EU auditors to scrutinise Horizon 2020 Widening efforts

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4 February 2021

The European Court of Auditors is assessing if measures in Horizon Europe to reduce the east-west innovation gap have had any impact, with a report expected by the end of the year on the Widening programme.

Over the past seven years, the EU has invested €1 billion in Widening, to help member states improve weak R&D systems through funding capacity building, and creating international links between leading research institutions and low-performing regions. As part of the programme, the Commission allocated €43 billion (in 2014 prices) from structural funds to research and innovation.

But many Widening countries report hurdles to participation, and low success rates have dampened expectations.

“I think that the Romanian institutions have applied, but, indeed, the application rate was low and the success rate was also low,” Daniel David, rector of the Babeș-Bolyai University in Romania, told Science|Business.

Similarly, Lithuania has only one ERA chair, an outstanding EU-funded researcher whose brief is to help the country’s institutions to attract and retain high quality researchers. In the EU Twinning programme, designed to support transnational relationships between institutions, Lithuania did not win its first grant until the last call in Horizon 2020. Meanwhile, in the Teaming pillar, which finances the creation or updating existing centres of excellence, the country received funding to develop a business plan for a research centre, but has not received support to implement it.

“Lithuania did not take full advantage of the programme,” said Brigita Serafinavičiūtė, head of the Lithuania RDI Liaison Office in Brussels.

Looking at the core components of Widening, David identifies five issues, starting with weak dissemination and difficulty understanding the different mechanisms of the programme. When it came to funding, many participants had trouble securing matching funding from other sources, such as national and EU structural funds.

Universities found it particularly difficult to engage in the projects, many of which require a business plan and a commercial outlook. “Our legislation is not encouraging commercial activities for public universities, despite the fact that, on paper, in theory, the third university mission [of] socio-economic impact, is supported,” said David. “Because of such ambiguous legislation, the universities are very cautions to be engaged in large projects.”

A key issue appears to be the general lack of public investment in university research in Romania, where most funding goes to research institutes independent from universities. As a consequence, David says, universities are cautious about entering big European projects demanding excellence and sustainability.

Some of the institutions in Widening also had a hard time convincing western counterparts to participate in the programme, as they did not see the €1 billion funding as worth their time. In the end, Serafinavičiūtė says, the programme “reinforced the links with existing partners, but I doubt many new networks were formed.”

Slow and uneven

Despite the Widening programme, since 2012 the innovation gap has barely narrowed and remains far larger than the gap for most other economic indicators, such as GDP per capita. An interim Commission report on the effectiveness of Widening found progress is slow and uneven, with little change in the newest member states.

In the face of this, funding for Widening in Horizon Europe will almost triple, with 3.3%, or €2.8 billion (in 2018 prices), of the overall budget dedicated to closing the gap. Starting in 2023, there will also be a new “hop-on” programme allowing research institutions in Widening countries to join Horizon Europe collaborative research projects.

But Serafinavičiūtė said it will take more than this to address the imbalance. “Doubling the funding is not a key solution that will change everything. We need to think more holistically about what measures we need to take.”

For one, she says, if Horizon Europe is intended to address societal problems, excellence should not be the only measure by which projects are assessed. Challenges exist everywhere and often require local measures to deal with them.

“The question is what we are hoping to achieve with this programme,” said Serafinavičiūtė. “If we want more countries to participate, we have to admit that excellence should not be the only criterion.”

The EU auditors will take the changes in Horizon Europe into account in their evaluation of the EU Widening efforts in Horizon 2020, looking at the likely impact on research excellence imbalances in this decade.

Meanwhile, the EU must also maintain other programmes that aim to bring more geographical balance to the research ecosystem. David says Romania has had more success in the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) programme, another scheme encouraging cross-border networking.

And waiting for help is not enough. Widening counties should roll up their sleeves and do their homework, believes Serafinavičiūtė. “We can’t expect the EU15 to drag us along with them, and why should they? Who wants new competition?”

EU declares a €4B research war on cancer

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4 February 2021

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EU declares a €4B research war on cancer

The EU on Wednesday set out a €4 billion Beating Cancer plan, including the most concerted push ever for research and its translation through to better treatments.

