By Carol Moody Becker and Crystal Swann
July 1, 2002

Conference President Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino declared before a capacity audience Friday, June 14, during the fifth annual Cancer Awareness Luncheon, that mayors have a role in healthcare. Citing the success of the Conference's five-year Cancer Awareness Program and introducing a retrospective video Mayor Menino, maintained the importance of the mayors' continued involvement to raise awareness of all kinds of cancers not just breast and prostate cancer.

The retrospective video entitled "The First Five Years," the presents the cancer awareness efforts of the more than three hundred mayors who have been involved since 1997 in the Mayors' Campaign Against Breast Cancer and the Mayors' Coalition for Prostate Cancer and Awareness, now part of the overall Cancer Awareness Program.

Menino stated, "there is a misconception that those of us working on the local level are powerless to make real change in healthcare. But we know that just isn't true. That's why the U.S. Conference of Mayors will focus on a host of issues — ranging from cancer to the cost of prescription drugs to the link between healthy homes and healthy children." Boston's Crusade Against Cancer, an initiative of Mayor Menino which won a 2001 City Livability Award reaches every household in Boston.

Mayoral Support for Federal Initiative

The Conference's Cancer Awareness Program is supported by a five-year cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) - - and Dr. Nancy Lee, Director of CDC's Division of Cancer Prevention and Control, cited the importance of the mayors in promoting cancer awareness. CDC focuses on meeting the needs of the underserved, and Dr. Lee said: "It takes strengths of . . . partners like the USCM to reach those in greatest need."

She explained that the Mayors' Campaign has been especially helpful in promoting the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program, a federal program that has provided more than 3.5 million screening tests to over 1.4 million women and has diagnosed 10,910 breast cancers.

Dr. Lee talked also about the complexities surrounding prostate cancer screening and said that the Mayors' Coalition for Prostate Cancer Awareness and Education was helping to clarify this issue by publicizing informed decision-making. She also noted that many mayors were promoting skin cancer awareness, saying that CDC could expand its efforts in this area through the Cancer Awareness Program of the Conference of Mayors.

Recommendations for Mayors

Dr. Harold Freeman, Chair of the President's Cancer Panel called on the mayors to take additional action on advocating for the elimination of health disparities in cancer treatment. The recommendations which are based on a Cancer Panel report, Voices of a Broken System: Real People, Real Problems," call on mayors to support the establishment of patient navigators (persons helping those who are diagnosed to negotiate the medical system) and to call for the immediate medical coverage of all uninsured persons diagnosed with cancer.

Dr. Freeman lauded the mayors for raising the profile of cancer-screening programs in their cities, noting their effectiveness in reaching the underserved because they are the elected officials closest to their communities. He summed up his comments stating that in a country with the world's premier cancer-research program, "no person in America with cancer should go untreated, no person in America should be bankrupted by a cancer diagnosis, and no person in America should have to spend more time fighting the system than fighting their cancer."

Miss Shauntay Hinton, Miss U.S.A. 2002, asked the mayors for their support in establishing eight research centers to study the potential links between breast cancer and the environment. Miss Hinton explained that the research is needed because, "scientists have identified cancer clusters - - 'communities where unusually large numbers of people have cancer' - - but they haven't been able to determine what in the environment if anything might be causing these outbreaks."

Mayors to Mayors

Luncheon moderator Conference Vice President Hempstead Mayor James Garner, along with Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf took on the leadership role at the beginning of the campaign. In establishing the importance of the Mayors' Campaign Against Breast Cancer Mayor Garner stated that "the Cancer Awareness Program is a model for using the leadership and energy of mayors to address a critical public health issue."

Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf, a breast cancer survivor who alerted the Conference of Mayors of the need to address this disease, stressing the personal impact of the campaign stated that "it's been an inspiration to me (to see) almost 300 mayors promoting breast cancer awareness, prostate cancer awareness, and now other cancers as well."

Newly elected Dallas Mayor Laura Miller, herself a breast cancer survivor, spoke of the foresight of the Conference of Mayors in taking on cancer awareness as a major initiative. She excitedly pledged her full support of the Cancer Awareness Program.

A Sponsor's Five-Year Commitment