LCA News:

LCA Sends Presidential Candidates Questionnaires on Lung Cancer

Washington, DC [December 19, 2007]--Today Lung Cancer Alliance (LCA) sent questionnaires to Presidential candidates asking for their positions and plans to reduce the mortality of lung cancer which continues to take more lives each year than breast, prostate and colon cancers--combined.

Laurie Fenton-Ambrose, LCA President and CEO, said, “For decades lung cancer has been the leading cancer killer.  This will not change until a President demands accountability and change.”

The questionnaire states:  “Lung cancer does not discriminate. It is the biggest cancer killer in every ethnic group. It hits current, former and never smokers.  African American males and veterans are at even higher risk.  The Surgeon General called lung cancer in women an ‘epidemic’.”

“Seven years ago, a federal study group warned the National Cancer Institute that lung cancer research was being funded far below its massive public health impact.”

The statistics are grim: three times as many men will die of lung cancer than prostate cancer and more women will die of lung cancer than breast, ovarian, cervical and uterine cancers--combined.

Most new patients are diagnosed so late than they die within the first year. Yet lung cancer receives the least research funding of all the major cancers and is the only one without a widely promoted screening test for those at high risk.

“Clearly this ‘policy’ on lung cancer has failed,” Fenton-Ambrose said.  “We need more research funding and a coordinated plan of attack to more comprehensively address prevention, detection and treatments for those living with and those at risk for lung cancer.”

“Lung cancer has to be a priority for the new President or this epidemic of death will continue,” she concluded.

###