The plan, an all-hands-on-deck effort across the commission with a focus on 10 top line priorities, will fund technology development, create new research networks, improve access to therapies, promote disease prevention and early detection and offer better support for people who survive cancer.

Repurposing medicines to fight cancer and developing new artificial intelligence (AI) applications to detect tumours faster also make the list, as does a broader push to increase skills, among other recommendations. Underpinning the whole is a focus on greater data sharing and collaboration.

One of the first actions, the European Cancer Imaging Initiative in 2022 will compile a tumour atlas of anonymised cancer scans that can be used by researchers and hospitals to train diagnostic AI tools, improving their accuracy and reliability.

“Early detection saves lives. We need to screen more and screen better. This means adopting better technology,” EU health chief Stella Kyriakides said.

Supporting this, a new Knowledge Centre on Cancer will be launched this year within the Joint Research Centre, the EU’s in-house science service, to help coordinate scientific and technical cancer-related initiatives. The centre brief is to act as a ‘knowledge broker’, issuing guidelines to inform the design and rollout of the plan.

Later this year the Innovative Medicines Initiative, the EU’s public private partnership in medical research, will launch projects on the use of AI to support health workers, carers and patients in prevention, diagnosis and treatment, and projects on overcoming cancer drug resistance.

Meanwhile, the European Health Data Space, set to be up and running by 2025, will “enable cancer patients to securely access and share their health data between healthcare providers and across borders in the EU.”

Europe accounts for a tenth of the global population, but a quarter of the world’s cancer cases. It is not one disease but essentially hundreds. It is the second biggest killer after cardiovascular disease, but by 2035, cases are set to increase by almost 25%, making it the leading cause of death. There is also increasing concern about the economic costs of cancer, which have risen to more than €100 billion a year across the EU.

There are huge disparities in access to cancer services across the EU, with a recent Eurostat study showing that in one member state, 82% of women aged 50-69 had a mammogram within the last two years, while in another the figure stands at 0.2%.

A cancer inequality registry will be set up by 2022 to help member states identify problem areas and where to direct support, Kyriakides said.

Currently the COVID-19 pandemic is the number one health priority in Europe. But over one million people died of cancer on the continent last year, roughly twice the COVID-19 death rate. The pandemic has severely affected cancer care, disrupting treatment, delaying diagnosis, and affecting access to medicines. “This in itself is very worrying,” said Kyriakides.

Cancer moonshot

At the centre of the EU’s cancer plan is a large and targeted programme of research – or moonshot – to inject more urgency into the development of more effective cancer therapies.

The EU Mission on Cancer, part of the €95.5 billion Horizon Europe science programme, will be the main budget line for research, investing up to €2 billion over the next seven years.

The effort draws inspiration from the US Cancer Moonshot. In 2016, 45 years after Richard Nixon’s “war on cancer”, President Barack Obama announced the moonshot, with the then vice president Joe Biden at its head.

The Trump administration chose not to continue the federal Moonshot programme, but funding continued, with the initiative injecting $1.8 billion into an orchestrated programme of research that has the aim of achieving in five years what would otherwise have taken a decade. Some researchers are already eyeing up a successor programme.

On top of the mission funding, research money in the Beating Cancer plan will flow through several other pots, including the expanded EU health programme, called EU4Health, and the Digital Europe programme.

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, the Horizon Europe programme that provides grants for work and research placements, will continue developing cancer researchers’ skills.

The Digital Europe programme will offer up to €250 million for cancer-related digital projects. Meanwhile, funding from the EU4Health programme will go towards the development of an app that tells people how to reduce their cancer risks.

There will also be special grants under the Euratom nuclear research programme for research to improve radiotherapy.

Member states will be encouraged to spend EU regional funds on cancer services, for instance on mobile healthcare units for cancer screening, or new laboratory diagnostics. “This is particularly important for those living in the most deprived and isolated communities with restricted access to large urban centres,” the plan says.

