Starry Evening

The idea to include an informal “chat room” on Hopkins’ Pancreas Cancer Web Page originally came as an afterthought, recalls pathologist Ralph Hruban, M.D., a leading expert on the disease, who helped start the informative site a few years back as a resource for patients and physicians. But the chat part of the Web page, where patients fighting the deadly cancer post questions, get advice and offer each other emotional support, instantly sprang to life. Hundreds of patients—and their families and friends—now check in to discuss the challenges of battling the disease. Many writers continue to log on, long after their stricken family members have died.

Recently, the site spurred activism. Two Los Angeles-based correspondents on the chat room, each of whom had lost a parent to pancreatic cancer, were touched last January when numerous despairing and angry chat messages complained about the lack of funding for pancreatic cancer research. One, Pam Acosta, an executive of a scrap metal recycling company, had visions of holding a gala fundraiser—replete with celebrities and black ties—at a Beverly Hills hotel. The other, Paula Simper, who owns a construction consulting company, had promised her father before he died that she would contribute in some way to promoting earlier detection of the disease. She had visions of raising money to support basic science—and she wanted the money to go to the world-renowned labs at Hopkins.

The two, who met on the website, organized “An Evening with the Stars,” a $250-a-plate ballroom benefit for Hopkins pancreatic cancer research that took place in November. The sold-out event included famous families touched by the disease: the children of “Little House on the Prairie” star Michael Landon, who died of pancreatic cancer, the swimming film-star Esther Williams, who lost her husband Fernando Lamas, the widow of renowned hairstylist Paul Mitchell. Other stars—including ‘50s crooner Pat Boone and TV star Marcia Wallace from “The Bob Newhart Show”—jumped to the cause. And cancer patients, survivors and their families from all over the country flew to L.A. for the affair, meeting the stars and greeting for the first time some of the people who’d been posting consoling and informative notes on the Web.

Pam and Tom Acosta greet film-star Esther Williams, whose husband Fernando Lamas died of Pancreatic cancer.

With ticket sales and a silent auction, the dinner raised $150,000 to open a new Hopkins pathology lab in February. It will be directed by Mike Goggins, M.D., and dedicated to finding tell-tales signs in the blood or stool before the disease turns fatal. The 1999 event, slated for November, will continue to fund the Hopkins lab. “Not everybody who posts on the website has been treated at Hopkins, though many have,” Simper notes (her father wasn’t), “but the chat board has created huge Hopkins loyalty and because of the site people know and respect the basic and clinical science going on there.”

-- Kate Ledger