FED: "Confronting" campaign on bowel cancer launched

AAP General News (Australia)
12-17-2009
FED: "Confronting" campaign on bowel cancer launched

By Danny Rose, Medical Writer

SYDNEY, Dec 17 AAP - If a dozen Australians were killed in a terrorist attack then
it would dominate news headlines for weeks, yet this many lives are lost to bowel cancer
every day.

A "confronting" cancer awareness campaign will highlight this disparity, and its ads
depicting a terrorist attack on Australian soil will soon hit the nation's television
screens.

Gut Foundation of Australia president Professor Terry Bolin said the campaign was deliberately
hard-hitting, but this was justified by Australians' lack of understanding of a cancer
which, if detected early, was usually curable.

"This campaign is confronting," Prof Bolin said at the campaign launch in Sydney on Thursday.

"Here is a scene of sunny Sydney with a black cloud over the horizon, people running
hither and thither, body bags everywhere - if that happened with bowel cancer it would
be front page news.

"We want to it to be front page news - people should not die from bowel cancer."

Bowel cancer is Australia's most common cause of cancer death in non smokers, with
13,500 cases diagnosed in 2006 and more than 3,800 deaths.

Prof Bolin says Australians should talk with their GPs about having a test for the
cancer which typically develops later in life, although one in 10 cases occur before the
age of 50.

The advertisement has been provided to television stations to run as a community service
announcement, and is expected to run from early next year.

Its production was supported by advertising guru and Australian businessman John Singleton,
who said a bowel cancer awareness campaign had been on his to-do list for about 20 years.

His conscience was pricked by the loss of a young worker to bowel cancer.

"I lost a young staff member - a guy in his late 30s, non-smoker, non-drinker, a fitness
fanatic," Mr Singleton told AAP.

"He was misdiagnosed with gallstones and when they opened him up - bang - it was bowel
cancer which had spread to his liver ... he was gone in six weeks."

Mr Singleton said part of the problem was people's unwillingness to talk about their
bowel, unlike breast cancer.

Almost as many women die from preventable bowel cancer as they do from breast cancer,
despite breast cancer being twice as common.

"I didn't realise that bowel cancer was so easily detectable and 99 per cent preventable
- if you get it early enough it doesn't go to your liver or pancreas or lungs," Mr Singleton
said.

Sydney lawyer Mandi Chonowitz, 27, also attended the launch, where she detailed her
recovery since she was diagnosed with bowel cancer three years ago.

"I don't even think people at 24 even speak about colon cancer," she said, adding it
was an particularly "unsexy" disease.

"Any noticeable change in your bowel habits it is definitely worth speaking to your GP about."

AAP dr/srp

KEYWORD: BOWEL PIX AVAILABLE)

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