Insight

Ophira Ginsburg: This week’s offline by the inimitable Dr. Richard Horton

Photo from Ophira Ginsburg/LinkedIn

Apr 28, 2024, 20:57

Ophira Ginsburg: This week’s offline by the inimitable Dr. Richard Horton

Ophira Ginsburg shared on LinkedIn:

“Must read! This week’s offline by the inimitable Dr. Richard Horton:

The Lancet Commission on Women, Power, and Cancer… drew attention to ‘a more nuanced, inclusive, and gender transformative approach to the cancer field’. That “gender transformative approach” applies to men as well as women.

It is an approach that must be rooted in the fundamental right of all people to services for cancer prevention and control. A human-rights based approach to cancer care is not a call for some idealistic health utopia.

The concept of a right simply means that governments have obligations to enable non-discriminatory access to health services for those diagnosed with cancer. It means devising national cancer strategies. It means collecting reliable cancer data.

It means providing special protections for those with cancer who come from vulnerable populations. It means governments being prepared to hold themselves accountable to the cancer community.”

Source: Ophira Ginsburg/LinkedIn

Ophira Ginsburg is a Canadian medical oncologist, humanitarian, and global cancer advocate. Currently, she is the Senior Scientific Officer and Senior Advisor for Clinical Research at the US NCI’s Center for Global Health. Formerly based at the University of Toronto, Canada.

She was a Medical Officer at the World Health Organization (WHO) Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, and has served as an ad hoc consultant to several UN agencies. She is the co-chair of The Lancet Commission on Women and Cancer. In 2022, Dr. Ginsburg won the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Humanitarian Award.