TOP 5 MOST VIEWED ARTICLES
RECENT COMMENTS
Article type: Masterpiece
Keywords: Adamos Adamou , MEPs Against Cancer, politics, European health policy, .
This article has 9 comments
Specialism: political oncology
In five brief years on the political stage in Brussels, Adamos Adamou successfully built alliances, mongered resolutions and agitated for action aimed at ensuring all of Europe’s citizens have access to quality screening and treatment.
» Simon Crompton
The office and consulting room of Cypriot politician and oncologist Adamos Adamou is on the fifth floor of a modern office block down a blessedly quiet avenue in bustling Nicosia. From his window, you can look over the Greek Cypriot half of the city, across the United Nations buffer zone, and into the half of Nicosia that has been Turkish since the invasion of the island in 1974.
Beyond that are the Pentadaktylos Mountains, deep in northern Cyprus, now occupied by Turkey. On the side of those mountains is painted an enormous Turkish flag, as if to taunt their Greek Cypriot compatriots. But Adamou isn’t cursing when he points it out. “It’s a reminder,” he says. A keepsake, maybe, of the injustices he wants righted – social, political and medical – which have preoccupied him for 10, maybe 20 years. The flag reminds him of them all.
Adamou, 59, was head of Cyprus’s main medical oncology unit for breast and gynaecological cancers until becoming a Member of the Cyprus Parliament in 2003 and then a Member of the European Parliament between 2004 and 2009. He’s made a political name for himself by pouncing upon inequalities – whether he’s been drawing attention to the variations in cancer provision across Europe, the political situation in Cyprus, or the appalling conditions in the Palestinian territories.
Before Adamou’s brief but significant five-year stint in the European Parliament, cancer was barely on the European political agenda. But, having helped assemble a group of fellow MEPs determined to change that, he played a key role in successfully pushing for the Commission to establish an EU Cancer Partnership to promote improved cancer control and screening rates throughout Europe. He and his colleagues transformed vague statements of good intent into a comprehensive European Parliament resolution, passed in April 2008, setting out the need for greater investment in cancer prevention, and strategies to reduce inequalities between European countries.
Cancer, says Adamou, who sat with the European United Left–Nordic Green Left Group in the European Parliament, transcends political boundaries and these issues should have been better addressed long ago. What motivated him to push for change was a belief that was cultivated during 30 years working as a doctor, and which also provided him with the impetus to move into politics: making people healthy is not just a matter of medicine. To really achieve change, doctors have to engage with national and international policy. That’s what he did.
“To really achieve change, doctors have to engage with national and international policy”
Health is politics
“Health is not only about science, it’s about politics too,” says Adamou. “All the scientific and stakeholding organisations in Europe have to realise this, because the politicians are the people who approve health policy programmes. Health specialists should be more direct in expressing their views to politicians and pressing for the implementation of programmes that are eventually going to help the European citizen.”
Photographs of Adamou, looking serious in jacket and tie, don’t capture his vivacity, or the passionate way he addresses every subject. He’s opinionated but not dogmatic, and reluctant to allocate blame for inequalities too freely – it’s “the big powers in the world”, the political institutions, he feels, that are the problem, not the people, whether you’re talking about lack of screening services or a divided Cyprus. He likes to align himself with the people rather than these ‘powers’. His father was a labourer in a wine factory, his mother was a cleaner (both are now in their 80s) and when Adamos said he wanted to study at university to become a teacher, his father said that if he insisted on “draining my blood” and going to university, he would have to study medicine. Reluctantly, Adamos agreed.
He was accepted in Athens University Medical School in 1969, but soon realised that, having chosen the modern Greek path at high school, he had insufficient grounding in biology, chemistry and physics – so he negotiated an extra year to catch up. He’s still reluctant to talk about what happened next. When Cyprus was invaded by Turkey in 1974, Adamou was back at home on vacation. Having already served as an officer in the National Guard after school, he was asked to serve again, and was sent to the frontline to fight. Many of his friends were killed, and one of his brothers went missing. He was eventually found, wounded. The experience has stayed with Adamou. “When people talk about war, like the current one in Afghanistan, they don’t know what a truly terrible, terrible thing it is,” he says.
