The National Colorectal Cancer Roundtable: Past Performance, Current and Future Goals.

The National Colorectal Cancer Roundtable (NCCRT) is an organization of organizations with staffing, funding and leadership provided by the American Cancer Society (ACS) and guidance and funding by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In 2014, ACS, CDC, and the NCCRT launched the 80% by 2018 campaign. This highly successful initiative activated hundreds of organizations to prioritize colorectal cancer screening, disseminated smart, evidence-based interventions, and ultimately led to 9.3 million more Americans being up to date with screening compared with the precampaign rate. It's new campaign, 80% in Every Community, is designed to address persistent screening disparities.

Jane Cooke Wright (1919-2013): Pioneering oncologist, woman and humanitarian.

Jane Wright was a fundamental researcher in cancer chemotherapy in the 1950s-1980s and was one of the first scientists to test anti-cancer drugs on humans rather than solely on mice, discovering the use of the popular antimetabolite drug methotrexate on solid tumours. From her research she was able to conclude which specific anti-cancer agents would have the greatest lethal effect on a patient's certain cancer type and she invented a method of delivering chemotherapy agents directly to an internal cancer site. During a time when the Civil Rights in the United States of America were undergoing a transformation to reduce the discrimination and segregation imposed on African Americans and the civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr made a speech to call for an end to racism in 1963, Jane Wright became the first African American to hold such a high position at a nationally recognised institution and the first woman to be elected President of the New York Cancer Society. US President Lyndon B Johnson appointed Jane to the President's Commission of Heart Disease, Cancer and Stroke (serving 1964-1965) and the National Cancer Advisory Board (serving 1966-1970). Jane retired in 1987 by which time she had published more than 75 scientific papers, led delegations of oncologists in China, the former Soviet Union, Africa and Europe and held key positions in various international and national organisations. Jane Wright passed away on 19 February 2013 aged 93 but her legacy lives on in the name of an award from the American Association of Cancer Research.

Uncertain enthusiasm: the American Cancer Society, public education, and the problems of the movie, 1921-1960.

Historians have highlighted a growing medical enthusiasm for public health education movies in the early twentieth century. This essay suggests that there is another historiographic tale to tell, of concerns that films might undermine the public health messages they were designed to promote--concerns that threatened continued interest in movies during the Depression of the 1930s. First, focusing on cancer-education movies aimed at the general public released by the American Society for the Control of Cancer (ASCC, founded 1913), the paper argues that the organization's initial enthusiasm for movies was tempered from the late 1920s by a combination of high production costs, uncertainty as to the effectiveness of movies as public-education tools, and the hard economic situation. It was only after 1944 that motion pictures became a stable part of the propaganda efforts of the renamed American Cancer Society. This transformation followed the takeover of the Society by advertisers and businesspeople, led by Mary Lasker, who introduced business models of fund-raising and education, and made expensive communication technologies, such as movies, central to cancer control. Second, the article also traces the persistence of anxieties that movies might undermine cancer control by encouraging emotional responses that led audiences to ignore the lessons the movies were intended to encourage. But whereas such anxieties dampened ASCC enthusiasm for cancer-education movies during the hard economic times of the 1930s, they had no such effect after 1944, and attention shifted to developing techniques of controlling unwanted audience responses.

"For Jimmy and the boys and girls of America": publicizing childhood cancers in twentieth-century America.

This paper examines a collection of images of children printed in cancer education and fund-raising materials distributed by voluntary health organizations, released by public relations departments of specialized cancer hospitals, and featured in popular magazines and newspapers beginning in the late 1940s. Children represented only a small fraction of all persons with cancer, yet they became a key component of the media campaign for the disease. What narratives were embedded in the photographs and profiles? Like the March of Dimes' use of young polio patients to promote their programs, "poster children" were strategically used throughout the mid-to-late twentieth century to advance principles of early cancer detection and prompt treatment; to illustrate or, at times, exaggerate promising biomedical advances in the field; and to elicit emotional responses and donations from a wide audience during the escalation of the war against cancer.

Breast cancer activism: past lessons, future directions.

Breast cancer activism has become a fixture in the United States, where fundraising events are ubiquitous and government financing of research into the disease has skyrocketed. Activists in other countries are now reporting similar accomplishments. Here, predominantly using the United States as a case study, I analyse the recent successes of breast cancer activism. I also raise a series of questions about the future goals of activism.

Great expectations: historical perspectives on genetic breast cancer testing.

Women who test positive for a genetic breast cancer marker may have more than a 50% chance of developing the disease. Although past screening technologies have sought to identify actual breast cancers, as opposed to predisposition, the history of screening may help predict the societal response to genetic testing. For decades, educational messages have encouraged women to find breast cancers as early as possible. Such messages have fostered the popular assumption that immediately discovered and treated breast cancers are necessarily more curable. Research, however, has shown that screening improves the prognosis of some--but not all--breast cancers, and also that it may lead to unnecessary interventions. The dichotomy between the advertised value of early detection and its actual utility has caused particular controversy in the United States, where the cultural climate emphasizes the importance of obtaining all possible medical information and acting on it. Early detection has probably helped to lower overall breast cancer mortality. But it has proven hard to praise aggressive screening without exaggerating its merits. Women considering genetic breast cancer testing should weight the benefits and limitations of early knowledge.

Commitment to a world without cancer.

The author is a layperson, health educator, and political oncologist who is, in addition to her work at the cancer center at UCLA, a long-time volunteer with the American Cancer Society. She has served the National Cancer Institute as a member of the National Cancer Advisory Board and is currently a member of its Board of Scientific Counselors, Division of Cancer Control. In these various roles she was part of the lay leadership that influenced and cooperated with the Nixon administration in its efforts to pass the National Cancer Act of 1971. She has participated continually in the implementation of the National Cancer Program and Act since 1971. This essay reviews the history of our nation's support of cancer research, commencing with the founding of the American Cancer Society. It considers the factors that led to the passage of the National Cancer Act in 1971. It then comments on the interaction between universities, the National Cancer Institute, and the Cancer Act, which has produced the "cancer business" that has come of age since the Cancer Act was passed. This commentary does not review the advances made in research and clinical practice as a result of the passage of the National Cancer Act of 1971. Others, better qualified, will do that in this journal and in other publications as well. These views are concerned with the process, the systems, and ancillary activities that have developed as a consequence of the national will to conquer cancer. They are meant to highlight several portions of the whole. The "seeds" of cancer consciousness sown early by the American Cancer Society and those so firmly planted in research and in the creation of a national network of researchers, patient care institutions, and information systems by the National Cancer Institute and the National Cancer Program Plan and Act of 1971 have reaped a harvest of independent programs and even businesses that have given substance to the hopes of those seeking to achieve a world without cancer.

Patient education: history, development, and current directions of the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute.

With their unique perspectives in the identification, design, promotion, and evaluation of cancer patient education programs and services, the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society have the abilities to meet a wide variety of cancer patient education needs. With federal support and connections to national organizations and the comprehensive and clinical cancer center networks, the National Cancer Institute has access to nationwide experts in medical care and the resources to develop, design, and promote quality, state-of-the-art education programs. The American Cancer Society, with its strong volunteer community base, can pull together local expertise and collaborate with local organizations to meet the special needs of local population groups. In addition, the American Cancer Society volunteer committees have the flexibility to individualize programming and resources to answer specific patient/family education problems. As the number of people affected by cancer continues to raise, and as organizations realize the need to maximize their resources with collaborative efforts, the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society are challenged to focus their energies on the patient education initiatives that build upon and combine their unique strengths.