What do David Bowie, Alan Rickman and Barack Obama have in common?
For starters, they are all household names. As well as being one of the musicians of his age, Mr Bowie was the master of reinvention; Mr Rickman’s portrayal of the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood, not to mention playing Snape in the Harry Potter films, is unparalleled; and Mr Obama, after an indifferent period in between, is ending his presidency of the United States much in the same way as he started it: with messages of hope.
His recent rallying call for the US to do something about gun crime is well known. But a few days ago he made an appeal that unites all three men: “Let’s make America the country that cures cancer once and for all,” Mr Obama said.
Sitting behind him was his vice president, Joe Biden, who, after losing his 46-year-old son to brain cancer last year, said he would dedicate his remaining time in office to what he described as a “moonshot” to end cancer.
Mr Obama took the cue, putting Mr Biden in charge of “mission control” to achieve this elusive goal “for the loved ones we’ve lost, for the family we can still save”.
Not so much Major Tom, as major job. Cancer is destined to become the leading cause of death in the US within the next decade. The American Cancer Society estimates that 1.69 million Americans will be diagnosed and 596,000 of them will die of it this year.
According to Eurostat data extracted last October, more than one-and-a-quarter million people died from cancer in EU member states – accounting for a quarter of all deaths. That is some statistic, and Malta has one of the highest rates for breast cancer death.
Given this state of affairs, it is somewhat surprising that a survey commissioned by The Malta Medical Journal found that 40 per cent of women do not go for breast screening even though the public health system offers a free screening service for those between the ages of 50 and 65.
“Logistical barriers” have been partially blamed by the researchers for the low take-up. Other reasons were “fear of the results” as well as physical discomfort and pain experienced when undergoing the tests.
Yet the situation appears to be worse for men. Whereas out of 843 Maltese women diagnosed with cancer in 2013 (the most recent year for which statistics are available), 388 died; there were 460 male deaths out of 844 cases. This clearly shows that no stone should be left unturned in efforts to increase awareness about the benefits of early diagnosis.
Encouragingly, Parliamentary Secretary for Health Chris Fearne had said at the official opening of Malta’s new Oncology Centre last September that the health department was working on a new national health plan for cancer.
“We have a number of cancers with a high recovery rate but there still remain types of cancers that are very hard to fight. It is a challenge and we will face it, providing our healthcare workers with the necessary resources. We will keep investing,” he had said.
Reliable information on the causes and treatment of the disease are vital. In the meantime, we can only hope that the renewed effort by the US, which has been a pioneer in so many areas, can yield positive results.
It may be too late for people like Mr Bowie, who hauntingly projected an image of his last days in the video of his final single, and for Mr Rickman, but whoever manages it will be a global hero. For more than one day.