Annual Report 05 - International Union Against Cancer

Making connections
The World Cancer
Congress brought over
3,000 participants to
Geneva at the end of August
2008. At the opening ceremony,
Pascal Couchepin, the president
of Switzerland, emphasized a
change of paradigm: “our goal
changes from treatment at whatever
price to care and respect for
the integrity and dignity of the
person.”
He spoke of the important
progress in recent decades – more
and more, treatments are available
that have good or reasonable
chances of lasting success – but
stressed the need to promote palliative
care. “This is one of my priorities
as minister of health,” he said.
Dr Tabaré Vázquez, the president
of Uruguay, echoed this message:
“The best way to improve reality is
to look our fellow men and women
in the eye and learn about their
needs, their hopes, their rights and
their commitments.” In Latin
America, Vázquez said, “we do not
have ‘poverty and inequality’. In
Latin America we have poverty
because there is inequality... If
inequity were not so ruthless, how
many cases of cancer would be prevented,
detected early or cured?
Many cases, no doubt. And this is
precisely our challenge.”
Connecting, mobilizing, supporting
The World Cancer Congress is a unique event in the cancer world, bringing together the whole
range of those involved in global cancer control. Leading clinicians, practitioners, government
agencies and NGOs, patient-care providers and advocates, researchers and behavioural scientists
and public health experts focus on transforming the latest knowledge into strategies that countries,
communities, institutions and individuals can employ to reduce the cancer burden.
Margaret Chan and Franco Cavalli open the congress exhibition
Pascal Couchepin Tabaré Vázquez
9
Making connections