They’ve been married for an incredible 68 years but have you ever noticed that Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip are never seen holding hands?
According to royal biographer Gyles Brandreth, who chalks the strength of their relationship to Philip’s ability to make Elizabeth laugh, the reason they don’t hold hands is due to their generations “stoic values.”
Plus, Philip doesn’t consider himself a romantic!
But that’s not to say they don’t have a loving marriage.
“If we regard the Queen’s record-breaking reign as a success — and I think most of us do — Prince Philip is the co-author of that success,” Brandreth told Radio Times.
The Queen and Prince Phillip on their wedding day in 1947.
“The Queen wears the crown, but her husband wears the trousers. He is the power behind the throne — shrewd, steadfast, never-failingly supportive.”
But what’s one romantic activity they regularly engage in?
Singing.
“Her parents loved singing and passed it on,” cousin Lady Elizabeth Anson said in BBC Radio Two’s Our Queen: 90 Musical Years, according to People.
“The Duke of Edinburgh and the rest of the family join in.”
George Pell turns 75 today and as such, tendered his resignation to the Pope, as is custom when Catholic bishops reach the milestone age. But as expected, Pope Francis rejected Pell’s appeal, asking the beleaguered Australian to continue working until 2019.
But is this the best move for the embattled religion? Australian icon Thomas Keneally asks could it be that Pell, champion of the Church, is its worst enemy?
In the past, Australians have seen the error in reading too much into the demeanour of a person under pressure.
Thirty-six years ago, we decided that a young woman whose baby had vanished at Uluru, and who said a dingo had taken her baby, didn’t show what we thought was appropriate grief. And so we witch-hunted her and condemned her, on astoundingly cock-eyed forensic evidence, to life imprisonment. We did not own up fully to our mistake until 32 years had passed.
Is His Eminence Cardinal George Pell – a Ballarat boy, who underwent operations as an infant to remove an abscess from his throat, who signed with Richmond as a star AFL prospect when an adolescent, but who chose to become a priest – also a victim of a witch-hunt?
Pell on his way to give evidence at the Royal Commission.
He has admitted he sometimes feels it. There are a number of commentators who try to tell us that he is. And perhaps he’s just temperamentally leaden, anyway, and doesn’t easily express the depth of his feelings. He can’t surely be blamed for that in itself.
However, I am sad to conclude that he does not deserve the benefit of these excuses. Admittedly, we, the mob, can be wrong. (See the disgrace of Nauru!) But in Pell’s case, I fear we’re right. Even though I come from something of the same sort of background as him and am a fellow old Australian codger, with so many flaws, failures and sins of my own, I think George Pell is a catastrophe.
On the matter of our background: I am 80, some five-and-a-half years older than George Pell. His mother was a Catholic of Irish descent; both my mother and father were, too. The Church was a huge part of our lives in our childhoods and the authority of priests and bishops was close to absolute, and backed up by God’s wrath. Pell went to the Christian Brothers; so did I.
He played Aussie Rules, I was mad for rugby league. Both of us decided about the age of 16 we wanted to be priests.
My motivation was immature, but based in part on the fact that most Catholics I knew were battlers. The Church I admired had a considerable amount to do with social justice – wages, schooling, opportunity for children.
I had never encountered paedophilia in my childhood and the worst scandal during my time in the same seminary that much later produced Tony Abbott, involved the fairly rare case of men who visibly fell for each other. Though a hetero male, I lasted some years in the seminary – I don’t quite believe it myself – and left, in the end, after losing faith in the idea of blind obedience and even in some of “the mysteries of faith”, as doctrines were called.
I lost faith also in the administration, when seminarians who grew mentally or physically ill were simply shuttled off for their families to deal with, some of our superiors suggesting we shouldn’t mix with them. Stuck between belief and scepticism, and genuinely shocked by the lack of justice with which many of the sick and damaged were treated, I suffered a crack-up. Leaving, I felt a failure.
Pell with Pope Benedict.
I was embarrassed, angry and isolated, and did what many people do under stress. I started writing. Writing novels is a very chancy card to play, the last in the pack. Yet it worked for me. Deo gratias, as we used to say. Thank God.
In our day, the Church and Catholics in general were aware that people were prejudiced against them. Born in distant 1935, I grew up in a world the younger Australian women reading this story would find hard to imagine. I knew that, as a Catholic with an Irish name, I belonged to a group which was mistrusted with a level of bigotry which these days is directed at so many honest Muslim families. But we were proud of our Irishness and our faith, brought to Australia by convicts and rebel priests from the Irish uprising of 1798.
One of these priests, Father Dixon, said the first recorded public Mass in Australia in 1803, his vestments of curtain material, his chalice a tin cup. Our forebears had survived political and religious persecution, and the Famine, which between 1845 and 1851 killed 1.5 million Irish and sent another 1.5 million fleeing on immigrant ships of any size and quality. We were confident we were true Australians, though bigots murmured that we were not.
