Grassroots
ACS National Dialogue in Hot Water
ACS Told, Don't Discount Patients
An article in the latest The Cancer Letter (link below) details mishandling of cancer patient advocacy groups including the National Prostate Cancer Coalition (NPCC) by the American Cancer Society (ACS). The article was brought to prostate cancer patients' attention by NPCC.
The trouble has arisen over ACS's efforts to build a political structure
called the National Dialogue on Cancer and to rewrite the fundamental document of the cancer program, the
National Cancer Act of 1971.
The ACS, which raised over $600 million last year, has spent $1.2 million on the National Dialogue on Cancer (NDC). But according to the The Cancer Letter, January 21, partners in the process process are outraged. ACS has taken charge of key steps in the process, the article says, without input from its partners. It bosses other cancer advocacy groups, makes major decisions behind closed doors, and hired a public relations firm, Shandwick International, that works for the tobacco industry.
ACS officials said they had asked questions but were not aware of the company's work with R.J.
Reynolds.
Further, Cancer Letters charges that Allan
Erickson, the staff coordinator of the Dialogue who serves as a senior
consultant to ACS Chief Executive Officer John Seffrin, "was pursuing a dual agenda in his dealings with
NCI."
"While trying to keep the Institute collaborating with the process, he
aggressively sought reinstatement of $25,000 in Institute funds for
development of tobacco control programs in Latin America, a project
that NCI officials described as inappropriate for the research institute."
Erickson denies any conflict of interest. "'You'd have to use a million-mile yard stick to try to figure
out that that has any connection to the National Dialogue on Cancer,'" The Cancer Letter quotes him as telling them. "I don't think [NCI Director] Rick
Klausner even knew that I had any kind of a relationship."
But failure to disclose the relationship is what is at issue.
Patient groups a "disgruntled minority," ACS says
"The ACS purse is impressive - the Society raised over $600 million last
year. However, on Capitol Hill, the Society is just another player with
a legislative agenda. In the halls of Congress, shoestring patient groups
that possess expertise, grassroots support, and moral authority can be
no less effective.
Their opposition is not something to court.
"Survivors are extraordinarily important," said ASCO's Durant. "The
people who have been affected by cancer have the attention of
significant decision-makers. Leaving patients out, or making them feel
left out is not a very smart idea."
ACS-Led National Cancer Dialogue Beset By Patient Mistrust,
Lack Of Openness
(The Cancer Letter Vol. 26 No. 03, January 21, 2000.
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