Sir, - Some weeks ago in your Letter columns, the chief executive of the Irish Cancer Society gently chided a District Justice who had described a particular crime as "a cancer in our society". He requested that persons in positions of authority should refrain from using such a phrase as it compounds the hurt and alienation already felt by cancer sufferers. In fairness to the District Justice involved, I have probably used this offensive phrase myself in the past - until this summer, that is, when I too became a cancer patient. Not alone has my attitude to cancer changed, but, allowing myself a modicum of black humour, perhaps the District Justice could in future describe crime in his court as "a blue flu on our society". In this way he will not cause global offence, least of all to the healthy members of An Garda Siochana who took this course of action!
Alas, it gets worse. I read in The Irish Times that the Minister of Defence has plummeted to new descriptive depths by referring to Army deafness claims as "an ever growing malignant tumour, a cancer on the skin of the Department of Defence". This thoughtless, cheap political sideswipe is reprehensible, as it offends not only cancer sufferers, but it also conveniently ignores the fact that this "illness" could have been cured cheaply many decades ago when the problem was brought to the attention of his Department and promptly ignored. Today our society is paying dearly for this classic inaction. - Is mise, Comdt F. M. Russell (Ret'd),
Navan Road, Dublin 15.