“A Push to Fight Cancer in the Developing World,” featured in the special issue ofScience on the “Cancer Crusade at 40” (March 25, 2011), describes the mission and work of the Global Task Force on Expanded Access to Cancer Care and Control in Developing Countries (GTF.CCC), including a broad call-to-action on the issue published in the Lancet last year. The GTF.CCC is co-chaired by Julio Frenk, Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health and Lawrence Shulman, Chief Medical Officer and Vice President for Medical Affairs at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and includes GHSM chair Paul Farmer as a founding member. The article also highlights the personal experience of GTF.CCC Secretariat director, health economist, and GHSM associate professor Felicia Knaul with cancer.
Further, it reports recognition by the United Nations, and particularly the World Health Organization, to increase the attention and level of priority given to preventing, diagnosing, and treating cancer in lower- and middle-income countries. It notes that many of the lessons learned in bringing treatment for infectious disease to resource-limited communities can be applied to noncommunicable diseases like cancer. It also relates interest in moving away from approaches that focus on specific health issues and towards comprehensive health system strengthening that incorporates disease-specific priorities for improved global health delivery and health care for all.
Dr. Knaul’s experience as a patient as well as advocate and researcher demonstrates stark inequalities in access to care between Mexico and the U.S. The article describes Knaul’s efforts to improve breast cancer prevention and treatment in Mexico, including the founding of a not-for-profit organization Cáncer de Mama: Tómatelo a Pecho (Breast Cancer: Take it to Heart). It also mentions her husband Julio Frenk’s role in designing and implementing a reform that extended basic health care to the poor in Mexico when he was health minister there.
AAAS subscribers can download the full article at: http://www.sciencemag.org.