Stanford Report, October 11, 2006

Oct. 18 talk to discuss poverty, cancer, injustice

Despite the many advances in diagnosing and treating cancer, some Americans aren't benefiting from these efforts. In fact, poor Americans have a 10-15 percent lower five-year cancer survival rate than those with higher incomes.

Harold Freeman, MD, president, founder and medical director of the Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Care and Prevention, will discuss this gap on Oct. 18 in a talk titled, "Poverty, culture and social injustice: Determinants of health disparities." His presentation is the 16th annual Jonathan J. King Lecture sponsored by the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics.

Freeman, a professor of clinical surgery at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, is also senior advisor to the director of the National Cancer Institute and is responsible for strategies to achieve NCI's goal to eliminate cancer health disparities by 2015. As president of the American Cancer Society from 1988-89, he was the chief architect of its initiative to address cancer in the poor.

The lecture takes place at 5 p.m. in the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital auditorium. For more information, contact the biomedical ethics center at 723-5760.