Both my father, who served two-and-a-half years in the Middle East, and my brother-in-law, who was a much decorated member of a Pathfinder squadron, gave as a motivation for their serving the country that they wanted to show that Catholics were just as much Australian citizens as anyone. My brother-in-law was the great-grandson of two Irish convicts, by the way. In any case, in worship and, to an extent, in society, we kept ourselves to ourselves and wore any Church scandals close to our chest. Therefore, we had an instinct not to broadcast news of any priestly scandal.
George Pell grew up in that world and then lived to see Catholics of all backgrounds treated as fully paid up members of society. But obviously the instinct for secrecy is still there, combined with a bishop’s instinct to preserve the Church’s wealth from those seeking damages.
He feels, no doubt, a certain sympathy, which he would like us to see as compassion, but which fails to convince us. He looked upon the Melbourne Response, which he put in place in 1996 to deal with complaints in the Melbourne archdiocese, as a heroic answer to the problem.
He certainly boasted of it in his recent evidence transmitted from the Hotel Quirinale in Rome. Others, including victims and experts, have declared it a process of bullying, secrecy and damage control. I cannot sympathise with Cardinal Pell because he has never quite seen the urgency of addressing paedophilia as fully as he had attacked the supposed sins of laypeople. In his view of the world, we are definitely the fallen, whereas, as he pleaded in his most recent Royal Commission evidence, priests are just human beings. He’s got so much form in the double-standard business.
In Canada, in 2002, he told delegates to World Youth Day, “Abortion is a worse moral scandal than priests sexually abusing young people.” When challenged, he said that, of course, the abuse of young people by priests was a terrible thing. But, still, abortion was worse.
It is worth noticing that he is always being forced to put his rather astounding statements “in context”. Remember, he had to do just that in relation to Father Gerald Ridsdale’s abuse not being of interest to him.
His first statements are often so outrageous that he gets called out by the Commission and has to temper them. But he’s had lots of time to frame what he means and what he means is too often exactly what he says, and is too often appalling.
The sinner he chose to walk beside in fraternity to court in 1993 was the unspeakable Father Ridsdale. When Judgement Day comes, George Pell told the Commission, kindness to “those who are at the bottom of the pile like Ridsdale” would prove important.
Ridsdale wasn’t at the bottom of the pile. His victims were. The truth is that Cardinal Pell favours a structure of church governance which, according to his own evidence, echoes that of the Roman Empire and he himself was a grand figure in that Empire/Church. Cardinal Pell told the Commission that Ridsdale’s abuse was “a sad story” and that “it wasn’t of much interest to me”. He added, “I had no reason to turn my mind to the extent of the evils that Ridsdale had perpetrated.”
Pell
You could almost hear angels weeping as the Cardinal blandly gave this evidence. When my niece-in-law, Kristina Keneally, a good but not a dumb Catholic, commentating on the Sky News feed from the Commission, appeared on screen, she looked hollowed out and her face showed the shock that most believers in Australia were feeling.
Cardinal Pell has a limited eye for the sins of priests then, but he sure has a full-on one for the sins of the rest of us and of all our poor fellow pilgrims in the wider community. He was one of 13 Cardinals who wrote to the Pope last October accusing him of putting too many liberal-minded churchmen and laypeople into the synods of bishops which had met in Rome to discuss “the family”.
Cardinal Walter Kasper of Germany had seemed to be more lenient towards divorced Catholics – speaking of allowing them, that is, to receive Communion. George Pell could not permit this. “The sooner the wounded, the lukewarm and the outsiders realise that substantial doctrinal and pastoral changes are impossible,” he thundered, “the more the hostile disappointment [which will follow the assertion of doctrine] will be anticipated and dissipated.”
Catholics who are remarried civilly can be permitted to live together as “brother and sister” though, says Cardinal Pell, and if they manage that, they can go to Communion.
Cardinal Pell has held the line on homosexuals, too. Some people think that admirable, but like the line on divorced Catholics, it means there is no place at the altar rails for so many millions. Thus it appears, on his own evidence, that the Cardinal is more open to paedophile priests consecrating the host and taking Communion than he is to anyone divorced or gay, whatever their virtues, talents and goodwill, receiving the host.
The Church then is universal only for Pell and other total believers. Because women who use contraception don’t deserve a place in it either. He is on record (The Sydney Morning Herald, October 11, 2007) as saying that any Catholic who supports contraception, abortion and stem-cell research is guilty of a “Donald Duck heresy”. The Cardinal continued, “Too many Donald Ducks produce the feel-good society which works to remove personal guilt, anything that would make people feel uncomfortable, so that complacent self-satisfaction becomes a virtue.”
