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Richard Edelman, the touchy CEO of the massive Wal-Mart supporting PR firm Edelman, is going above and beyond for his client AdMeTech, a prostate cancer foundation. He's inviting a select group of "key opinion leaders"/ perfect strangers to his own apartment for dinner, where he will discuss his own experience with a false positive exam for prostate cancer. Sounds...interesting! (Note: we debated over whether it would be wrong to publish this until we discovered that Edelman already wrote all about his prostate exam on his blog). Points to him for taking up a good cause, but we...have some other thing to do that night. Not that we were invited in the first place. The full email enticing the opinion leaders to this "robust discussion" of prostates, after the jump.

On behalf of Richard Edelman, President & CEO, Edelman:

April 21, 2008

Dear [OPINION LEADER],

I would like to invite you to a private dinner at my home in New York City on May 1st. This dinner will serve as a forum for an open discussion about an often unspoken and unrecognized health care crisis affecting millions of American men - prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer has become an epidemic even more prevalent than breast cancer. However, men do not have diagnostic tools for prostate cancer, comparable to life-saving mammograms for women. Without accurate diagnostics to guide biopsies and treatment, patient care is blind and the impact is grave. Due to false alarms caused by the PSA test, more than one million men are being subjected to traumatic biopsies that are unnecessary. I know, because I am one of those men.

Troubled by my own experience, I started working with the AdMeTech Foundation*, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the creation of advanced diagnostic tools for prostate cancer. Since then I've learned that blind biopsies may miss prostate cancer entirely or fail to estimate its severity. Unnecessary and failed treatments are widespread and cause frequent life-altering complications. The striking absence of straight conversations about the critical role of diagnostic tools in patient care ensures that prostate cancer remains a socioeconomic crisis, compromises the quality of life and survival of today's men and adds billions of dollars to health care costs.

I hope you will join me, Dr. Faina Shtern of AdMeTech Foundation, and key opinion leaders from health care, research, advocacy and the media in a robust discussion that leads to change for millions of men.

Where: [Richard Edelman's fancy UWS address]

New York, NY 10023

When: Thursday, May 1, 2008

7 p.m. - Cocktails / 8 p.m. - Dinner

Please RSVP by April 24th to Anthony Edwards at [redacted]. Given our space limitations, I have asked Anthony to contact your office to follow up on this invitation.

Hoping you can join us on May 1st.

Sincerely,

Richard Edelman

President and CEO