Calculating how much the EU normally already spends on cancer research is complicated, because so much expenditure is tucked into so many budgets. The Commission says that, under Horizon 2020, it awarded over €1 billion in cancer research grants for roughly 1,000 cancer-related research projects from 2014 – 2020.

More data, more sharing

Among other initiatives in the plan, the Commission pledges a big drive to repurpose approved drugs. “Building on experiences with repurposing of medicines to treat COVID-19, an additional project will be launched that uses high-performance computing to rapidly test existing molecules and new drug combinations,” the plan says.

Towards the end of the year, the Commission will announce the ‘Cancer Diagnostic and Treatment for All’ initiative, which will drive investment into next generation sequencing of tumour cells, a field that is both rapidly advancing cancer research and supporting the use of therapies targeted at particular genetic defects.

Getting the National Comprehensive Cancer Centres in every member country to work more closely together is a key part of the plan. “We need to bring all of this together,” Kyriakides said. Many believe a stumbling block to advances in cancer research may be poor collaboration among researchers.

The Commission promises a network, pegged for 2025, to better link the 27 national centres. Officials say this will look something like the European Reference Networks, which were set up in 2017 allow clinicians to pool their knowledge of rare diseases.

Also foreseen is the European Initiative to Understand Cancer – a broad research effort that will look at how cancers develop, and help identify individuals at high risk.

The existing European Cancer Information System, which monitors the cancer burden in Europe, will be expanded in 2021 to include new indicators, and a new section on childhood cancers.

Looking after cancer survivors

Another offshoot of the Beating Cancer plan will provide resources to improve life for cancer survivors.

By 2022, a ‘Cancer Survivor Smart-Card’ will be available for patients to summarise their clinical history and aid follow-up care. This personalised and voluntary system, which could in fact be an app, will connect the patient directly with doctors, the Commission said.

It will come alongside a new ‘European Cancer Patient Digital Centre’, to be created under the cancer mission that will foster the voluntary exchange of patient data. The added objective of these initiatives is to collect a wider pool of data for researchers.

The Commission will also use the plan to set public health targets, such as getting tobacco use down by 20 per cent in the EU by 2040, and harmful drinking to drop 10 per cent in the same period.

Cigarette smoking and other forms of tobacco use is responsible for 15-20% of all European cancer cases, making this the top avoidable risk factor, an EU policy document said. The continent has the highest levels of alcohol consumption in the world, meaning alcohol-attributable cancer is also high.

The EU will also spend money on healthy diet promotion, and require member states to put new warning labels on alcohol.

Penn Lecture Series Explores Race and Religion

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4 February 2021

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Penn Lecture Series Explores Race and Religion

Clockwise from top left: Rabbi Mira Wasserman, Steven Weitzman and Anne Albert | Courtesy of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania

Steven Weitzman thinks the story of race and religion in America goes beyond the Black and white binary, a narrative that excludes many Jews of color.

After the racial justice protests that swept the nation last summer, the director of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania decided to create a lecture series to explore the topic.

“I really wanted to push this series beyond the two-dimensional approach that a lot of people bring to the topic, and to really explore many different dimensions of a kind of multiracial justice,” Weitzman said of “Jews, Race, and Religion,” a program he has developed in partnership with the Center for Jewish Ethics.

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The talks focus on intersections of race and religion, the history of anti-Semitism, the role of Jews in the racialized culture of the United States and the role of race in Jewish identity. The lineup features scholars from all over the country who hail from diverse racial and religious backgrounds.

The program, which features 11 lectures, is offered in conjunction with the academic course Religious Studies/Jewish Studies 207 taught by Weitzman, but is also a stand-alone series open to the public. More than 1,500 viewers registered for the first lecture.

Weitzman said communities across the country were spurred to examine their own role in the fight for racial justice after the killing of George Floyd, and the Jewish community was no exception.

“Being privy to some of the conversations, I thought it would be helpful to learn more about the intersection of race and religion and Jewish identity and how Jews relate to other people within the United States, and how it fits into the larger struggle against racism,” Weitzman said.

