It’s the worst of the cancers but gets little research money and less sympathy

Lung cancer is Britain’s biggest cancer killer, but it receives a fraction of the research funding of other cancers.

The reason? Many people believe that sufferers got the disease from smoking, so it’s their own fault.

The truth is that at least 14 per cent of people with lung cancer have never smoked.

Dr David Gilligan, a consultant oncologist, said, “People who are diagnosed with lung cancer and have never smoked are really quite angry that they are assumed to have smoked and they have self-inflicted cancer, when clearly they haven’t.”

BBC reporter Clive Coleman’s younger sister, Sarah, died of lung cancer two years after diagnosis.

“She had led an admirably healthy life,” he said. “She didn’t drink and had never smoked.”

Until her illness, he said, “I had no idea how many healthy people who had never smoked got lung cancer and how in the UK it kills more people than breast, prostate and pancreatic cancer combined.”

DIAGNOSIS
Sarah’s cancer was caused by a non-inherited genetic mutation.

Cancer Research UK calculates that 98 people die of lung cancer in the UK every day.

The average life span after diagnosis is 200 days, but if caught early, there is a 73 per cent increased chance of surviving over five years.

A cure, or effective, long-term drug therapy, remains a way off.

When it comes to research funding, just £708 (Sh100,578) is spent per lung cancer death, compared with £3,570 for breast cancer, £7,640 for leukaemia and £10,116 for testicular cancer.

There are no big-name supporters or celebrity ex-sufferers to campaign for lung cancer funding because so few survive.

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We were pondering here last week examples of po-faced bureaucracy.

This week we are looking at examples of political correctness, done with the best of intentions, but with the same lack of humour.

An alternative language guide has been created for midwives to use with pregnant women so that a “culture of respect” is observed, though I would have thought pregnant women might have more serious matters to worry about.

The guide has been put together by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

LABOUR WARD

It urges medics to say, “You’re doing really well” to women pushing a baby out, instead of the old-fashioned (and presumably demeaning) “Good girl”.

No reference should be made to a “big baby”, this should be a “healthy baby”.

Midwives and other medical staff should be referred to as “midwives” not “girls”.

The “labour ward” is now the “birthing suite and instead of “delivered”, it must be “gave birth”.

The authors of the guide say there is evidence that positive communication can alter the course of pregnancy for the better.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, which published the guide, they said, “Language matters as a way of respecting women’s views and ensuring that they are empowered to make decisions.”

* * *
The government of Iceland is planning to ban male circumcision for non-medical reasons because, they say, it violates the child’s rights.

You couldn’t make it up!

* * *
In the footsteps of Kenya’s Lupita Nyong’o, now a major movie star, another actor with East African links hit the headlines last week.

Daniel Kaluuya, son of Ugandan immigrant parents, won the much sought-after Rising Star prize at the British Academy BAFTA awards.

The 28-year-old won for his performance in the critically acclaimed horror movie, Get Out, for which he was also nominated in the Best Actor category, an honour he yielded to Gary Oldman, who portrayed Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour.

Daniel was born and raised with an older sister in a London housing estate, mostly by his mother, Damalie. His father spent more time in Uganda because of visa problems.

In his acceptance speech, rated the best of the night, Daniel praised his mother: “Mum, you are the reason why I started, why I’m here, why I keep going. This is yours.”

Daniel is a diehard supporter of Arsenal Football Club.

* * *
With dirty straggling hair and wearing ragged clothes and shoes with holes, the beggar approached a city worker and asked for a dollar.

“Do you drink?” the working man asked. No, said the beggar. “Do you gamble?” No, again.

“Then come home with me,” the worker said. “I want to show my wife what happens to somebody who doesn’t drink or gamble.”

* * *
It was playtime at primary school and the teacher noticed one of the boys making horrible faces at all the little girls.

Gently, she took him aside. “You know, Johnny, when I was a little girl, I was told it was silly to make ugly faces at my friends because if the wind blew, my face would stay that way.”

“Well, Miss Smith, Johnny said, “you can’t say you weren’t warned.”

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