Cancer Society's Mission: Prevention & Research

Saturday, February 27, 2010 03:57 AM

Canadian Cancer Society President and CEO, Peter Goodhand

Prince George, B.C. - The President of the Canadian Cancer Society was in Prince George this week on a three-part mission...

As part of taking over the helm of the society seven months ago, Peter Goodhand made it his goal to get out to all parts of the country and learn of the particular issues facing different regions. Hence, his visit to our city. He was also here to see first-hand the strides being made towards the Northern Cancer Centre and the society's supporting Northern Cancer Lodge. (click here for previous story). Thirdly, he wanted to talk about the work the society is doing in cancer research.

"The work we're doing increasingly on prevention is bringing more and more research into it, to make sure we have a better understanding of individual causes, so it's not cancer, it's cancers and what causes one cancer will have nothing to with the cause of another. If you think about the big cancers, each one of them has a different cause and some you can detect early through screening, others we don't have an effective screen."

"So as we do our research, we're increasingly trying to get what caused it, how do you detect it early, how do you screen for it, how do you have interventions -- how can you change lifestyles," says Goodhand.

"And we try to make sure we get enough research, enough knowledge, and we turn that into action with government," he says.

"And then we do the most difficult thing of all: which actually is to change people's behaviour, 'cause we're all creatures of habit, good and bad."

Goodhand says the Canadian Cancer Society's goal is to make sure as few as people as possible every need the society's services and support. "So the more we can put into prevention to try and get ahead of cancer -- deal with the 50-percent that we know are preventable, find better treatments and cures -- (the better). But at the same time we know that tens of thousands of people will go through a cancer journey, so we make sure we've got the balance between trying to get in front of it and prevent cancer in the future and support people who are living with it today."

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