Early Cancer Detection Theme Of World Health Day

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32265, 7 April 1970, Page 12

Early Cancer Detection Theme Of World Health Day

Today Is World Health Day and this year the World Health Organisation has taken as Its theme “Early Detection of Cancer Saves Lives.”

From today until next Tuesday the Cancer Society of New Zealand is putting particular emphasis on the problem of cancer and its early detection. The executive officer of the Canterbury-Westland division of the society (Mrs T. Wool-more-Goodwin) said yesterday that predominance would be given to educational literature, and shop window displays, and that the Department of Health’s mobile X-ray unit would be in Cathedral Square for the week. Each chemist shop in the area would receive 500 paper bags in which customers purchases could be placed and on which was printed the seven early warning signs of cancer.

A poster campaign was conducted among third and fourth form pupils in Canterbury and Westland and both the first and second prizewinners were pupils at St Andrew’s College. Mark L. Wootton received a bicycle as his

first prize and Hamish Thompson a transistor radio. To mark the campaign the Cancer Society’s quarterly journal, “Cancer News,” had been given over a special issue relating to the early detection of cancer. Campaign Commended The Governor-General (Sir Arthur Porritt) in an introductory article commending the campaign said the ultimate answer to the scourge of cancer was not surgery—and probably not drugs. “It lies in the last pieces of the giant jig-saw of world research that still have to be fitted into place. “The earlier a cancerous change in the life of an individual cell can be detected, the better the chance of destroying that cell at its grass roots.

“I believe the people of this country are intelligent enough, sensible enough, and practical enough, to appreciate the value of a project of this kind,” he said. The Director-General of the World Health Organisation (Dr M. G. Candau), in a message to mark World Health Day, said cancer claimed a steady toll of lives

all over the world and in many countries was second only to diseases of the heart and arteries as a cause of death. “It is also a disease which arouses strong emotions. Cancer is a subject many people prefer to shun; a disease which is commonly, and wrongly, believed to be unbeatable; a disease from which many people die or suffer needlessly because, whether from ignorance or unreasoned fear, they do not seek advice until it is too late,” he said. In recent years great

strides had been made in combating cancerous diseases. “With every day that passes advances are made in diagnosis and treatment. Modern surgery, drugs and X-rays and other radiations, used singly or in combination, have transformed the treatment of this group of diseases,” said Dr Candau. The battle against cancer was far from won but even in the present state of knowledge the battle would be half won if early detection and treatment became universal, he said.