The first installment, “Is the Talmud Racist?,” took place on Jan. 28 and featured Rabbi Mira Wasserman, director of the Center for Jewish Ethics and assistant professor of rabbinic literature at Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. Her goal was to challenge both anti-Semitic conceptions of the Talmud as consistently hostile to non-Jews and aspects of the Talmud that perpetuate hateful ideas among Jewish people about different groups.

Wasserman argued the rabbis inherited a diversity of views on the meaning of Jewish identity and on the nature of the boundaries between Jews and non-Jews. In the Book of Ruth, the titular character is a Moabite woman celebrated for converting and dedicating her life to the Jewish people.

“Ruth is revered as the great-grandmother of King David, which makes her an ancestor of Messiah, as well. For the Book of Ruth, boundaries between Jews and others are permeable, and people of non-Jewish backgrounds are not only welcome but embraced and celebrated when they throw their lot in with Israel,” Wasserman said. “The Book of Ezra takes a very different view, railing against Israelite men who married women who are of Moabite or other non-Israelite backgrounds.”

Marc Dollinger, a professor of Jewish studies at San Francisco State University, will present “Black Power, Jewish Politics: Reinventing the Alliance in the 1960s” on Feb 25.

He said the scale and scope of the Black Lives Matter protests are similar to the civil rights movement, but there are key differences in how white liberal Jews perceived racism then and how they perceive it now. Whereas activists in the ’50s and ’60s viewed racism as hateful behavior, segregation and the violence of the Ku Klux Klan, today’s activists are more focused on structural racism, or systems of oppression that benefit some while harming others.

Dollinger said white Jewish leaders actually understood systemic racism during the civil rights movement, although it was not discussed as widely.

“They understood the limits of their own movement. And they understood that there was going to be tension between white Jews and Blacks around racial difference,” he said. “So what we have happening today is really an even deeper and more profound understanding of the fundamental differences based on race when it comes to allocating resources on society, whether it’s education, health care, criminal justice, all of that.”
Viewers can register for the lectures at katz.sas.upenn.edu/resources/blog/jews-race-and-religion.

[email protected]; 215-832-0729

Holy See: “Effective action” needed to fight poverty in Covid-hit developing nations – Vatican News

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4 February 2021

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By Lisa Zengarini

Speaking at the 70th Executive Session of the UNCTAD Trade and Development Board, Archbishop Ivan Jurkovič, the Vatican Permanent Observer to the UN and other international organizations in Geneva, reiterated the responsibilities of the advanced economies to help the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), especially in the context of the present crisis which has strongly impacted their economies.

According to a recent report, the pandemic pushed these countries to their worst economic performance in 30 years in 2020, with falling income levels, widespread employment losses, and widening fiscal deficits.

The number of people living in extreme poverty in the LDCs could rise by 32 million, pushing the poverty rate from 32.5% to 35.7%, thus limiting these countries’ chances of achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Archbishop Jurkovič remarked.

Table of Contents

Rising inequality

The Vatican Nuncio emphasized that: “The determination of poverty should not be limited to the sole category of ‘economic development,” noting that “economic rules have proved effective for growth, but not for integral human development.”

“Wealth has increased, but together with inequality, with the result that ‘new forms of poverty’ are emerging”, he said citing Pope Francis.

The Vatican Observer therefore highlighted the urgent need to implement the “largely unfinished” Istanbul Program of Action (IPoA), which outlines the international community’s strategy for the sustainable development of LDCs in the decade 2011-2021 and identifies several essential areas to increase their productive capacities, including: infrastructure; energy; science, technology and innovation (STI) and private sector development.

A helping hand

According to the Holy See, “advanced economies can help kick-start sustainable global growth by combining proactive fiscal policy, including spending on infrastructure, along with fair and supportive monetary policies. Such policies can also lead to efforts to regulate global and corporate financialization.”

In this way, “least developed Countries will be encouraged and enabled to build domestic demand, use regulation to protect themselves from the risks of financialization in their domestic contexts and protect their policy and fiscal space to manage any other unforeseen shocks,” Archbishop Jurkovič explained.

