ABSTRACT
The Cancer Prevention Coalition (CPC) has convened a meeting on April 28, 2003, in Washington, D.C. The goal of this meeting is to develop a complex of broadly based collaborative strategies for implementing the Stop Cancer Before It Starts Campaign. Apart from basic research, the cancer establishment’s mindset remains fixated on “secondary” prevention or damage control—screening, diagnosis, chemo-prevention—and treatment; this mindset is compounded by interlocking relations between the National Cancer Institute and American Cancer Society and the cancer drug industry. National cancer policies are threatened more than ever before by the cancer establishment’s indifference to primary prevention and by its silence on avoidable causes of cancer, other than personal lifestyle. The most realistic strategy for developing grassroots national support, a prerequisite for the Campaign’s success, is that based on self-interest, rather than abstractions or ideology. Cancer is thus unique in this regard as it affects virtually every family in the nation.
