It may seem like a David and Goliath fight.
Canadian global health advocate Stephen Lewis is hoping to mobilize the public to take control of cancer – a seemingly uncontrollable disease.
When it comes to cancer, the focus is often on fundraising and research. But there’s another cancer-fighting tool – prevention.
Unlike the public mobilization behind HIV/AIDS prevention, a similar social movement hasn’t happened with cancer, says Lewis.
Well known for advocacy work around HIV/AIDS in Africa through the Stephen Lewis Foundation, he is now lending his voice to the cancer campaign, The People vs. Cancer. The University of Western Ontario is one of five stops on his Ontario university tour.
He will be speaking at 4 p.m. on March 31 at Alumni Hall. The event is hosted by the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Faculty of Health Sciences and the London Regional Cancer Program.
“There has been a tremendous focus on communicable diseases, AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in particular. There is a growing recognition internationally that the non-communicable diseases like cancer are having a tremendous impact on the developing and as well as the developed world,” he says.
Lewis sees cancer and AIDS within a larger picture of global health. HIV/AIDS remains his primary focus.
Few people have not been affected by cancer. It remains among the most prevalent global health concerns and in spite of decades of research, there are many unknowns about the causes and cures.
A litany of fundraising events, community walks and marathons are held annually in support of cancer research and treatment, but Lewis believes where the public can make an even bigger difference in their own lives is in prevention.
“There is almost more attention paid to the amount of money raised or the particular event that prompts the fundraising, or the new genetic discoveries that may treat particular forms of cancer. There is almost more attention to all of that than the potential to prevent.”
A reduction in smoking and consumption of alcohol, change of diet and the use of vaccinations for hepatitis B and C and human papillomavirus (HPV) are widely accepted preventative measures.
Yet cancer remains prevalent. Why? Lewis attributes it to a lack of prevention awareness campaigns like those dedicated to fundraising.
“There hasn’t been the mobilization of civil society that there should be.”
Students are in a position to sound the alarm and mobilize a societal intervention, he says.
“It would seem this is a moment in time to mobilize young people.”
This is not Lewis’s first visit to Western, nor the first time he has challenged the campus to effect change.
As founder of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, he spoke at a Housing conference in 2004 and his speech became the inspiration for the Western Heads East Project. In response to the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa, the program provides disease-fighting probiotic yogurt programs in Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda.
Although familiar with Western Heads East, he didn’t know the project started with his speech.
“There is so much you can do through simple nutritional ways that isn’t being done; that’s a very good intervention. I must congratulate them when I am on campus.”
Others Speakers
Controversial commentator Ann Coulter spoke on Monday to a full house of 800 people in Western’s North Campus Building. The visit was part of a three-city cross-Canada tour. She was invited by the Campus Coalition for Democracy, a University Students’ Council club.
Also on Monday, Nobel Prize winning economist George Akerlof delivered the 2010 Beattie Family Lecture in Business Law.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was scheduled to speak Wednesday evening as part of the University Students’ Council Ideas Speaker Series. The focus of his talk is on the role natural resources play in work, health and identity.
Research scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Centre, Lynn Rothschild, is visiting Western to discuss her research on “Life in Extreme Environments,” part of the annual Planetary Science and Exploration Public Lecture on Friday, March 26. The talk begins at 7 p.m. in Somerville House, Room 3345.
Steve MacLean, president of the Canadian Space Agency, a two-time shuttle astronaut and one of two Canadians to walk in space, will deliver the annual Nerenberg Lecture March 31, entitled “It is Rocket Science.” The event begins at 7:30 p.m. in Conron Hall (University College, Room 224).