S5M-11056 Cancer Awareness for Young People

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Christine Grahame): The final item of business is a member’s business debate on motion S5M-11056, in the name of Rona Mackay, on cancer awareness for young people. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.

Motion debated,

That the Parliament understands that 40% of cancers in adulthood are preventable; notes the view therefore that there is a need to make sure that every young person is educated about cancerous signs and symptoms; commends the vital work carried out already by Teenage Cancer Trust through its Education and Awareness programme in schools to empower young people to take control of their own health, and notes the calls for more to be done to protect the next generation and for Members to work together to ensure that every school in Scotland, including in the Strathkelvin and Bearsden constituency, can help pupils to receive the cancer education that they need, particularly with 2018 being the Year of Young People.

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Stewart Stevenson (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP):

As others have done, I thank Rona Mackay for the opportunity to discuss such an important subject.

As we have started to eliminate many infectious diseases over a long period of time, our focus has moved to cancer. Cancer is, mostly, an adult condition, and it is not, of course, a single condition. However, there are very particular issues around cancers in the young. They tend to be different cancers and are often driven by DNA imperfections. There is a huge variety of cancers that affect very small numbers of people.

In terms of preparing for adulthood, how our young people behave as youngsters can affect their propensity to being diagnosed with cancer in later life. Education that is not simply about cancer in the young but that is directed at young people has a wider lifelong benefit. The work that the Teenage Cancer Trust does in schools, to empower young people to take control of their health, helps when they are young, and it sets good habits for the rest of their lives.

ASH Scotland’s “Scotland’s charter for a tobacco-free generation” includes a principle that states:

“every child has the right to effective education that equips them to make informed positive choices on tobacco and health”.

Of course, it is not simply choices on tobacco and health that are important.

Cancer Research UK gives us some interesting, and rather disturbing, statistics. In the past 20-plus years, there has been a one-third increase in the number of incidents of cancers in teenagers and young adults. A proportion of that will be because our diagnostic abilities have increased, but it also reflects a genuine increase.

We, as adults—in this debate we perform that role among other roles—are what might be described by the Teenage Cancer Trust as adult influencers. In other words, we are here, potentially, as sounding boards for youngsters.

There is a case for children from backgrounds where there is a history of cancer, particularly in the young, to have DNA testing, so that we can seek to identify the risk of diseases that may develop at a later date. I am not sure whether any country has done that systematically. It is not the cheapest intervention that we might make, nor, I think, is the science fully there, but if we know that there is a propensity for cancer, we can prepare a child to look at their bodies and perhaps identify cancer sooner. If we catch a cancer at stage 1 or even stage 2, the outcome is substantially better than if the cancer becomes apparent at a much later stage.

We have heard a few words about obesity. That is unlikely to be a direct cause of cancer in youngsters, but it underpins some cancers of adulthood. Tom Arthur referred to junk food. As I said a couple of weeks ago, we should not use the words “junk food”, because doing that is criticising the person who eats it. We should talk in different terms.

Can young adults avoid cancers? The American Cancer Society identifies a range of cancers that affect young people. I have spent an awful lot of time in the sun and, as a 10-year-old, I was hospitalised with sunstroke in Oban—yes, in Scotland.

The bottom line is that we need to educate our youngsters to be persistent if they see a change in their body, because it may be something non-trivial. We want them to be in charge of their lives, and to be equipped to deal with cancers as they arise in order to prevent them from having an impact.

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