Goody raises profile of cervical cancer

Jade Goody has been diagnosed with cervical cancer

Abi Gill discusses the impact of Jade Goody’s cancer diagnosis

CERVICAL cancer usually occurs in women aged over 35, yet Goody is a relatively young victim at just 27. With this in mind, I wondered whether this story had increased anxiety in female students. Alison Rowbotham, 21, explained, ‘since I heard that Jade Goody was going to die it hit me how serious it is, so now I do worry.’ While it affects over 2,800 women every year, killing around a thousand, it is often overshadowed by Breast cancer. Second year student Amy Chatwood confessed, ‘I don’t know specific details about cervical cancer, just that it’s another form of cancer which affects women.’ 

Many cases are attributed to exposure to the Human Papilloma Virus, usually transmitted during unprotected sexual contact. Though around three quarters of us will come into contact with this virus during our lifetime, some strains of the virus are of higher risk and may lead to cancer. As of last summer, year 8 pupils were vaccinated against strains of the virus as it is thought inoculating prior to being sexually active will reduce the likelihood of contracting the cancer. Women of university age have not received this and must instead wait for their routine smear test, which, according to the NHS cancer-screening programme, are offered to women aged 25, depending on local primary care trusts. Student Mary Oswald expressed her view; ‘I think 20-21 would be a better age. I know in Wales you have it at that age for free but here you have to pay until you are 25. I see no harm in making it earlier.’ According to the NHS, it can take many years for cancer to develop prior to contact with the papilloma virus which is why the test is not offered to younger women. Goody famously received her diagnosis whilst taking part in the Indian Big Brother show last year, though it had apparently been misdiagnosed for three years prior to this. Doctors initially believed they had caught the cancer ‘just in the nick of time’, though later revealed that it had spread beyond her womb into her muscle tissue. February saw the revelation that Ms Goody’s cancer had spread even further, to her liver, bowel and groin and would prove incurable. She told the Sun newspaper ‘I am devastated, frightened and angry. I don’t want to die, I have so much to live for.’

Though the awareness raised can only be a positive consequence, contracting the illness at this young age is incredibly rare, whilst death due to it is even rarer. The Independent reported a 20 per cent increase in smear test attendance during the weeks that followed Goody’s initial diagnosis. Yet the bizarre media spectacle of Goody’s final months has been condemned by some as a money making scheme. However, sociology student Melissa Bradford sums up the views of many as she explains, ‘the reason why she is making her death so public is to earn money for her two sons. At the end of the day if thats her best way of financially securing her sons lives after she has passed away I support her.’

Male suicide on the rise

Alex Bailey reviews the rising trend of young male suicide

Sid Vicious was 21 when he committed suicide by heroin overdose.

A BIRMINGHAM University student was discovered dead in a lecture hall in the second week of this term, after being found to have hanged himself. The body of Mohammed Abdelmohsin Omer, aged 29 was encountered in the Gisbert Kapp building on campus by fellow students arriving for an early lecture on Monday 19th of January. A student at the scene horrified by such ‘waste of a life’ believes that ‘he did it in the lecture room so that he could be found by those he was studying with’; a cry for help realised too late. Such chilling news has undoubtedly appalled the student population nationwide, yet the unnerving proximity is a shock that hits home particularly to us here at Birmingham.

However, the prevalence of suicide in young males under the age of 35 is astonishingly out of control. According to recent research, steadily rising statistics over the last 30 years reveal that suicide is now the second most common way to die for a man between 15 and 34, beaten only slightly by road deaths. Accounting for the deaths of over 900 young men each year in the UK alone, if suicide is the second most serious public health issue for young men – exactly why don’t we know about it? Considering the constant wave of media attention that continually places young men at the cause of society’s problems, perhaps those comprising the same category most likely to commit knife and gun crime are simply just not recognised as needing help. Society’s easy stereotype simply does not want to know. 

Labeled the ‘silent epidemic’ by the BBC, other reasons thought to account for the surging numbers of suicidal death in young men include the fact that ‘they don’t seek help when they have problems’. Professor Appleby, part of the team that launched the National Suicide Prevention Strategy (NSPS) in 2002, goes on to say that despite plans to make mental health services more readily available, young men ‘often don’t conceptualise their problems as problems of a medical kind’. Therefore, the only obvious solution which is to dramatically improve mental health services is unlikely to make an impact.  Instead, the NSPS’ only suggestion is to remove items such as shower cubicles and curtain tracks that provide a ‘ligature point’ from which institutional inmates can strangle themselves.  The introduction of ‘anti-ligature’ furniture in institutions such as prisons and hospitals has shown to have reduced levels of young men’s suicide in previous years. However, such basic and minimal methodology totally fails to tackle suicidal intentions at their roots.

Additionally, it is obvious that recognition of suicide in ordinary members of society has been severely neglected. The NSPS’ focus on the suicides of criminals and psychiatric patients does nothing to remove the stigma attached to mental health, and appallingly fails to acknowledge the increasing quantity of those suicides that are unpredictably committed in silent despair. According to Professor Appleby, the two main groups of young men driven to suicide are those with mental illness and those who ‘have lost their ties to society, work, family and friends’. It is astonishing that in this second category, the student community is nowhere identified as the sector perhaps most susceptible to ‘losing ties’. Not only does the high proportion of young men comprising University population indicate a large risk owing to probability alone, but as a new and potentially intimidating occupation may unwittingly alienate the individual. The desperate need to increase awareness of this widespread danger specifically in the student body is an issue crucially emphasised by our own establishment’s latest victim.