“When people talk about war, like in Afghanistan, they don’t know what a truly terrible thing it is”
He’s constantly aware of the legacy of that war, and tells me of the people he knew who were robbed of their homes, the sources of national income taken away, the families fragmented. The problem, he says, is the politicians, and the powers whose interests they serve, not the Turkish Cypriots. “Where I was born, in Limassol, my neighbours were both Greek and Turkish Cypriots, and we all lived together fine.” He finally qualified in 1976, and while waiting to take a specialism in internal medicine was invited by a colleague at the Hellenic Cancer Society’s St Anargyroi Hospital to be a medical officer there. This is where his interest in cancer and palliative care began. He worked briefly as a medical oncologist in America, and then came back to Athens where he became the deputy director of the first clinical oncology unit at St Anargyroi.
First medical oncologist
Then, in 1985, the Cyprus Ministry of Health asked him to return to Cyprus, to be the first medical oncologist on the island. At the time, the only specialist cancer facility available was a radiotherapy department at Nicosia General Hospital. It was the start of a process of building up medical oncology on the island of which Adamos is unashamedly proud.
“When I arrived, everyone was looking at me with half an eye – they didn’t know about this. Medical treatment? What was medical treatment?” laughs Adamou, who was in charge of a small unit at Paralimni Hospital, and then consultant medical oncologist at the Nicosia General Hospital between 1988 and 1998. “It is always hard when a new thing comes in, but at the end of the day, I can say I built up medical oncology in Cyprus. I was the first, and gradually we built it up so that there are now 12 medical oncologists.”
Adamou, who has advised the Cyprus government on developing cancer services on the island, is pleased with the way that things are turning out. The Bank of Cyprus Oncology Centre, which opened in Nicosia in 1998 in a joint operation between the bank and the Cyprus Government, provides diagnostic and treatment services in separate units for all the main cancer types. Adamou was head of medical oncology in the breast and gynaecological cancer units between the hospital’s founding and his election as a Member of the Cyprus Parliament in 2003. As a politician, he has always belonged to AKEL – the Progressive Party of Working People – now the dominant party in the Cypriot government.
“We have a comprehensive cancer hospital for a population of around 750,000 Greek Cypriots and we also serve Turkish Cypriots who come in from the occupied area,” he says. “The Government pays all the running expenses, the drugs and everything. All cancer patients in Cyprus, independent of their income, are offered cancer treatment for free. This was a decision taken 15 years ago, and every new government follows these policies.”
His positive attitude about the improving quality of cancer services in Cyprus is at odds with the views of some lobby groups. The Europa Donna Cyprus group, for example, has been calling for the Health Ministry to speed up the creation of a specialist breast cancer centre for the island. It has criticised the lack of multidisciplinary support services for people with cancer, and says there are delays due to lack of equipment and staff.
But Adamou’s positive view may be more than a mark of pride in his own, and his party’s, involvement in service developments thus far. He sees services in Cyprus in the context of poor levels of screening and treatment in many other European states. This, he says, was his prime concern while an MEP. Though unable to enforce health initiatives on Member States, the European Commission has published quality assurance guidelines on breast and cervical cancer screening and diagnosis. In 2003, the EU Council called on Member States to implement effective screening programmes for breast cancer, colon cancer and cervical cancer, outlining best practice guidelines in early detection.
But though these initiatives have had a profound impact in some countries, they have had none in others, says Adamou. “There are huge inequalities. Looking at the map of the 27 Member States, you see the number having screening programmes is less than half – so the majority of European countries don’t implement programmes for early detection of breast cancer, or the Pap test for cervical cancer, or colonoscopy for colon cancer. In fact, very few European countries have programmes for colon cancer.”
“It’s not just differences in screening programmes. My major concern from the beginning of my time as an MEP has been major differences in treatment and survival rates. It’s well known, for example, that the survival rate of a man with lung cancer in an eastern European country is far below the average in a western European country. That’s what pushed me, and two colleagues, Liz Lynne and Alojz Peterle, to create the MEPs Against Cancer group.”
MEPs Against Cancer
The group was established in 2004 to promote action on cancer as a priority, and to harness European health policy to do so. Its main aim, to put cancer on the agenda, was accomplished with the 2008 resolution on cancer. This calls on the European Commission, Council and Member States to allocate resources and take action to reduce the cancer burden. It paved the way for the establishment of a formal European Partnership for Action Against Cancer, which involves the Commission and Member States, as well as professional and patient groups, providing a framework for identifying and sharing information, capacity and expertise across Europe – thus helping to avoid scattered actions and duplication of effort.