He noted that the social and economic consequences from the Covid-19 pandemic have once again revealed “the long-standing weaknesses and asymmetries inherent in the prevailing system of multilateral trade and financial architecture.”

Tailored assistance

The Vatican Observer also emphasized that the so-called “one size fits all” approach, that is a single pattern of structural transformation, “is not applicable”.

He said each LDC “should be helped to grow in its distinct way and to develop its capacity for innovation while respecting the values of its proper culture.”

He also pointed out that, in shaping the post-Covid-19 economic recovery, the international community should “ensure that trade-related international support measures aimed at facilitating the integration of LDCs into the global economy continue to be guaranteed.”

Solidarity and fraternity

Looking at the Fifth UN Conference on LDCs, to be held next year, Archbishop Jurkovič stressed that the ambition of the international community of leaving “no one behind” should be translated “into effective actions” to help these Countries.

“To that end,” he said, “we need to recognize that the degree of its realization depends on the willingness of States to act in solidarity and fraternity in building the common good.”

Century Aluminum and Glencore to Supply 150,000 metric tons of Natur‐Al™ to Hammerer Aluminium Industries

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4 February 2021

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Century Aluminum and Glencore to Supply 150,000 metric tons of Natur‐Al™ to Hammerer Aluminium Industries – Book Publishing Industry Today – EIN Presswire

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Covid-19 recovery: how the main EU instrument will work | News | European Parliament

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4 February 2021

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Covid-19 recovery: how the main EU instrument will work | News | European Parliament

, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/economy/20210128STO96608/

Catastrophic impact of COVID-19 on cancer care

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4 February 2021

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Statement by Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe

4 February 2021, Copenhagen, Denmark

COVID-19 poses multiple threats. One we cannot afford to ignore is an epidemic of cancer. Ensuring continuity of cancer care while fighting COVID-19 has been hugely challenging for countries across the WHO European Region, a continent that accounts for approximately one third of all reported COVID-19 cases and deaths to date – that is more than 750 000 lost lives.

In a normal year, cancer kills close to 2.2 million people in the Region: a far-too-heavy toll when we know that these deaths could have been prevented.

Compromised cancer services

Early on in the pandemic, WHO found that globally, in 122 out of 163 countries, noncommunicable disease services had been disrupted, and that 1 in 3 countries in the European Region had partially or completely disrupted cancer services.

At the Kyrgyzstan National Center of Oncology, the number of cancers diagnosed in April last year dropped by 90%, while in the Netherlands and Belgium in the first lockdown of 2020, it dropped by 30–40%. Delayed diagnosis and treatment in the United Kingdom are expected to result in an increase in the number of deaths from colorectal cancer by 15%, and 9% for breast cancer over the next 5 years.

A crisis of noncommunicable diseases, including cancer, is brewing, brought on by the pandemic.

Cancer in a pre-COVID-19 era

Let me set the scene. Even in a normal year, noncommunicable diseases such as cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes are the leading cause of death and disability in the WHO European Region, accounting for more than 80% of deaths.

Funds for palliative care and cancer prevention and control are insufficient, and too often, the majority of national health resources are put towards treatment at the cost of investing in prevention and early detection.

Across and within countries in the Region, differences in cancer outcomes are pronounced, and the fact that inequalities in care have increased in the past year calls for more solidarity and far stronger commitment.

The numbers speak for themselves. In 2020, 4.8 million Europeans were diagnosed with cancer. That’s more than 13 000 people every day, 546 every hour, 9 every minute. All of us know someone who has experienced cancer. One in 3 of us in western European countries and 1 in 4 of us in eastern European countries will develop cancer in our lifetimes.

A deadly interplay

The impact of COVID-19 on cancer in Europe is complex, and has been referred to by some as a “deadly interplay”. Due to travel restrictions and the enormous strain on health systems of fighting COVID-19, cancer services have been disrupted across the entire WHO European Region, significantly delaying diagnosis and treatment, directly impacting the chances of a cure or survival for hundreds of thousands of cancer patients.

