THERE IS still a huge stigma attached to a cancer diagnosis in many countries, and much more needs to be done to address this, the third and final day of a global cancer summit in Dublin heard yesterday.
Dr John Seffrin, chief executive of the American Cancer Society, said the stigma was different in different places. In some places it meant people were discriminated against by employers; in others women were afraid to tell their husbands in case they would leave them.
“The key point is we need to destigmatise cancer, saying it is a disease process, we know a great deal about how to prevent it, we know a great deal about how to detect it early, and we know a great deal about how to reduce human suffering from it.”
In the US, he said, there was a notion that if you had cancer you were somehow compromised for the rest of your life and not going to be able to achieve as much as you otherwise would.
He added that we know how to prevent 60 per cent of cancer. It was now known, for example, that the cervical cancer vaccination worked and there was “a moral imperative” to use it. Ireland should introduce it as soon as it could. “Obviously tough decisions have to be made, but it should be high on the list and as soon as it is affordable it should be done.”
Minister for Health Mary Harney has postponed the introduction of the vaccine for 12-year-old Irish girls due to the costs involved.
Dr Seffrin added that the cost of cancer was a huge issue for families, with 100,000 families going bankrupt in one year in the US as a direct result of a cancer diagnosis.
Cancer survivor and seven times Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong said there was a stigma associated with testicular cancer when he was diagnosed with it in Texas in 1996. “The state government had taken out testicular self-exams out of text books... That’s because of stigma, its because they considered that to be offensive, so I suffered a little bit from that.”
He added that the impression that cancer was a death sentence was incorrect. “We can change that, and we can encourage people to get treatment earlier and believe that they will live.”
However, he stressed that people had to also take personal responsibility and go to the doctor if things were not right.
He was speaking at the close of the Livestrong Cancer Summit at the RDS organised by the Lance Armstrong Foundation, which was set up in the US over a decade ago to raise awareness around cancer.