It’s a decades long slog in cancer. ‘The new’ sometimes…. isn’t

Read the following extract from Hansard. There’s nothing in that is not current, except the old fashioned English. I don’t show when the speech was delivered until the end. I’ve stripped out the very obvious clues in some of the statistics, and some text, to shorten it.   

 

Brigadier Medlicott, Norfolk Central begins...

Perhaps the word "education" would be a better word than "publicity" because it would be quite out of place to embark upon a spectacular campaign of publicity in the ordinary sense of that word. It is more a question of educating the public, and perhaps as much as anything a question of a change of attitude towards the whole problem of cancer.

 

There is little doubt about the gravity of this problem to the present generation. In many countries, at the beginning of the century, only one death out of every 20 was attributed to cancer. But over the last 50 years there has been a steady increase in the proportion of deaths caused by this disease, until, at the present time, the percentage has risen from one death in 20 to one death in seven, and in some countries it is as high as one death in six.

 

One of the most serious features of this increase is the fact that the largest percentage increase has occurred in cancer of the lung, and that form of the disease accounts in large measure for the very serious total increase which has taken place in the last half century"…………….………………..

 

"Nevertheless, with such a serious rise in the incidence of deaths from cancer, however optimistically we may try to interpret the figures, it is clear that the policy of reticence about the disease needs to be reconsidered. There is not one of us, who has not with painful frequency heard of the death of some friend or acquaintance from this plague of the 20th century, this affliction which comes like a thief in the night.

 

There is still a great deal of secrecy which surrounds the question of cancer. People are reluctant to use the word: it has such an unhappy connotation, and this is in marked contrast to the normal reaction towards illness"……..

 

"There is also a widespread feeling that cancer is always fatal. There are millions of people who, when they hear that a person has cancer, regard it as equivalent to a sentence of death. If we can get away from the exaggerated feeling of apprehension, we may be doing positive good in more senses than one, and may be the means of saving thousands of lives. There is increasing evidence from doctors in general practice and from hospitals that reluctance to seek advice and consequently a delay in obtaining treatment is responsible for many deaths which otherwise could have been avoided.

 

I do not think it is yet generally realised what considerable progress there has been in the treatment of cancer in the last 50 years. In fact, such progress as has been made altogether has been mainly during that period, and we may now well be only  at the beginning of great further advances. Not only by surgical means, but by means of radiotherapy, by the medical use of isotopes and by chemo-therapy many types of cancer are curable if they are taken in time.

 

I hesitate to use the word "cure" because that might appear to be making too large a claim, but I would like to quote from the British Medical Journal for 12th July, which used these encouraging words: The results of treatment in certain sites continue to show steady improvement. Surgery, not necessarily more bold than in the past, but rendered less hazardous by modern methods, and radiotherapy applied by machines of increasing power and complexity, together hold out more hope for the sufferer, sometimes of cure, often of considerable palliation"………….."Furthermore, the Minister will be aware that the ex-Minister of Health, in answer to a Question by the hon. Member for Newport (Mr. Peter Freeman) on 8th February last year, said that some types of cancer can be treated with very great hopes of success if treatment is sought early.

 

The balance against more publicity in the matter of seeking advice for suspected cancer has probably so far been tilted by the medical profession itself which, no doubt, fears a great increase in neurosis or cancer apprehension"………

 

"Because no comprehensive form of cure has yet been discovered, the doctors are perhaps unduly modest as to what has already been achieved. But I think we are entitled to remind ourselves and the medical profession that a great deal has, in fact, been achieved, and as a result of the efforts of surgeons and physicians of superb skill there are thousands of people who have got rid of malignant cancers and are living a perfectly normal and happy life".

 

………….."Secrecy may save a certain number of people from worrying about cancer, but at the same time it is condemning thousands of people to die many years before they need. It has been estimated by a reputable investigator that there are every year 8,000 people whose lives could be considerably prolonged if they had only sought advice and treatment at the proper time.

 

A doctor who has given up a great deal of his time and energy to the study of this subject tells me that one of his hopes is that when the time comes, as I feel sure it must come, for a wider amount of education on this matter to be encouraged, he will be able to help to make an instructional film which will open with a crowd of people of all ages coming out of a building. The commentator will ask "Who are these people? What have they in common?" The answer will be that they are not actors and actresses or people taking part in a crowd scene. They will all be people who have been successfully treated for cancer at some time during the last five, 10, 15 or even 20 years, and have survived to live useful and happy lives. In that way he would be able to demonstrate clearly the fact that so much has been done in regard to many forms of cancer".………

 

It comes from a debate on CANCER TREATMENT (PUBLICITY) on 22 July 1952.

 

Fully fifty eight years ago. Well done Brigadier F Medlicott of Norfolk, Central.

 

Update the statistics and you could do the same again in 2010. You wouldn’t feel out of place, or out of date.

 

It'll be us who should wonder if we're out of time.