Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-11-18-Speech-2-250"
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"en.20031118.8.2-250"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, something like one in four Europeans die of cancer, but thousands of people could be saved every year if high-quality early detection programmes were in place in every Member State. We all know that. That is why I very much welcome the Commission’s initiative in recommending to the Member States that they introduce screening, the need for which is confirmed by scientific evidence.
I see it as absolutely scandalous that, for example, only eight Member States have to date started to offer national programmes for mammography screening to all, even though, according to WHO, this cuts the mortality rate by up to 36%, and even though the quality guidelines for this were presented as long ago as 1992. Commissioner, I regret that I cannot avoid issuing what is both an appeal and a warning. If we are to really take this Council recommendation seriously, you cannot at the same time allow all the screening networks to be forced to close down their operations. At the end of the day, it was the work of the European Cancer Networks that led to this Council recommendation. If you, the Commission, want to have real credibility in the fight against cancer, then you have to find a permanent place for screening in the new action programme on health. We must not allow a recurrence of what happened this year, when the word ‘cancer’ no longer appeared in the action programme’s work plan, which – as you know all too well – eventually, and inevitably, resulted in support for all the screening networks being discontinued.
Commissioner, we will still, in future, need the European networks to draw up new guidelines and improve existing ones, for only by these means will we achieve equally high standards of screening across the EU. In addition, though, we need the networks to support the new Member States, where, as is well known, action is even more urgently needed."@en1
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