I have previously written about Gordon Brown and David Cameron’s views on cancer in the UK. This week Nick Clegg, the leader of the liberal democrats has been giving his opinions and they are on the Cancer Research UK website.
Again, like Gordon Brown and David Cameron he starts off by saying that “early detection is key” he then goes on to say “so we’d scrap age limits on screening for a start”. I almost stopped reading the interview at that point, that statement made me want to weep. There are age limits on screening for a very good reason, it is to stop unnecessary harm being done to people. Age limits are set by looking at the scientific evidence, based on studying hundreds of thousands of cases. Age limits for cancer screening are NOT arbitrarily plucked from thin air in order to discriminate against people (younger or older) than the ages screened, they are based on getting maximum benefit for as many people while causing minimum harm to people who don’t have the disease, as well as reducing false-positives (healthy people who test positive that don’t have the disease being screened for) For instance, there is no point in giving a 20-year-old woman a mammogram, their breast tissue is too dense for the mammogram to show any meaningful information and mammograms use radiation, which carries a small degree of risk of causing a tumour. The statement that “we’d scrap age limits on screening” shows little understanding of either science or medicine, hardly encouraging for a party leader.
Nick Clegg’s seems to have less concrete views on the government’s role in public health, admitting that it’s nots “government’s job to tell people how to live their lives” and he isn’t into GP bashing (assuming all delays in diagnosing cancer are the GP’s fault) instead opting to increase the time GP’s can spend with their patients. However he seems to be keen on the idea that you can register with a GP near your work. This is fine as long as your are healthy, as soon as you need a home visit then this system soon becomes a lot more difficult to put into practice.
What do you think? Is this what you want to see from the leader of the liberal democrats?
If you are more impressed with the images than the text “
