Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Carrywood and Morning's podcast from News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
He'd be bel Cancer New Zealand's new report lays bare
the realities of three hundred and fifty people under fifty
living with the disease. Boil cancer is the second deadliest
cancer in New Zealand. It's the leading cause of cancer
death among people under fifty. Every year, around three thousand,
(00:30):
three hundred New Zealanders are diagnosed, twelve hundred die from
the disease. Yet if it's caught early, it's more than
ninety percent curable. So the reason that you know, almost
half New Zealanders who are diagnosed with boil cancer die
is because they didn't realize they had it until it's
too late. One of the key findings of the Never
(00:51):
Too Young Reporter is that more than half didn't know
the symptoms prior to diagnosis, and that access to testing
is inconsistent. Bell Cancer New Zealand Chief Executive Peter Huskinson
joins me now and a very good morning to.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
You, Marena. Nice to speak to you.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
It seems that there's been like a tsunami of foot
healthy young people being diagnosed with terminal bell cancer. Is
it just that there's more reporting of it, or are
the rates on the increase.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Look, the rates are increasing faster in New Zealand than
any country in the world, which is really obviously is
very significant. Yeah, they're rising. They're why more on the
quarter since the year two thousand. That's people in their twenties, thirties,
and forties, and they're rising fastest of all thirty six
percent per decade for MARI. So this also has an
equity dimension as well that if we don't protect young people,
(01:49):
essentially we miss a lot of people. And an awful
lot of those people will be are in Pacific people
as well.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Why is it rising? They don't know yet, do they
They're looking at microplastic, sultra processed food. I mean, there's
so many young that healthy, gorgeous young things who are
being diagnosed with it.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Well, that's exactly right. And I think the key thing
to realize is, you know, you might think, oh, well,
if I'm frail or i'm ill a lot, maybe I'm
more like to have back country It's not the case.
You know, there are some very very fit people, you
know who will be doing marathon runners, you know, sports people.
You think about Cheryl Walker, for example, Alex Pledger. There
(02:29):
are a lot of people, and I think that that's
the key message is that this is a this is
something that can strike at any age and any level
of fitness and healthiness. So it is something which you know,
on the one hand, looking at for the symptoms really
is going to help a chunk of people for sure,
But equally we really want to see screening reduced so
that we catch people before they get to the age
(02:52):
where the bow cancer is likely to develop.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
But if you can't really reduce it down to your twinties, can.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
You, I think I think that's right, and researchers are
kind of always looking at other ways to identify factors
that can identify someone who's more likely to have the risk.
But certainly there are you know, Japan has been screening
for forty for a long time, the US recommendations from
(03:18):
forty five. Australia actually can access screening tests for forty
five as well, and that's obviously what the Prime Minister
Christopher Us and chrispher Hipkins promised to match Australia before
the last election. So we think that will go a
long way. It would go a long long way, you know,
it would catch. If we had screening for forty five,
the majority of people with early onset of our cancer
(03:39):
would be caught by could be caught by screening rather
than by waiting for symptoms to develop, So it would
be really transformational.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
When I was fifty, I went for a whole range
of chicks, like from top to toe, and because melvincer
was in the family, I went for a screen and
they found pre cancerous polyps, a lot of them. So
I began a long standing relationship with my endoscopy surgeon,
(04:09):
and yesterday I was off for exactly that for my
long standing date and mercifully all clear for the first
time since I began screening at fifty, and he said
I don't have to see him for five years, which
is a wondrous, wondrous joy and blessing. But there were
no symptoms at all other than the fact it's in
our family. You know, another close family member who's twenty
(04:32):
eight went for screening and there were twenty eight polyps
that were discovered for her and she wouldn't have been
covered by screening. So how if young people know that
it's in the family, if they're worried, what do they do?
Because we can't clog up the hospital with the worried
well all going for colinoscopies, can.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
We Yeah, Look, I think there's three different groups of
people here we need to think about. So one is
people who might have an elevated risk because it's in
the family, for example. Yeah, and that's one group. Another
group is people who have symptoms and what do they do?
And then a third group is people who are in
neither of those camps. They're people average risk and they're
not having any symptoms. But again there's an you know
(05:17):
that there are a number of people who are going
to develop that and actually, yeah, the general screenage coming
down to forty five catches particularly that third group, the
people in the first group, the people who've got perhaps
Scott Bow cancer in the family. There is, as your
case sort of illustrates, there's the opportunity to get surveillance
much earlier that in that situation. So if you have
(05:37):
immediate family members and that could be you know, it's
in a couple of your family members at any age,
or if it's in one member of your immediate family
but they were diagnosed before they're fifty five, you will
qualify under the public health system to be to be
screened earlier, and that's typically around ten years earlier than
than the youngest person diagnosed. So that's an important aspect.
(06:00):
But certainly people aren't sure. They can always you know,
google Bow Cancer New Zealand have a chat with one
of our supports. We can talk you through you know,
the how that works. And I think the key thing
is if you know what to ask for when you
get to your doctor, then you can actually get referred
to that kind of earlier screening. Which the thing about
that is you say it's so valuable.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
It is. I mean, because I would be dead by now,
you know, basically, but I had medical insurance and I
but I still had to really fight to get the
screening and show that there were family members who were affected.
And it took a lot of advocacy on my part
and on my doctor's part, and it took having health insurance.
