Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia shared on LinkedIn:
“A month before he was due to become President of the Union for International Cancer Control, Professor Jeff Dunn was diagnosed with cancer himself.
He had already spent decades working on cancer through public health, survivorship, quality of life and access to care. As he tells OncoDaily in a new interview, his diagnosis didn’t change the direction of that work. It made the questions he’d been asking feel more immediate.
One of those questions is who gets to benefit from progress against cancer. Jeff’s answer is incisive:
‘Poverty is a carcinogen.’
He argues that poverty may be one of the biggest modifiable risk factors in cancer control worldwide. Scientific progress can’t help people if geographic, financial or cultural walls keep it out of reach.
At PCFA, we see those walls here too. In Australia, where a man lives and what he can afford can still shape when his prostate cancer is found and the care he receives.
Jeff also chaired the group behind Australia’s updated guidelines for the early detection of prostate cancer. As he explains, approving a guideline is only part of the job. The evidence can only help men if it informs decisions about testing and referrals, through equitable access to best-practice, patient-centred care.
His closing message is to young professionals: whatever your discipline, cancer control needs you, so stay the course.
Thank you, Jeff, for staying yours, and for inspiring our work.”
Other articles about Jeff Dun on OncoDaily.