Victims of past political persecution and unfair treatment by the judiciary are having their honor and credibility restored by the Act on Promoting Transitional Justice (促進轉型正義條例). Regrettably, the recently amended Air Pollution Control Act (空氣污染防制法) does not do the same for victims of air pollution, especially those who have lung cancer.
Since the WHO in 2013 announced that air pollution had been categorized as a Group 1 carcinogen and said that exposure to it causes lung cancer, air pollution prevention should not be allowed to ignore people with lung cancer caused by air pollution — such people should not be treated just as patients, but also as victims.
This is the way to comply with the spirit of the WHO’s 2016 campaign “BreatheLife: Clean Air. Healthy Future.”
In the campaign’s plan for action, the WHO charted out three major directions for its core purpose of “the integration of health equity, human rights, gender and social determinants”: First, promoting the analysis of categorized air pollution and health data, and increasing the oversight of health inequalities; second, incorporating it into the operations of the WHO; and third, providing national-level support — this is nothing less than a health version of the Act on Promoting Transitional Justice.
In a report last year, the WHO said that a horrifying proportion — 42 percent — of lung cancer deaths were attributable to exposure to air pollution, with 25 percent represented by ambient air pollution and 17 percent by household, or indoor, air pollution.
Being responsible for public health, the medical profession in Taiwan strongly urges the government to take the issue seriously.
Even if there is no party guilty for air pollution, there will always be victims, especially those who have lung cancer caused by air pollution. They are victims of this public hazard, and the government should take responsibility for providing them with care and treatment that is in line with national and social health justice.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare and the National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) — the final guardians of public health — should be praised for taking the initiative by implementing the administration of lung cancer screening without waiting for the Environmental Protection Administration to take action.
The research into the correlation between air pollution and lung cancer conducted by the Taiwan Lung Cancer Society also deserves praise.
Such measures should be implemented from the perspective of the victims/patients who have lung cancer caused by air pollution, while the traditional way of evaluating economic benefits first when conducting research should be abandoned.
After all, research tends to be limited to targeting high-risk groups for lung cancer rather than those who have lung cancer attributable to air pollution — a group that the WHO describes as enjoying health equality, but suffering from hygiene inequality — or “the victims of air pollution” as they are called by medical circles in Taiwan.
“Victims of air pollution” should include those who have died, who are included in the lung cancer mortality rate as recorded by the ministry; lung cancer survivors, the rate of those who have been diagnosed with lung cancer by the NHIA; new cancer patients, the NHIA’s cancer incidence rate; air pollution sufferers who have not yet developed cancer, but whose health condition must be followed; air pollution sufferers who have not had any cancer screening, but should be followed up on; and the high-risk groups for lung cancer inflicted by air pollution.
Lee Wupo is president of Lee Wupo Clinic.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
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