A coalition of public health experts and campaigners is saying the long-running US ‘war on cancer’ is being lost because too little priority is given to prevention. A report from the Cancer Prevention Coalition (CPC) says Americans face increasing cancer risks from occupational and environmental exposure to industrial carcinogens, but established government and non-profit cancer organisations are fixated on treatment rather than prevention. ‘This report makes it clear that we are losing the war against cancer,’ said Dr Samuel Epstein, CPC chair and author of ‘The stop cancer before it starts campaign: How to win the losing war against cancer.’ He said the usual approach tended to ‘blame the victim’ for contracting cancer, rather than explore the environmental causation that could be responsible for their illness.
