Prostate cancer

The New Year began with a BBC story about inequity in cancer research spend. Whilst reading it I chewed on my own sofa.

I recently sent in my response to the consultation on informed choice, information and NHS cancer screening programmes. Here is the nubbins.

I’m pretty interested in screening in general and cancer screening in particular.

We? I mean women, mostly; and people who work in cancer charities. That, in a nutshell, is my response to Lea Pool’s documentary Pink Ribbons Inc. shown in London as part of the recent Human Rights Watch Film Festival. 

I found the following on The Prostate Cancer Charity website, about a party marking the current Awareness Month. I’ve lifted it as posted, and added my own comments.

It is the usual muddle of half baked wishful thinking which manages to imply certainty and health advice, without actually containing any of either. You'll learn about their celebrity supporters and the fundraising, but any actual facts about prostate cancer come courtesy of me! 

… this follows on from the previous post and should be read with an exasperated and another thing tone to your internal voice. To re-cap – the breast cancer lobby was advanced by Radio Four’s Women’s Hour as a great model for other health lobbies to copy….in particular, the prostate cancer one.

NICE has said no to Abiraterone. Don't rail at NICE. At least, not only at them. They follow rules and those rules restrict NICE's remit.

Blue September wins. At last! Some sense in cancer awareness.

Here’s a random Prostate Cancer Awareness Month fact.

This month is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. It used to be a Week but anything breast cancer charities do, prostate cancer charities blithely copy. No-one except me and one or two others seem to consider breast cancer charities might ever be wrong on awareness. So now we've got a prostate cancer Month.