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Monday, January 24, 2011

6-point formula to win fight against cancer

NEW DELHI: Dr Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of the bestselling 'The Emperor of Maladies: A Biography of Cancer', has a six-point formula to help India control and combat the cancer epidemic.

"Put in place a strong tobacco control programme, initiate sexual health education to prevent sexually transmitted cancers like cervical and oral, encourage vaccination, conduct mammography and screening of vulnerable women for breast cancer and those above the age of 50, start screening for and vaccination against Hepatitis B that causes liver cancer and create centralized systems modelled on comprehensive cancer centres in the US that allow researchers to share data and engage in high quality clinical work," says Mukherjee.

It's simple and achievable advice. But as he says, "The will of the highest authorities is crucial." Currently an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University, Mukherjee studied in St Columba's School before becoming a Rhodes scholar. With degrees from Stanford University, Oxford and Harvard Medical School, he feels sad when somebody refers to effective and affordable cancer prevention and care as synonymous with the first world. 

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