One of Australia’s leading gastroenterologists says the federal government appears to be mocking the compelling evidence supporting the case for bowel cancer screening.
Professor Graeme Young, co-director of the Flinders University Centre for Cancer Prevention and Control, says if the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program is not approved by the government in the May budget “the very principles underlying how we decide to implement changes in health policy — evidence of benefit, cost-effectiveness and feasibility — would seem to be mocked”.
Despite the government’s own agency, Medicare Australia, documenting the success of bowel cancer screening (Link), the government ceased funding of the program in December last year. The future of screening will be decided in the 2011 federal budget.
In a Comment article published this week in MJA InSight, Professor Young outlines the overwhelming clinical and financial evidence, feasibility and acceptability of the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program and asks ‘What more do we need?’
Source : InSight (Medical Journal of Australia)