Dr. Len's Cancer Blog

As I sat through two related sessions on tobacco company marketing behaviors yesterday afternoon at the 13^th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health, I couldn’t help but think of the analogy between the behavior of the tobacco companies and Muhammad Ali’s tactic of bobbing and weaving to avoid his opponents’ punches.

Whether you consider the tobacco companies immoral or just amoral, the reality is they are in business to produce a product that is designed to kill or injure when used as directed.

That fact then begs the question of how companies making profits from death and illness can survive in a socially responsible, moral society.

For Ali, his tactics included something called the “rope-a-dope.”

Are the tobacco companies much different?

Bold new ideas may be the next necessary step in the fight against tobacco. 

And bold doesn’t begin to describe the suggestion of one presenter at this morning’s plenary session at the 13^th World Conference on Tobacco or Health now in its third day in Washington DC.

What was clear from the discussions I heard this morning is that we can make progress doing what we are already doing and what we know to do, but that in fact there are inevitably going to be limits to what those strategies can accomplish. 

We need new ideas. 

The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) is certainly a topic that is on the minds of many of the attendees at the 13^th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health here in Washington DC.

This morning’s plenary session was devoted to a discussion of that treaty and its potential to control the worldwide tobacco pandemic.

Also not far from the thoughts of the folks who attended the session was the fact that the United States, although having signed the treaty, has not yet begun the process to ratify it.  The barbs thrown our way were sometimes subtle, and sometimes not so subtle.

Today I joined thousands of my colleagues attending a symposium hosted by Larry King and Dr. Sanjay Gupta from CNN.  The subject was international tobacco control. The session was a combined program of the UICC World Cancer Congress and the 13^th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health, which starts today.

As I entered the hall at the beginning of the program, the words uttered in the opening video gripped my attention. 

Today is a day of transition at the international cancer meetings in Washington, DC.

As the UICC 2006 World Cancer Congress draws to a close, the 13^th World Conference on tobacco OR Health is beginning, bringing over 4500 tobacco control researchers and advocates to sessions running through this coming Saturday.

This morning, the focus was on cancer prevention and the cancer control issues faced by countries throughout the world. 

The highlight of the session was the premier presentation of the 2006 World Cancer Declaration where the participants in the Congress, from 139 countries, put in place a statement intended to focus attention on the world’s growing epidemic of cancer and what needs to be done now to stem that epidemic.

During that session, Dr. John Seffrin, the Chief Executive Officer of the American Cancer Society, highlighted what he called the “seven facts of life” for effective cancer control.

I had a remarkable experience today.

Last week I received a call from the folks in our Florida division, who asked if I could attend an event for the following Monday in Tampa.  Today was the day for that event.

Katie Couric was making a tour of six cities in the United States as part of her new responsibilities with CBS, which includes hosting their daily evening news program.

My American Cancer Society colleagues in Florida wanted to take advantage of that opportunity to kick off their $25 million, 5 year campaign to raise awareness of colorectal cancer screening.  Since the Society was the local focus of Ms. Couric’s trip to Tampa, they realized this was a rare opportunity to announce and kick off this campaign. 

I attended a session yesterday which quickly grabbed my attention when I walked in the room and the speaker said, “We have been crawling and now we can fly.”

He was referring to the fact that the pace of developments in research and the practical, meaningful applications of those developments to patient care has increased so substantially as to be beyond comprehension.

The speaker, Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, who is currently the acting director of the Food and Drug Administration, was outlining the changes that are occurring in cancer research and cancer treatment, and the implications of those changes in many areas of medical practice.

Where we used to treat patients with their cancers, we are now treating the actual cancer cell itself.   Research has opened the era where we now understand how the cancer cell works, and what avenues are available to reverse those changes and push the cell back into normality.

Last evening, the International Union Against Cancer (UICC) opened its quadrennial international cancer meeting, bringing together cancer experts from 139 countries.

The opening sessions highlighted presentations by Dr. Seffrin, and former President George Herbert Walker Bush and his wife Barbara, among others.

It stands to reason that we spend much of our attention and focus on what impacts cancer in the United States.  How we improve prevention and early detection, and how we assure patients with cancer have access to the best available care—no matter where they live or what their economic status—is a goal many of us work towards every day at the American Cancer Society.

But what may be the primary cancer-related issues here in the United States are certainly not the primary cancer-related issues in other parts of the world.