Some countries have experienced shortages of cancer drugs, and many have seen a significant drop in new cancer diagnoses – even the most resource-rich countries. Oncology health personnel were in demand even before the pandemic. The high cost of cancer medicines and treatments is a challenge for all countries, including high-income ones.

Pre-existing inequalities are also growing because of the economic crisis, making it harder for many to adopt healthy behaviours or have access to prevention or care services.

The impact of the pandemic on cancer in the Region is nothing short of catastrophic. It has made us realize the actual human cost of neglecting a noncommunicable disease such as cancer.

This is our wake-up call, from grassroots to governments, to tackle cancer together.

Fast-track solutions

Today we are launching a Pan-European Cancer Initiative to unite all towards better cancer control and prevention and to enable policy-makers to make the right decisions to address cancer effectively.

It is a critical strand of the WHO European Programme of Work, which seeks to promote effective solutions to the health issues our citizens face through united action for better health.

The Initiative encompasses 5 elements: prevention (ultimately a political choice), early detection, access for all to diagnosis and treatment, palliative care, and a focus on data.

We need change along the cancer continuum. Our vision is bold, but realistic. We strive to create a Region where cancer is no longer a life-threatening disease, where dying from cancer is no longer accepted or the norm.

Our initial focus is on childhood, cervical and breast cancers. We seek to strengthen collaboration and partnerships, reinforce political leadership, engage youth and civil society and – last but not least – fast-track the implementation of WHO’s signature solutions. These are cost-effective, evidence-based policies and measures accompanied by technical guidance and tools, aligned with WHO expertise and resources to achieve real impact at country level.

Today, I welcome Aron Anderson, a Swedish adventurer with first-hand experience of cancer, as a Cancer Ambassador for WHO/Europe. Aron’s voice and personal experience will be invaluable in the work ahead, uniting forces against cancer.

Today, we have an opportunity to map a new path, to put the lessons of the pandemic to good use, and to step up cancer control and prevention. We can’t eliminate cancer – but we can aim to eliminate cancer deaths. Join us in United Action Against Cancer.

Thank you.

WHO/Europe launches ambitious initiative seeking to reduce lives lost to cancer

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4 February 2021

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Each day, approximately 13 100 people in the WHO European Region receive the life-changing news that they have cancer. This statistic is compounded by a further 6000 people who lose their lives to the disease every day.

Today, on World Cancer Day, WHO/Europe launches United Action Against Cancer to galvanize support and cooperation from grassroots to governments using a wide variety of underutilized tools with the long-term vision of eliminating cancer as a life-threatening disease in Europe.

While the movement encompasses all of society, the responsibility for tackling cancer lies with policy-makers, who must close gaps in access to care and ensure healthier environments for citizens.

Table of Contents

Communicating to the grassroots

Aron Anderson is a cancer survivor who tells his story to inspire countless individuals. He became the first person in a wheelchair to climb Kebnekaise in Sweden and Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. He has also arm-biked from Malmö, Sweden, to Paris, France, and skied across Antarctica to reach the South Pole.

Recently announced as WHO/Europe’s Cancer Ambassador, Aron explained that he is grateful to the health-care system in his home country of Sweden, without which he might not be here today: “Unlike many other children with cancer, I was given a second chance at life – many who go through what I did are not as lucky as I was.”

Introducing Aron, WHO Regional Director for Europe Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge said: “We have a collective dream of living in a Region where cancer deaths are a rare exception, instead of the norm. Aron reminds us that this dream is not impossible, but it does demand that we unite our forces at all levels, from grassroots to governments, and put our knowledge to use, doing what we know works.”

We know what works: signature solutions

WHO has developed a set of signature solutions – evidence-based, cost-effective policies and measures designed to achieve impact at the country level by offering guidance to policy-makers.

These solutions cover the whole cancer continuum, from prevention and early detection through to diagnosis, treatment and palliative care. WHO is also currently developing more advanced and specific solutions for cervical, breast and childhood cancers. These solutions will be rolled out in the coming year with clear, actionable packages.