But there is still much to be done. Some countries inevitably resist investing heavily in new screening and treatment programmes. Adamou says that, despite his attempts to persuade the European Commission otherwise, the EU will only issue recommendations, not directives, on cancer services. The principle of subsidiarity means that change cannot be imposed in policy areas that can be dealt with by Member States themselves. He’d like to see European funds allocated to poorer Member States, to help them build up cancer services. The long-term profitability of such an investment should be clear to both the Commission and Member States: early detection equals less expenditure on expensive treatments.
He’d like to see European funds allocated to poorer Member States, to help them build up cancer services
He believes the other hurdle to progress is the lack of recognition of medical oncology in some European countries where cancer treatments are the responsibility of organ specialists, not cancer specialists. Adamou, who chairs the Developing Countries Task Force of the European Society for Medical Oncology, has joined with ESMO to impress on European Commissioners the importance not only of medical oncology being recognised throughout Europe as a specialty, but of standardising the level of training doctors must have to qualify as specialist medical oncologists. “This is very important, not just for physicians, but for European citizens. With the introduction of cross-border healthcare in Europe, patients who are going to another country, say for a second opinion, should know who is a medical oncologist and who is not. I think that with the full recognition of the specialty, the phenomenon of people being treated by physicians who are not qualified to carry out cancer treatments will stop.”
Again, his efforts appear to be yielding results. The 2008 resolution urges the Commission and Member States to recognise oncology as a medical specialty. He believes that, in 2010, there will be sufficient support from Member States for this to happen.
With so much achieved, but so much to do, why did Adamou decide not to stand for re-election in 2009? The answer is simple: exhaustion. For his five years as an MEP, he was making the 12-hour journey between Cyprus and Brussels every week. “I got sick because of it,” he says. “I didn’t see my family. I spent more time in planes than in my house. I became a grandpapa, and didn’t even see my grandson.”
The workload was enormous. Adamou wasn’t just working on health issues during his time in Brussels. He was chairman of the Delegation for Relations with the Palestinian Legislative Council, making five visits to the West Bank. He is still haunted by images of Gaza “where human dignity doesn’t exist”. He also sat on a host of committees on the environment, food safety, culture and education. “So I said that I’ve served the Parliament, and I’m satisfied with the way I’ve served the Parliament and the European people – not only the Cypriot people, but the European people.” He’s proud, he says, of having gained support for his initiatives from a wide range of committees and politicians, even though he came from a small political grouping himself.
So since July 2009, Adamou has been spending more time with his family – his wife (also a doctor), three adult sons and a daughter (none of them doctors) and one grandson (another was expected in December). He’s been seeing patients privately and considering his options for the future. Now, looking back over 33 years in medicine and six years in left-leaning politics, he believes it is human rights that have always driven him.
“Since I was born it’s been in my character to try and help people. Maybe my father, an uneducated man, was right, and knew it was this job I had to do, and that’s why he pushed me to go to medical school.” But the politician in him seems just as strong as the medic. He’s had approaches to return to work as an oncologist from both the state and private sector. But with the current Cypriot President from his own party, Adamou seems tempted by the prospect of getting into the political thick of it again. “Whether the government wants to use and exploit my five years’ experience in the European Parliament, on health or environmental issues, I don’t know yet. Maybe they will ask me to take a position in the government. Maybe they will say stay where you are, we will see you in the future. We will see.” It’s hard to imagine him being content for long, sitting back in his quiet high-rise office, looking out at that flag, taunted that there are still causes to be fought.
