The Ministry of Health and Welfare should screen people at risk for lung cancer, as air pollution has become a serious problem in Taiwan, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators and medical experts said yesterday.
“Breathing has become more dangerous than giving birth in Taiwan,” Taiwan Healthy Air Action Alliance vice chairman Chiang Sheng (江盛) told a news conference in Taipei.
In the past three decades, about 400 people have died from cervical cancer each year, while more than 4,000 have died from lung cancer every year, Chiang said.
Photo: Lu Chun-wei, Taipei Times
Like cigarette smoking, air pollution also causes death from to lung diseases and PM2.5 — airborne fine particulate matter 2.5 micrometers or less in diameter — is categorized as a Group 1 carcinogen by the WHO, he said.
Lung cancer has the highest mortality rate of all cancers with a five-year survival rate of only about 15 percent, Taiwan Society of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine director Yu Chung-jen (余忠仁) said.
Unlike in Europe and the US, half of all lung cancer patients in Taiwan are not smokers, Yu said, adding that more than 90 percent of female patients do not smoke.
Apart from smoking, air pollution, kitchen emissions, heredity factors and tuberculosis infection are also possible causes of lung cancer, he said, adding that lung cancer patients show few symptoms in the early stages, but early diagnosis and treatment increase chances of survival.
In a study on nonsmokers and lung cancer that started in 2014, the ministry has used low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) to screen 9,000 people with higher health risks , Yu said.
More than 90 percent of them were found to have first-stage lung cancer, he said, adding that there are carcinogens in the environment.
The government must present more solutions to air pollution, while budgeting for screening for people who are more likely to get lung cancer, DPP Legislator Chiu Tai-yuan (邱泰源) said.
Many residents living near Taichung Power Plant and the sixth naphtha cracker in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮) have developed lung cancer, and authorities should allocate part of the revenue from the tobacco tax to prevent and treat it, DPP Legislator Huang Hsiu-fang (黃秀芳) said.
Smoking and air pollution both cause lung cancer, but screening would be more effective for chainsmokers, Health Promotion Administration Director-General Wang Ying-wei (王英偉) said, adding that the agency hopes to present a more complete plan for screening by the end of this year.
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