Prevention is key

Evidence suggests that up to 30% of cancers are caused by the consumption of alcohol and tobacco. Much more can be done to limit the risk factors that lead to cancer. While individuals can take steps to reduce their risks, it is clear that policy-makers need to implement the evidence-based policies which make healthy choices possible. This includes creating urban environments where people can exercise, for example, with more bike lanes, and reducing access to tobacco, alcohol, and foods high in fats, salt and sugar.

“We have to remind policy-makers that we need to think in a 25–30 year cycle,” says Aron. While policy-makers often have shorter-term goals, Aron is clear that this long-term vision reflects that the battle against cancer is “a marathon, not a sprint”, and should be passed down through generations of politicians.

Tackling inequities

Prevention, early detection, diagnosis and treatment are just some of the areas where cancer survival rates are impacted by inequities. Currently, the risk of developing cancer is 3 times higher in northern Europe than central Asia, yet chances of a cure are 2.5 times higher by comparison. This is often a result of differing access to quality diagnosis and treatment.

Furthermore, uptake of vaccines that can reduce the chances of developing cancer, such as those against human papilloma virus (HPV) and hepatitis B, remain too low across the Region, and healthy choices are often considered solely an individual responsibility.

Finally, the majority of national resources are dedicated to cancer treatment, while prevention, early detection and palliative care remain underdeveloped. These are all areas where governments and policy-makers must act to improve cancer control.

World Cancer Day: tobacco and alcohol both cause cancer – know the facts

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4 February 2021

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WHO/Catharina de Kat-Reynen

Tobacco and alcohol-associated cancers can be prevented
by cost-effective policy measures

On World Cancer Day, marked on 4 February, WHO/Europe is focusing on the need to minimize exposure to both alcohol and tobacco. While many people understand the risks of developing cancer associated with smoking, many remain unaware that alcohol also causes cancer.

“This is not only a problem of public awareness, it is a sign that policies to prevent cancer across the WHO European Region can and should be bolder,” highlights Dr Nino Berdzuli, Director of the Division of Country Health Programmes.

Around 40% of cancers can be prevented, and public awareness of these 2 modifiable risk factors – tobacco and alcohol – needs to increase. Information about the health hazards linked to drinking alcohol and smoking should be combined with effective WHO-recommended health policies, which limit exposure to health-harming products as well as their affordability.

Cancer is the second-highest cause of morbidity and mortality in the Region, resulting in more than 3.7 million cases and 1.9 million deaths each year. In 2018, cancer caused 10 million deaths worldwide. Over the next 20 years, cancer rates are expected to rise by at least 60%.

Table of Contents

Tobacco and cancer: non-smokers also at risk

Tobacco use accounts for 25% of all cancer deaths globally and is the primary cause of lung cancer. It remains a public health issue of the utmost importance in the Region, where an estimated 186 million people (or 26% of the adult population) currently use tobacco. For men, tobacco use is associated with 92% of trachea, bronchus and lung cancers; for women, this association rate is 62%.

People who use both alcohol and tobacco have a 5-fold increased risk of developing cancers of the oral cavity, oropharynx, larynx and oesophagus compared to people who use either alcohol or tobacco alone. For heavy users, the risk is up to 30 times higher.

Smokers are up to 22 times more likely to develop lung cancer in their lifetime compared to non-smokers. However, people who do not use tobacco but who are exposed to second-hand smoke at home, work or in other public places also have an increased risk of developing lung diseases, including chronic respiratory diseases and lung cancer.

The good news, however, is that lung cancer is largely preventable and almost 9 out of 10 cases can be prevented if current smokers quit. The benefits of quitting tobacco are almost immediate. After just 20 minutes of quitting smoking, heart rate drops. Within 2–12 weeks, circulation improves and lung function increases. Within 1–9 months, coughing and shortness of breath decrease. After 10 years of quitting smoking, the risk of lung cancer falls to about half that of a smoker.

These are undoubtedly strong arguments for making tobacco control a priority among the risk-factor reduction strategies for cancer.

Alcohol and cancer: no safe level

According to a recent factsheet produced by the WHO European Office for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases, in 2018 alone, around 180 000 cases of cancer and 92 000 cancer deaths were causally linked to alcohol in the Region.

