Mark Whitacre’s amazing story of how he survived intense corporate corruption to emerge as an “agent of change” is partly chronicled in “The Informant”, starring Matt Damon, was released in theaters nationally on September 18, 2009 and is already being heralded as an Oscar contender.

But that’s only part of the story. While the movie depicts Mark’s dark days as a top level corporate executive turned “whistleblower” and then Inmate number 07543-424, that’s not who Mark Whitacre is in 2009. Mark’s entire life revolves around educating people about health including diet and exercise, cancer prevention and early detection, and taking control of one’s own health care by being informed and educated.

"I have had many challenges in my life including working undercover for the FBI for almost 3 years, and also going to federal prison afterwards. But, by far, the biggest challenge I ever had in my life was to overcome mental illness, bipolar disorder. Prior to several years of psychiatric treatment and heavy medication, it created tremendous chaos for my entire family, and almost ended my life. The fact that I was undiagnosed and untreated during the undercover years-when stress was at its highest level-eventually resulted in two suicide attempts in the 1990s. I learned then firsthand that certain diseases, no matter mental or physical, have to be treated. After almost three years of going through intensive treatment, I got a feel for what people go through when being treated for a disease. It was a horrific experience that I will never forget. Therefore, my passion is to focus on ways to be proactive and PREVENT diseases, rather than dealing with the often painful and costly path of treatment. There is a lot we can do ourselves in order to prevent certain diseases, especially chronic diseases like cancer and heart disease. We need to take control of our own health. And we can!"

"I personally invite you to take a look at my new health education platform. Our campaign for self-managed preventive health care is made available for people everywhere in this easy-to-navigate, user-friendly site, Healthy Odds".

"Why am I so passionate about health and particularly cancer prevention?"

“Partly because my PhD thesis was on selenium and selenium has been shown in clinical trials to be very powerful intervention agent in the prevention of cancers such as prostate, lung and colon cancer,” states Whitacre. “But moreso because the statistics for these cancers are unacceptable to me. I was shocked to find that while prostate cancer is the one of the most diagnosed cancers in men, and that the survival rate is very high compared to other cancers, it is still the SECOND leading cause of cancer deaths among men in the U.S.! Lung cancer is THE leading cause of cancer death in all people, and color cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in this country.

So much of this human suffering can be avoided by being educated about health, adopting preventative health practices, and early detection. This proactive self-health management not only applies to preventing cancer, but also to all chronic diseases. My goal is to use what I’ve learned, both professionally and experientially, to change the course of cancer and chronic disease among American people.