I know many women who have used contraception, merely in the sense that they speak frankly of it, and none of them has ever demonstrated the “complacent self-satisfaction” Cardinal Pell always manages to exude, no matter what suggestions of culpability are thrown in his direction.
In 2013, I had the honour of being given an honorary doctorate by the Catholic University of Australia. I was overwhelmed, having sometimes been critical of the Church, though I had always hung around like a bit of a desperado on its edges.
Just before I received this great honour, I read a piece by Cardinal Pell in which he claimed that only the good works all of those who acted in Christ’s name and within a structure of Catholic faith had any ultimate value. Good works undertaken by secular humanists were marked by unreliable moral relativism, that is, by choosing solutions that did not fit Divine Doctrine. Without faith, all charity was “coarse and uncaring”.
Having seen the work a non-Christian, avowed socialist like Fred Hollows has done in Africa, I know who I’d rather put my money on for delivering authentic human care. Through the lens factories Fred started in Asmara and elsewhere, he restored sight to millions of people who live in the less advantaged world.
Fred, when I knew him, travelled to East Africa while suffering from terminal cancer, sheltering by day from bombers in the Ethiopian Highlands, operating in hospitals I have seen, cave hospitals, where in the evening the generators came on and made surgery possible.
Fred did not believe in eternal life and gave his limited time to those he was connected to only by humane feeling. Whereas Cardinal Pell, who believes in an eternal after-life and does not have to travel on wild night roads in African mountains, could not travel to Australia for people he knew and who had suffered from his self-admitted negligence. I wonder which one will be seen either in the scales of heaven or of earth as the more “coarse and uncaring”.
It is not a surprise that this grand apparatchik of the Church should fail to heal wounds when he gave his evidence. Nor, I fear, is it a surprise that after long callousness, the Vatican itself could not initiate a meaningful meeting between the Pope and these damaged children from Australia.
The children, now grown, are the victims and that can’t be said with too much emphasis and feeling. But having been a seminarian myself, I do think of all the noble priests out there, who perform the sacraments as a humane and gracious exercise, who give sermons that are to do with humane tolerance, who reach from within their tradition to all other traditions and who use Catholicism not, as George Pell does, as an axe to exclude, but as a counsel of respectful love.
I might as well admit I have a book, finished last year, coming out later this year, about a “good” priest I knew, a whistle-blower, as some have been. Because leaders like Cardinal Pell have done so little to stop marauding and abusive clergy, the victims can never quite recover their happiness and wholeness. But due to the same failure, many admirable “ordinary” priests may never recover their repute.
And there are people, over 5 million of them in Australia, who count themselves as Catholics, who endured Cardinal Pell’s testimony. Some are so scandalised by these crimes and the way they have been addressed or otherwise that they walk away in disgust – as has happened so graphically in Ireland.
Other Catholics I know, like Kristina Keneally and the broadcaster Geraldine Doogue, stick to the broad ideals of their faith and say, “It’s our Church too, Pell doesn’t own it”. I admire them. But not all of us are subtle enough to make the subtle distinction between a Cardinal and the Church in which he has such authority. And, therefore, the question is this: could it be that Pell, champion of the Church, is its worst enemy?
Crimes Of The Father, by Thomas Keneally, will be published by Vintage in November.
This story originally appeared in the May 2015 issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
Too bad if you tuned in to The Project last night at the wrong time – you probably would have thought co-host Carrie Bickmore was announcing her pregnancy with her third child.
But unfortunately, the exciting news was all just a farce!
Her co-hosts made it into a cheeky joke based on tabloid rumours that she was expecting, and they made the big ‘announcement’ right after Bickmore read out the news that Netflix binges kill sex drive in couples.
Then Peter Helliar waltzes in carrying a big bunch of flowers, saying: “Speaking of those kinds of activities — big announcement. Big congratulations in order. Carrie Bickmore, baby number three on its way!”
“I hope you don’t mind us giving away it’s a boy,” he continued as the crowd cheered.
But Bickmore jumped in, saying that it wasn’t true and that she had “a big focaccia for lunch.”
Bickmore laughed it off but was quick to shut down the pregnancy rumours.
“If you’re watching at home, mum, no, OK. I just started sleeping! God, that would be a nightmare!” she said.
Carrie has two children with her husband Chris Walker, an eight-year-old boy Oliver, and a one-year-old girl, Evie.
Married at First Sight star Erin Bateman has had her licence suspended for six months.
The 25-year-old, who is still together with her ‘husband’ Bryce, took to Instagram to share the news with her fans.
“Hey everyone, not a traditional ‘Erin Post’ today…” she wrote.