There is no safe level of alcohol consumption – regardless of the type of beverage, its quality or price – because the primary compound that can cause cancer is alcohol itself.

Almost 11% of all cancer cases causally linked to alcohol across the Region in 2018 were due to drinking no more than 1 large bottle of beer (500 ml), 2 glasses of wine (200 ml) or 60 ml of spirits per day. Cancer risks start from the first gram of alcohol consumed and increase with the amount that people drink.

How countries can protect consumers’ health

All 53 countries of the WHO European Region have signed on to the European Programme of Work (2020–2025), a document that promotes united action for better health. It contributes to actions aimed at decreasing cancer morbidity and deaths.

“Well chosen public-health policy measures can raise public awareness and open new ways to protect consumers’ health,” explains Dr Berdzuli. “WHO-recommended ‘best-buy’ measures are cost-effective and easy to implement. They emphasize increasing taxes and prices for harmful products, enforcing marketing restrictions, and limiting their physical availability.”

WHO also strongly supports adding warnings on labels for health-harming products. As Dr Berdzuli notes, “Concentrating on preventable health risks is the fastest and easiest way to ensure the health and well-being of people in our Region.”

Scientology helps new businesses get off on the right foot.

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Newsdesk

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4 February 2021

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Church of Scientology Volunteer Ministers offer free online course to help new businesses get off on the right foot

Surprisingly more businesses than ever are starting during the pandemic, according to 2020 statistics. They will need organizing skills to stay in business.

“Everyone needs a little help right now adjusting to the new business parameters and environment and organizing their life. With good organizing tools much can be accomplished.”

— Rev. Susan Taylor, Church of Scientology National Affairs Office

WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, UNITED STATES, February 3, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ — Due to the pandemic, new business statistics show that more than 4.4 million new companies were started in 2020. That’s a 26.9 percent increase from 2019 and the biggest increase in the past decade. What will happen with these new businesses? How many will survive and thrive? Or will they fail due to not having good basic tools on how to organize?

Many people were energized to start a new business in 2020 due to the substantial changes in the business landscape. Many of these continue to experience an inability to navigate bureaucratic red tape, confront impersonal government workers and suffer the carelessness of commercial enterprises. With these challenges comes a need for better organizational skills and flow lines in order to survive.

The lack of organizational tools costs business trillions of dollars every year resulting in inefficiency, lowered productivity and often failure.

On an individual level, organizational skills are a key and often a missing factor in an individual’s personal success. Attainment of one’s goals, no matter how small or how large, requires a knowledge of organization. How does one most efficiently and productively manage time, activities and resources? How does one minimize distractions? And how does one align strengths in order to accomplish goals and purposes?

The Church of Scientology Volunteer Ministers are offering a free online course on the subject of how to organize one’s life, family or business called The Basics of Organizing Course.

This free course gives guidance and advice regarding how one can avoid distractions and overwork, and assure success in any activity. The course also covers the first step one must take to successfully organize anything, whether it’s a career or an entire company. It is available online 24/7 and is self-paced so that it can fit into anyone’s schedule.

The Basics of Organizing Course is based on the works of humanitarian and New York Times bestselling author L. Ron Hubbard. He recognized that Man was lacking an understanding of how to organize his activities, and so a sizable portion of his humanitarian research during his lifetime was devoted to the subject of organization. Mr. Hubbard saw that chaos and confusion are not natural conditions of life; they only exist when natural laws are not understood and followed.

“Everyone needs a little help right now adjusting to the new business parameters and environment and organizing their life. With good organizing tools much can be accomplished. This course gives people effective organizing tools to help them achieve any goal in life,” said Rev. Susan Taylor, of the Church of Scientology National Affairs Office.

The Basics of Organizing Course is part of the Volunteer Ministers program of the Church of Scientology. Additional courses based on Mr. Hubbard’s works are also available on subjects including how to handle a dangerous environment, communication, study and children. The courses are non-religious and open to anyone of any belief, who wishes to improve conditions around them.

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Church of Scientology Volunteer Ministers offer free online course to help new businesses get off on the right foot

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