“Maybe my father, an uneducated man, was right, and knew it was this job I had to do”
COMMENTS (9)
| Dr Thomas Varughese (political oncology) says: | 12 February 2010 13:26:16 |
| I am the Chief of Cancer division at Lakeshore Hospital Cochin,Kerala India.I am also surgical Oncologist and Reconstructive surgeon trained in USA,Japan Australia etc in additionto Tata Memorial Cancer Hospital,Mumbai. I am also the President of Kerala Cancer care society. Kerala is in South India known as God's own country. In India Cancer is on steady rise.Head and Neck Cancer,Cervix cancer Breast Cancer Lung Cancer,gastro Intestinal Cancer,all are on the rise. I wish if we had one parlamentarian like Adamos Adamou to have spearheaded a crusade against cancer in Indian Parliament. We need people with Vision in our parliament too who really can reshape our destiny All the best | |
| Giles Richard Falcon (political oncology) says: | 12 February 2010 14:40:43 |
| Congratulations to the authors of the article and for the subject of the article. I read and use CancerWorld as a means of personal education and reminder of my work objectives - I look after the commercial development of an industry member in diagnostic imaging (solely CAD), in Italy. It is refreshing to see that there is a will to break the taboos and to take strong positions on what needs to be done: we can't, as industry, because it is always seen as biased action. However cancer and in my views, prevention of cancer (where possible), should be crusaded politically... In Italy, our statistics say, 97% of health expenditure is for cure & therapy: the rest is for prevention. Political oncology hasn't "contaminated" us yet, with only a few exceptions. The trouble with politics, however, is that illuminated actions last the time of a term: Dr. Adamos Adamou has a point in indicating that cancer has no boundaries, and we should always keep this in mind. | |
| Dr Ritu Lakhtakia, MD, Ph.D (political oncology) says: | 13 February 2010 15:29:29 |
| Cancer is an illness the poor can't afford to be afflicted by and in India, the larger population still falls in this category (despite India's G20 member status). While political oncology movements serve to highlight niche health issues, economic realism downplays the rhetoric in the corridors of power. If every physician were to take a few minutes with each female patient who reaches him for an unrelated illness (even once in a year) and is able to motivate her for a simple BSE or PAP smear (before leaving his chambers) half the population of the country would have instant access to cancer prevention. Prevention and treatment cost money; time costs nothing. | |
| Dr.med.Tariq A.Aabed (political oncology) says: | 15 February 2010 10:51:35 |
| Iam Dr.Tariq A.Aabed, I have finished my Oncology residency program in Mosul Oncology Hospital/ Iraq, after that I was accepted in Scholarship to study MSc.Radiation Biology-Oncology at UCL(University College London)and I finished my MSc. with distinction: http://www.mbifoundation.com/alumni/alumni-news after that I returned back to Iraq, but I found that they dismissed me from my job as Oncologist (refused my student leave), Iam currently in Dresden City, at Technical University- Carl Gustav Carus faculty of medicine/ University hospital for Radiation Oncology and Biology, for 5 months to compleate my reaserch work in Radiation effects on the heart of Apo E mice. I remember Dr.Adamou, when I met with him during my Europen MSc. course in Brussels at Europen parlament, and he promissed me to help me to find a fellowship or training in clinical Radiation Oncology to save Iraq, which is now in acute need for Oncologist(my city-Mosul- more than 2 million people depending on one retired radiotherapist). So, Dr.Adamou please send me your address to contact with you, and dont forget that: This is honest call to work hand in hand for brighter future of Iraq, and it is for us, who is our main job in this life is to help people, also to help each other. Thanks Dr.med.Tariq Ahmad Aabed, M.B.Ch.B., MSc. radiation Biology (UCL), e-mail: oncologistonline_75@yahoo.com mobile: +4915223288922 | |
| Faruk N. Aykan (political oncology) says: | 17 February 2010 22:41:22 |
| Dear Editor, please publish without any change and read carefully historical facts of political situation in Northern Cyprus. CancerWorld should not be a non-scientific arena to me. "Everyone who wishes Cyprus well, prefers to look to the future but some commentators use the events of 1974 to argue that the present state of affairs is unacceptable. They do not however go back before 20th July 1974. Refusal to consider the preceding 15 years means that important legal and political issues wrongly determined in favour of the Greek Cypriots remain as a continuing source of tension between the former partners. The most important of these issues is international acceptance of the Greek Cypriot regime as the government of all Cyprus and refusal to recognise the right of the Turkish Cypriots to establish their own structure. It is therefore necessary to look in some detail at the reasons why the present situation has arisen and why, in consequence, both sides and particularly the less numerous Turkish Cypriots need reliable safeguards for their future. One of the most remarkable features of the Cyprus question is the extent to which the Greek Cypriots have been able to repudiate solemn international agreements and violate the human rights of the Turkish Cypriots on a massive scale and yet by a quite astonishing feat of public relations, have secured for themselves recognition as the government of all Cyprus and have persuaded the world that they, and not the Turkish Cypriots, are the victimized party..." For more information: http://www.mfa.gov.tr/cyprus-_historical-overview_.en.mfa Prof. Faruk N. Aykan, Medical Oncologist, Istanbul University, Institute of Oncology TURKEY | |
