Trust for America’s Health Press Release
Fair Use Statement
<-- Return To Right-to-Know or Left-to-Wonder?
Resource:
SEER Cancer Statistics Review, 1973-1999.
NCI's Cancer Atlas Plus: and under-promoted tool for community activists and researchers.
Cancer Resource RTK CD
See also:
Denial of Our Right-To-Know: Escalating Incidence of Childhood Cancer Ignored.
Cancer Rates Are Increasing NOT Decreasing.
NCI Journal Article.
Source: Trust For America's Health.
1707 H Street, NW, 7th Floor
Washington, DC 20006
(202) 223-9870
For Immediate Release, Contact: Dale Curtis, 202-777-3530
October 16, 2002
Statement by Dr. Shelley Hearne, DrPH
Executive Director, Trust for America’s Health
On Today’s Disturbing Report by the National Cancer Institute
Today’s disturbing report by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) shows we’ve been
working in the dark when it comes to cancer, Americans’ #1 health concern. Such
concerns are entirely appropriate given our nation’s poor track record in preventing
disease. The new study shows rates of cancer have been rising, and we didn’t know it.
That’s why we need a nationwide health tracking network to track where and when
cancer is striking and its potential links to factors in the environment.
The discovery that several common forms of cancer are rising -- not declining or leveling
off as previously thought -- reveals serious shortcomings in the way this country keeps
track of cancer and other chronic diseases. A nationwide health tracking network that
would systematically track cancer, asthma, birth defects and Parkinson’s, as well as other
illnesses, and their relationship to environmental factors would give communities
information they have the right to know and help health officials prevent future deaths
and illnesses.
The NCI’s SEER (Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results) Program, which
compiles the state and local data cited in today’s study, and the cancer registries in most
states, provide health officials and researchers with more information than we have on
most chronic diseases. But this is not nearly enough to begin to prevent these illnesses.
As this new study indicates, the SEER Program does not obtain data in a timely fashion,
which results in a serious under-counting of cancer cases. It is collected in only a handful
of states. And it isn’t linked to other databases that might shed light on the possible
causes of these cases.
Most people are shocked to learn that the United States has no nationwide,
comprehensive system for monitoring these chronic diseases and their potential links to
environmental factors. If we don’t look for that information, we’re not going to find it,
and opportunities to prevent millions of deaths and illnesses will be missed.
Early next year, Trust for America’s Health will release a report grading each state on its
efforts to track and prevent cancer. With this state-by-state report card, we will evaluate
the current registries and recommend expanding on these current efforts so we have a
nationwide health tracking network for cancer and other diseases.
Across the country, many communities and families are afraid of rising cancer rates and
possible cancer clusters. Today’s study fuels that concern, and public health officials and
Congress should do something about it by supporting a nationwide health tracking
network.
For more information on the proposal for a Nationwide Health-Tracking Network, please
visit the Trust for America’s Health Web site at www.healthyamericans.org, or call Dale
Curtis at 202-777-3530.
# # # # #
Resource:
SEER Cancer Statistics Review, 1973-1999.
NCI's Cancer Atlas Plus: and under-promoted tool for community activists and researchers.
Cancer Resource RTK CD
See also:
Denial of Our Right-To-Know: Escalating Incidence of Childhood Cancer Ignored.
Cancer Rates Are Increasing NOT Decreasing.
NCI Journal Article.
<-- Return To Right-to-Know or Left-to-Wonder?
