Re: Research Report: Colorectal Cancer Control Study
(Report to Participants)
Dear Mr. Ryall,
I was a participant in the above study, and I am writing to comment on aspects
of its conclusions, as presented in the above Report.
I am concerned that the authors were both women, and that their conclusions
tend to imply that any colorectal cancer screening programme should not target
men directly, but rather should target men through women (e.g. their wives).
The evidence for this conclusion is the views of an unstated number of lay
participants, which is therefore of doubtful value. I do not recall having
been asked whether men should or should not be targetted directly, and I suspect
that this was not an issue which was raised with all participants by the interviewers.
This is a chicken-and-egg situation. Until and unless men are commonly targeted
by health initiatives, men will continue to be less health-focussed than women
are. The cervical cancer screening programme was the result of a vast, orchestrated
Feminist campaign to make women out to be victims of men, and the breast cancer
screening programme merely rode the coat-tails of that mind-set.
I urge that men be targeted directly in any colorectal cancer screening
programme – otherwise, their uptake will be less than that of women,
and that result will be used by Feminists to argue against any other screening
programme involving men.