nonprofit organization that gave more than $2.5 million in the last two years to research and provide awareness on the cancer that kills more people than any other cancer.
“There are too many people dying every day,” she said. “Four-hundred-and-fifty-five people die every day from lung cancer … That’s like an airplane crashing every day,” she said.

 Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death for both men and women.

Now there’s a new screening program (sponsored by Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation) at Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City, CA,  that may give patients a fighting chance for long-term survival.

 Lung cancer survivor and San Carlos resident Bonnie Addario has been honored for her efforts to combat the deadly disease.

She recently received a local Jefferson Award for creating the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation, which has raised more than $2 million in the past two years for cancer research. That honor puts her in the running to win one of the five national Jefferson Awards in June. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis established the award in 1972.

 Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death for both men and women.

But now there’s a new screening program at Sequoia Hospital, sponsored by the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation, that may give Bay Area patients a fighting chance for long-term survival.

Over 50% of new lung cancer cases will be diagnosed at a very late stage and only 5% of them will live for 5 years. Because lung cancer often spreads beyond the lungs before it causes symptoms, a good screening test to find lung cancer early could save many lives. The hope of the lung cancer early detection program is to prolong survival.

Sequoia’s lung cancer early detection program is a participating member of the International Early Lung Cancer Action Program (I-ELCAP).

“When I saw the statistics for lung cancer, 450 people in the United States die every day. In the world, it’s 1.3 million annually. That’s like a plane dropping out of the sky daily,” says Bonnie Addario. “I questioned why there was so little being done about it.”

So Bonnie did something, setting up the non-profit Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation two years ago. Since then, she has raised more than two million dollars to help eradicate lung cancer - a disease that invaded her chest in 2003.

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Bonnie J. Addario broke barriers by becoming one of the country’s top female oil company executives. Now, she is parlaying her professional prowess into running one of the country’s largest lung-cancer foundations.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel presented the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation’s Luminosity Award to U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein Nov. 9 in the presence of 650 guests at the foundation’s annual “Simply The Best Gala” at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco.
The award acknowledged Feinstein’s work in the fight against cancer, especially lung cancer.

Leading Researchers Converge in San Francisco on Nov. 9 & 10 to Shine Spotlight, Create Solutions on Lung Cancer, the #1 Cancer Killer

The Bonnie J. Addario “A Breath Away from the Cure” Lung Cancer Foundation, headquartered in San Francisco and San Carlos, California, hosted Lung Cancer: Drive it off the Earth Golf Tournament II at Green Hills Country Club in Millbrae, California, on Monday, June 25, 2007 with a shotgun start at high noon. It was truly a hole in one in the fight against Lung Cancer, raising over $150,000. The live auction raised $44,100 with exclusive items including a 2008 Playboy Golf Finals Charity Auction Package (not generally open to the public), a two-night stay for two at Pebble Beach with rounds of golf for two at Pebble Beach and Spanish Bay, foursomes at private country clubs such as Clint Eastwood’s Tehama, Green Hills, Meadow, Monterey Peninsula, Montreux, Silver Creek, and Ruby Hill, life saving CT Scans for lung cancer from Sheila Galuppo at Premier Scan in San Jose which sold four times on the block at $1800 a pop (over four times the actual cost of each scan), a once-in-a-lifetime duck-hunting excursion, fishing trips, a Cheryl Jennings’ ABC TV studio tour, artwork by J.T. Revizé and much more. The Foundation was thrilled at all the generous support making this year even more successful than last.