| Senay Demir (political oncology) says: | 21 February 2010 20:32:55 |
| ‘The aim of Cancer World is to help reduce the unacceptable number of deaths from cancer that is caused by late diagnosis and inadequate cancer care.’ This is the first sentence of your description about ‘Cancer World’ at your site. I’m sorry but I didn’t understand the relation of this aim with intervention of the island. I’m not going to tell a long story to explain the historical events, but you must accept that Turkish Government acted as a safeguard according to The Zurich and London Agreements of 1959. You can read more at ‘http://www.mfa.gov.tr/cyprus-_historical-overview_.en.mfa’ as mentioned previously in Faruk N. Aykan’s comment, about the events and Greek’s behaviours which gave rise to this intervention. | |
| Tuba Bada (political oncology) says: | 24 February 2010 15:12:19 |
| Dear Editor, I read Dr Adamou`s comments on the Cyprus issue over and over again. My heart wants to trust that Dr Adamaou really wants to see a happy, united Cyprus. He looks like a peaceful, contented man. Why did he need the first two paragraphes in his article, is still a question to my mind. Because those paragraphes may raise incorrect questions in readers` minds Whatever happened in Cyprus, happened bilaterally. And it`s all gone now. It was in the past. Now, all our focus and efforts should be on the unification of these two so alike people. Readers should know, we like the same kind of food, we have similar kind of traditions. There is no time to waste, lets all work together and make a dream possible. Let these two nations live together happily in peace. No politics in Cyprus please. Tuba BADA Baskent University Medical and Research centre Health Sciences Department | |
| Anatolian Society of Medical Oncology (political oncology) says: | 02 March 2010 21:42:29 |
| Dear editor We read the article on political oncology with deep regret and disappointment. Regret because of the distortion of history, disappointment because of the manipulation of ESO. Cancerworld should remain as a journal of scientific discussions only. It is not a place for political debates and controversies; nor a venue for their solutions. However, historical realities should be clarified for people who are not aware of the history. History is never one sided and people tend to forget major historical facts; or deliberately distort them. Turkish intervention in the island occurred in 1974 to protect Turkish Cypriot minority from mass murders including women and children. Therefore it is widely known as “Cyprus Peace Operation” that indeed brought peace to the island. Unification attempts of United Nations (UN) have failed many times. The Annan Plan (http://www.hri.org/docs/annan/ ) was the most recent and the most comprehensive peace plan proposed by the UN Secretary-General Mr. Kofi Annan. The settlement plan was rejected in 2004 referendum with the votes of the Greek Cypriot majority (http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/no_20090727_1899.php). Even more interesting point was that this rejection was mainly backed up by Dr. Adamou’s political party, AKEL (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/apr/22/eu.cyprus). If the Greek Cypriots had accepted the U.N.-sponsored Annan settlement plan in April 2004 - like Turkish Cypriots did with a 65 percent "yes" vote - instead of rejecting it decisively by a 76 percent "no" vote, the island would be united today; and Dr. Adamou would be happier. | |
| Dr.Cem YILMAZ (political oncology) says: | 08 April 2010 15:07:43 |
| Politics and health can not be weighed at the same scales. I am Turkish and I am proud to be a Turk but it doesn't mean I hate people and Greek Cypriots... And the word invasion is not true in Cyprus, so I think ESO made a mistake and politicised its authority... As Cyprus problem is a problem of discussion, an article like this should not be published in the magazine. | |
When submitted, your comment will be moderated. Messages which may be considered defamatory, which incite hatred or contain foul or abusive language, or are gratuitously offensive, will not be published. Please ensure that your comments are concise and relevant to the topic in question. Off-topic comments and comments without a username will not be published.
ESO reserves the absolute right not to publish comments.
ESO reserves the absolute right not to publish comments.
CancerWorld invites you to visit:
ESO Established in 1982, a non-profit organisation exclusively dedicated to increasing the knowledge of health professionals in cancer care.
CancerWorld is a pioneering initiative of the European School of Oncology financially supported through Sharing Progress in Cancer Care, a collaborative programme between ESO and Amgen, AstraZeneca, Eisai, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck and Novartis.