Jump to full article: Los Angeles Daily News, 2009-06-25
Author: Susan Abram, Staff Writer
Intro: But Weitz never smoked cigarettes - did nothing he knows of that would infect the delicate tissue of his lungs.
Yet even for those with lung cancer who have never smoked, the condition comes with a negative stereotype. They often are asked, "Did you smoke?"
It's a perception health advocates say needs to be shattered. Why, they ask, should state or federal funding toward the detection and treatment of lung cancer be any different than, say, for illnesses associated with obesity, alcoholism or other kinds of cancer?
"We have to get to the point of saying it doesn't matter," said Kim Norris, a Los Angeles resident who founded the Lung Cancer Foundation of America.
The foundation's goal is to raise enough funds to lead to lung cancer research and treatment. The five-year survival rates for all stages of lung cancer haven't changed in decades, a result of little progress toward finding better treatments, Norris said.
Norris and others note that research for lung cancer treatment remains "under-funded, under-researched and under-reported," because government funders view it as the "the black sheep" of cancers.
"Just because smoking is legal - and the Department of Defense once handed out cigarettes during wars - doesn't mean (those who smoked) deserve (lung cancer)."
Norris formed the foundation as a result of lessons learned when her husband, Roy, was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1997. She saw firsthand the lack in treatments and supported Roy as he tried five different lung cancer research clinical trials. . . .
Last month, the NIH launched research into early detection studies among those who have never smoked, which never existed for lung cancer.
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