Report to the People
29th November 2004
Dying
of Stigma
As
I’ve mentioned before, nearly every day, week and month in the year is
dedicated to some cause or other.
November,
for example, is Lung Cancer Awareness Month.
And, as sometimes happens, the Scottish Parliament marked it with a
Member’s Debate.
To
be honest, when I first saw the motion on the agenda I thought, “Lung Cancer
Awareness Month? Why on earth do we
need to raise awareness of the most common cancer in the world?”.
But,
as I told the Chamber on Wednesday night, I then came across an article in the British
Medical Journal which showed me how wrong I was.
An
early diagnosis of lung cancer means you’re 40 times more likely to survive.
So why aren’t sufferers coming forward?
According
to a study, the article said, lung cancer patients – especially those who have
stopped smoking, who have never smoked, or believe that they were affected by
asbestos in their working lives – feel stigmatised because the disease is
strongly associated with smoking.
Many
patients, it found, felt blamed for their illness and spoke of feelings of guilt
and shame. Such is the stigma, that
some patients conceal their illness, missing out on benefits and increasing
their chance of death.
Of
course we need to redouble our efforts to help smokers quit.
But tackling lung cancer involves more than castigating tobacco and
smokers. We must also ensure
sufferers don’t feel so ashamed that they won’t even come forward if their
life depends on it.
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