Anger at Government Indifference

Back in November I wrote an online post about how lung cancer patients need to fight the stigma of lung cancer. It is a topic that really hit home with lung cancer patients and I have ignited a little firestorm of discussion and debate on the topic. Lung cancer patients are angry with the government’s indifference.

My original posting really had everything to do with discussing how to fight the stigma of lung cancer and nothing to do with the negative health effects of smoking. Smoking is bad for you. There is no debate any longer and that was not the point of my posting. Yet it seems whenever I talk about lung cancer I end up in a discussion about smoking. It’s infuriating because that is exactly my point! It’s not about smoking. It’s about lung cancer – how to detect it, treat it and prevent it!

Remember the 1980's and the AIDS movement? I think that lung cancer has the same kind of stigma attached to it. There was little funding for AIDS research in the early 1980’s because AIDS was thought to be caused by the “lifestyle” of gays and drug addicts. In the same way, lung cancer today has only a small amount of research funding because the disease is thought to be a self-inflicted “lifestyle” disease caused by smoking. AIDS got more attention and research dollars when activists marched on Washington and people began to realize that "innocents" (i.e. mothers and newborns) were also getting the disease.

I think lung cancer patients need to be pointing out two things: not only do many innocent non-smokers develop lung cancer, but people who QUIT smoking, even decades ago and live a healthy lifestyle today, can and do frequently develop lung cancer. More dollars devoted to research into lung cancer early detection could save 70,000 lives a YEAR, according to an actuarial study released on February 16th by Lung Cancer Alliance. If nothing else, we should be fighting to give FUTURE lung cancer patients a better chance of surviving the disease. There are 70 million former smokers at risk in this country and many more millions who were or are exposed to second hand smoke (and other lung cancer causing agents). They need to be given a chance. They shouldn't just be written off with our "oh well, deserves you right" attitude. My interest is to find a way to increase public understanding for the critical need for lung cancer research. We need to fight the stigma of lung cancer with facts.

The legal sale of cigarettes continues to this day despite the fact that nicotine is KNOWN to create a habit forming addiction that can kill or harm you just as surely as lead-based paint or asbestos. Where is the government in regulating THIS drug and keeping it out of the hands of our children? Where is the Consumer Products Safety Commission? I am on a drug-trial for Stimuvax -- a lung cancer vaccine that could save or extend the lives of all of us struggling with lung cancer, but the law requires extensive trials and testing before allowing a new drug on the market. (I'd like to see the trials the Federal government did on cigarettes (and other carcinogens) before allowing them on the market!) Shouldn’t we we be giving a drug like Stimuvax to people at high risk of developing lung cancer? Don’t the tens of millions of people at risk of developing lung cancer deserve research into early detection or, better yet, potential "lung cancer preventatives" especially since it is not likely we will ever ban the sale of tobacco products?

In the next five years 800,000 people in this country will die from lung cancer before potential life saving drugs like Stimuvax are approved for use. What, on earth, is the FDA protecting us from?