At the First MAC Conference of MEPs Against Cancer (MAC), held at 22 March in the European Parliament in Brussels and attended by Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou, the MEPs called for the EU urgently to set up a Cancer Task Force to address the looming cancer epidemic.

The MEPs, from a wide range of political groups and countries, put their signatures to a MAC Statement calling on all European Health Ministers to take steps to combat the considerable inequalities in health and cancer survival rates within Member States and across the European Union.  (Photo: 3 MAC co-chairs, from left A. Adamou, L. Lynne, A. Peterle)

According to warnings from WHO, there will be a “cancer epidemic” as the disease rate increases dramatically in Europe’s ageing population. Cancer is not a single disease: it has over 200 different types, ranging from the well-known big cancer killers – lung, breast and colorectal cancer – to rarer conditions. One in 3 Europeans is diagnosed with cancer and the disease kills 1 in 4 people. Every family in Europe is touched in some way by this devastating disease.

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