Cancer Awareness

This conference notes that an unknown but significant number of men are suffering from terminal prostate cancer who are not aware of their medical condition until it is untreatable. Many of these cancer deaths could be averted by earlier detection. Fortunately, there is a precedent by which men can learn from women. Due to a series of awareness initiatives, especially in workplaces, the number of early diagnoses which resulted in lives saved rapidly increased. This motion calls on the trade union movement to utilise the structures it has to mount a similar awareness campaign for the most common of male cancers. The network of Union Learning Reps in NI and education of cers in af liates would be perfect for disseminating life-saving information to men who may otherwise go untested and untreated until too late Research funding for this most common of male cancers falls well behind other cancer research programmes. Congress is instructed to both raise awareness of the matter as a public health duty, and to lobby for appropriate resourcing for public information and medical research to resolve this silent health crisis.