Rich people will get richer.

Poor people will get poorer.

Well, butter me on both sides.

Who saw that coming?

Me.

George Harley 

Mount Isa 

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared May 31 "World No Tobacco Day".  Bravo!

We've known about the link between smoking and cancer for more than 60 years, and any opportunity to remind people to quit is welcome.

But let's not forget that meat, which is much more widely consumed than cigarettes, can also be deadly.

The WHO ranks processed meats as group 1 carcinogens – bacon, ham, and sausages are now in the same category as asbestos, alcohol, arsenic, and tobacco as a major cause of cancer, while red meat more generally is in the 2A "probably carcinogenic" category.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer concluded that each 50-gram portion of processed meat eaten daily increases a person's risk of developing colorectal cancer by 18 per cent.

Research also shows that meat-eaters are about 40 per cent more likely to get cancer than people who eat plant-based foods. 

Millions of people have improved their health and longevity by quitting smoking, and millions more would live longer and better if they gave up processed and other meats.

And there's an added benefit: they would help end the confinement, torment, and killing of billions of sentient creatures each year for a taste sensation that lasts no longer than a smoke.

Laura Weyman-Jones

PETA Australia

Queenslanders aged from 30 to 50 years can now buy an inexpensive bowel cancer test kit until June 16. It could save their lives.

Queensland Rotarians are offering sales online at only $17.50 per kit posted - in addition to sales via collaborating pharmacies at $15 per kit. Anyone in Queensland can now buy a kit via www.bowelscanqueensland.org.au, which has lists of pharmacy stockists serviced by Rotarians, or details of the online service.

Completed kits can then be returned to any of the 200 or so sites of Sullivan and Nicolaides Pathology in Queensland.

Bowel cancer test kits from pharmacies normally cost around $40. But, from May 1 to June 15, pharmacies collaborating with Rotary Clubs sell Rotary Bowelscan test kits for no profit. Kits returned to pharmacies are sent to Sullivan and Nicolaides Pathology for free, confidential analysis and notification to the patient and, if positive, his or her doctor.

Queenslanders aged from 50 to 74 years can receive free bowel cancer test kits from the Australian Government. About half of these kits are returned, and they reveal if a person has bowel polyps that lead to bowel cancer.

Rotarians believe that the 30 to 50 year age group missed by this free service is crucial – because it is this group in Australian society which can ill afford the family, business or career tragedy of an early death.

Queensland Rotarians from southside Brisbane westwards have been selling around 3000 Rotary Bowelscan test kits a year. They achieve an 85% return rate. It has led to early detection of more than 300 “positives” a year – which is estimated to have saved around 260 Queensland lives a year.

District 9630 of Rotary International now has a brief to sell online around Queensland. This season it will be trying to sell at least double the number of Rotary Bowelscan test kits – thus saving at least 500 Queenslanders from unexpected early death. 

Rotarian James Pollock, Hon. Secretary, Rotary Bowelscan Committee,

District 9630 of Rotary International.