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VA Rejected Paying For His Cancer Treatment; Black Veteran Credits HBCU for Saving His Life

By Hazel Trice Edney(TriceEdneyWire.com)The benefits of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are well known by those who enroll in them, support them or otherwise associate with them.Among the top five benefits, according to the United Negro College Fund, HBCUs meet the needs of low-income students; they serve first-generation Black students; they narrow the racial wealth gap; they address the nation’s unemployment and underemployment crisis and they foster success with their Black cultural climate.But, in the opinion of Lawrence Davis, a master mechanic who was diagnosed with prostate cancer nine years ago, an HBCU actually provided for him a service that was equal to or even greater than any one of these benefits. Davis credits Hampton University for literally saving his life after the Veteran’s Administration declined to pay for his chosen cancer treatment – Proton Beam at Hampton University.“I’ll tell anybody!” Davis declared during an interview. “Hampton University’s Proton Therapy Cancer Institute saved my life. It’s like the best kept secret in the world that we have right here in Virginia. And it is the largest stand-alone and most advanced one in the world – not just in Virginia, but in the world.”But, that 2014 victory did not come without a fight. The fight was not as much against the cancer per se as it was with a least expected opposition. Despite the fact that Davis is an honorably discharged veteran of the U. S. Air Force, he recalls how the Veteran’s Administration (VA) refused to cover the cost of the proton beam therapy, thereby putting his life in jeopardy.“We’ll cut it out, we’ll give you radiation, we’ll freeze it, but oh no – proton? – uh uh. We can’t give you that,” he recounted his perception of the response from the VA.But, his mind was made up. Therefore, the fight was on.He reached out to Bill Thomas, associate vice president for Governmental Relations of the Proton Therapy Institute and other Hampton University leadership. They, in turn, started going around back and forth with the Veteran’s Administration, he said.“Bill Thomas has gone out and handed them everything that we can hand them. And they still turned it down,” said Davis.They also reached out to members of the U. S. Congress; including Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine; Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. Bobby Scott.“And still the VA said, ‘No we’re not going to do that.’ They wouldn’t even look at it to be able to do it as a clinical trial,” Davis said.Thomas recalls the frustration that was all too familiar.During a meeting led by Scott, “I literally asked the VA, “Why are you letting this man die? Why are you not giving him what he needs to live? And they just looked at me and said, ‘It can’t be approved.’”Turns out, Thomas said, “They were using the wrong set of guidelines ... The qualifying agency that made the determination of whether or not you could use proton therapy was using 15-year-old data to turn people down.”Due to medical confidentiality, the Veteran’s Administration could not specifically comment on Davis’ case. In

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