(06:41):
So a lot of people don't have that advantage and
that privilege.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Well, that's right, but it is worth saying that that
much of what you've described, you know, is now available
in the public system. But the point certainly that the
report shows is that whether you were in the public
or the private system, you know what what patients told
us was it was a battle. And your example is
typical of what you what you read in the report
this These aren't kind of gaps in the system that
(07:08):
are exclusive to the public system. Actually, even people who've
got insurance are finding some of that same challenge that
you really have to advocate for yourself, not take no
for an answer, keep going, you know if basically if
you trust your go and push for push for answers,
and you don't stop if they don't see right. But certainly,
you know, I think hopefully this report is a useful
(07:29):
resource both for health New Zealand but also for the
insurance companies to realize that you know, this is this
is New Zealand's biggest cancer killer, and we've got to
make it easier for people to get a timely diagnosis
because ultimately, as you said, we catch this thing at
stage one, more than ninety percent of people will survive.
If we leave it until the counters really spread, you know,
(07:51):
that can be as low as ten percent of people
surviving five.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Years when it comes to the young people who yeah,
because the numbers of life of die, you know die
in Wood said that when he released his book. In it,
two young women who were in their twinties, never smoked,
never drank fitters fiddles, except they had bell cancer and
one of them had reached stage four before it was
discovered discovered. So do the over the counter TIS gets
(08:18):
sold at by chemists? Do they? Is that a good
first stick for people who are worried?
Speaker 3 (08:26):
I think the thing that's the thing that's tricky about
this is that what you need to be able to
do that. There are there are some testkets available, but
in a sense, you know, if you're thinking about buying
a testket, you've got to think both about the test
and also what happens after the test. So there are
two there are two of the kind of I like
(08:47):
more accurate tests that are around. Allevia Radiology does a
test it's about one hundred and thirty eight bucks. That's
the same as the SIT test that you would get
if you had symptoms and go to your doctor now.
And there's an eye GenZ to who again have a
have a sort of a by online kind of two
hundred and fifty five dollar test that is a users
DNA and therefore is a slightly higher accuracy level and
(09:10):
that you know, so they're both, they're both good options.
But I think the thing you have to think about
and be be prepared for is, you know, if you
need if that comes comes about positive, if you're probably
going to need a klnoscopy, and that can be you know,
two or three thousand dollars. So so this is not
something that is open to everyone, which is why we're
advocating for, you know, the public sector to make it,
(09:32):
make it freely available as a rule. But certainly those
options are there and a lot of people find it
very helpful. But I think you do have to think
beyond just you know, if you buy some kind of
chemist based tests and then go to your GP because
it's outside of the screening program, they're not They're not
a test that have a the same the same recognized
levels of accuracy and sensitivity and so on. It isn't
(09:54):
necessarily going to be the thing that that leads you
to getting a public sector colonoscopy.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
I'm afraid News Talk sid B. I'm talking to Peter Huskinson,
Balkans and New Zealand Chief Executive. Peter. I've heard so
many Texters saying it's all because of the COVID vaccine.
Join the dots. But you said that, and I have
read and I have seen that the young people being
diagnosed with bell kincer started as far back as two
(10:19):
thousand was when you saw measurable differences in the wisdom world,
long before a COVID vaccine.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Right, that's exactly right. And so this point is to
something generational. But if you if you track back to
those people when around two thousand, when those people were
kind of in the people who are thirty by then
are probably you know, born in the kind of in
the kind of late sixties, early seventies and beyond, and
I think the things we know that have changed in there.
(10:45):
You know, COVID wasn't around then, so and this has
been a it's a steady, steady, but significant increase over
over those you know, over over each decade. So doesn't
really doesn't really stack with that. But but what does
you know, what is probably true is that you know
there's certainly been you know rising you know the you know,
we're buying much much more processed food, and that's an
(11:07):
area scientist looking at. We know that you know, levels
of obesity are high levels of physical and activity, and
we know they are a risk factors for bio cancer,
but there does seem to be something specific, which is
why there's investigations and things like microplastics and looking at
the gut bier and things like that. So the truth
is we don't yet know, but in some ways that's
(11:27):
not the most important thing. The most important thing is
knowing what to do about it. We can find out
why later, but how is the important thing? How do
we how do we take action? And I guess you know,
one of the key things, you know, pointing to that
point that you know, half of people didn't know the symptoms,
and that's that's very much true. We did some market
research earlier this year's Blackhass the New Zealand, the first again,
(11:48):
first ever national market research has been done and it
really showed that the messages about what to look for
have been landing with people in their sixties, but haven't
really been getting through to people in their twenty thirties
and forties, and they're you know, you know, even people
in their sixties, you're talking maybe one in five people
couldn't name the symtoms about cancer. By the time you
get to people in the below, it's like, you know,
(12:08):
four and ten people, So so.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
I have one minute, so outline for me what people
need to do and what to look for.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Yeah, so the Simpsons to look for these A change
in your bow habit that's more or less often, maybe
diarrhea and maybe constipation, but a change in your boy habit,
abdominal pain periodical or coming and going, or constant blood
either in your poura in the loo or from your bottom, tiredness.
You can't explain weight loss you're not trying for they're
the Big five. And if you've got any of those,
(12:37):
get to your GP. They've got some new tests now
that they should be able to rolling out this year
that will help to diagnose this. So please do take
action because you can. You can prevent this, and it
doesn't matter what AGR, doesn't matter how otherwise fit you're feeling,
it's got any of those, get along your GP and
get get some advice.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Thanks so much. Peter Peter Huskinson Bell Cancer in Is
It Cheap Executive.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
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