Bowel Cancer
Big winners from last night’s budget include Australians aged 50 and over at risk of bowel cancer – who until now have been among the nation’s most marginalised.
The $50 million in new bowel cancer screening funds announced by Wayne Swan and health minister Tanya Plibersek on Saturday may end years of discrimination against a cancer that has been at the bottom of the pile when it comes to understanding and reducing the nation’s overall cancer burden.
The pun was intended. I usually refrain from double entendres when discussing bowel cancer, because it is no laughing matter. We should not make light of a human tragedy – and one that’s all the more tragic because of its preventability.
Continue reading "Finding the cancer at the bottom of the pile" »
If most of us ran our household budgets like governments run health budgets, we’d be on the streets.
The lack of apparent logic in health funding will be highlighted today by a joint statement from independent MPs Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott and Andrew Wilkie, calling on the federal government to expand its National Bowel Cancer Screening Program in the 2012-13 budget.
For the three Independents to make this united plea says two things: they are concerned for the health of the nation and for people in their electorates; and the argument for an urgent expansion of the NBCSP is compelling.
Continue reading "You’ll be boweled over by this cheap Budget lifesaver" »
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Elizabeth says:
I don’t think any screening program should be implemented without proper assessment by an independent body, cut out politicians and those with a vested interest altogether. If the program satisfies the risk v benefit test, then it needs to be regularly reviewed and updated when necessary…and there must always be… Read more »
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Against the Man says:
@ TChong - So the coward returns and gets slammed! @ Pieman - This is a ALP problem and ALP corruption, to hold them not accountable means this is an illegal government. hey maybe you have a point Read more »
Yesterday, Tory Shepherd wrote a Punch piece on how breast cancer was beating bowel cancer in the cancer wars. Here, Anita Tang looks at why bowel cancer has an image problem and what should be done about it.
It’s not surprising bowel cancer has an image problem. What’s our emotional response to the word ‘bowel’? The bowel conjures images of the body’s secret inner workings; internal systems we would rather ignore. It connotes words we would rather not hear: colorectal, anus, intestine, canal and colon.
The bowel is not sexy. People don’t want to talk about it. However, bowel cancer is our second biggest cancer killer. It claims more than 4000 Australian lives each year, second only to lung cancer, which causes about 7600 deaths.
Continue reading "The cancer that dare not speak its name" »
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Elizabeth says:
Womens’ cancer screening is highly political with lots of vested interests and thus gets most of the money. Cervical cancer screening sends 77% of Aussie women at some stage for colposcopy/biopsies (almost all are false positives) to cover a 0.65% lifetime risk of cervical cancer - huge over-detection and potentially… Read more »
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Geoffo says:
Terrific contemporary look at a long time killer Anita . I am 50, long time Iover of all meats and seafood… and I participated in the recent Fed Government Bowel Cancer Kit mailouts. I did the test and , sort of embarrassing as it might be to some , waited… Read more »
People are dying because breast cancer awareness has eclipsed the dangers of bowel cancer, and other ‘less sexy’ cancers.
If that sounds melodramatic, consider this: A national Cancer Council study released today confirms most people think that breast cancer is Australia’s biggest killer. It also found the awareness of breast cancer screening is double that for bowel cancer, although both yield similarly life-saving results.
They have highlighted bowel cancer’s ‘tragic anonymity’ despite it being more common and more deadly than breast cancer. Compare this then, to the ‘hyper awareness’ around breast cancer.
Continue reading "Breast is beating bowel in the battle of the cancers" »
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Elizabeth says:
I don’t think cancer screening is a must-have and that coming from a woman is totally unacceptable in most countries. It shouldn’t be… I’ve never understood why our cancer screening is so emotive, dishonest, irrational and political - and loaded with vested interests. Informed consent is a joke in our… Read more »
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Eliz52 says:
Angel, HPV related oral and head cancer occurs more frequently than cervical cancer and gets very little air time. More lives could have been saved focusing on that cancer. Cervical cancer has always been rare and was in decline before screening started and there are no random controlled trials -… Read more »
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