“The 24/06/16 marks my first day of me not having a license. When I was younger I made a lot of stupid decisions and never truly understood the consequences of my actions. Today all of my stupidity has caught up with me, and what has been 3 years of mistakes in the making has resulted in me losing my drivers license for 6 months.”
Erin and ‘husband’ Bryce.
“All I can say is how ashamed I am that as a young adult I didn’t put my own safety and the safety of others before ‘getting somewhere fast’ and today I pay the price for that.
“I’m not going to fight this, make excuses or even complain, I’m going to wear it and learn. Don’t be a f–king idiot behind the wheel of a car like I was, be safe so your loved ones never have to worry about you.”
She finished the post with a series of hashtags including #drivesafe and #publictransportadventuresstartnow
The Queen of Pop received a brand-new crown after she was honoured with the Fashion Icon award at the 2016 CFDA Awards.
Watching on proudly from the crowd was daughter Blue Ivy and her hubby Jay Z. Also sitting among Hollywood’s glitterati was none other than fashion designer and rumoured “Becky with good hair”, Rachel Roy.
Beyonce stunned as she received her award.
But it was her darling girl that stole the show!
Beyonce infamously penned her song “Sorry” which alluded to her hubby’s infidelity… Becky, we mean Rachel, has denied any part of it.
In fact, the last time the trio have been together was at the 2014 Met Gala.
For those who may have forgotten, that’s when Bey’s sister Solange Knowles threw some major ninja kicks at her brother-in-law while in an elevator.
The rumoured reason? Stylist Rachel Roy.
With her hair looking mighty fine in a sleek pony, the 42-year-old fashionista kept a low profile.
“She was one of the only celebs to not walk the carpet,” an onlooker told Us Weekly.
Rachel kept a very low profile as she posed with her date and friend, model Candice Huffine – who of course donned one of the designer’s signature pieces.
Jay Z, on the other hand, relished a night out with his favourite girls.
With his wife and daughter by his side, the family stopped for a quick red carpet photo before making their way into the stylish award ceremony.
Check out Blue’s very sweet entrance in the video player below. Post continues…
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Also joining the family was the Formation singer’s mama, Tina Knowles.
But we think her little four-year-old was the real star of the show, donning the sweetest little white jacket and bow in her hair, waving and smiling to the fans.
Receiving the huge award of the night, always the diplomat, Beyonce dedicated her award to her grandma, her uncle and of course her mum, who she cited as the inspiration behind her love of fashion.
How adorable is Blue!
Meanwhile her mama is channeling some major Sasha Fierce.
“My mother actually designed my wedding dress, my prom dress, my first CFDA Award dress, my first Grammy dress—and the list goes on and on,” she said during her acceptance speech as Jay Z and Blue Ivy watched on proudly.
“Thank you for showing me that having a presence is far more than the clothes you wear and your physical beauty.”
Watch Beyonce’s incredible speech in the video player at the top of the article!
Can you imagine if Solange was also there? #Dreams
According to a new report from The Sun, Prince Harry, 31, and Ellie Goulding, 29, have hit it off!
The British pair reportedly flirted the day away when they attended the Audi Polo challenge in Berkshire recently.
Witnesses told the publication the duo were “all over each other” and they even shared a clandestine kiss beneath a blanket.
Things allegedly got even steamier at the after party. “Harry was really going for it after the polo – he was drinking and dancing,” the source explained to The Sun.
“They were part of a wider group including Tom Hardy but Harry and Ellie only had eyes for each other all night – they spent a lot of time sitting together under blankets,” they continued.
Witnesses claim they wrapped up the evening with one final smooch and then “Harry had to go because he was playing polo the next day. Ellie left about five minutes later.”
Prince Harry cheekily watches on as Ellie presents the team with a bouquet at the Audi Polo Challenge last month.
The report goes on to claim that the pair are now “secretly courting” following their romantic evening.
“He has told friends how much he likes Ellie and she is clearly taken by him,” a source said, before revealing they are in regular contact via text message.
Harry and Ellie share a hug at the 2014 Invictus Games.
Just last month the single royal admitted he can’t wait to find The One.
“If or when I do find a girlfriend, I will do my utmost to ensure that me and her can get to the point where we’re actually comfortable with each other before the massive invasion that is inevitably going to happen into her privacy,” Harry told The Sunday Times.
Harry’s ex-girlfriends include Chelsea Davy and Cressida Bonas. Meanwhile Ellie has previously dated stars like Niall Horan, Ed Sheeran and Dougie Poynter.
Despite flying into the city with their two daughters Sunday Rose, seven, and Faith, five, the Aussie lovebirds walked the red carpet alone, holding hands the entire way.
Speaking to People, the 48-year-old parents revealed their little ones weren’t too far away.
“Hopefully, they’re at the hotel watching Shrek right now,” Keith explained outside the Museum of Modern Art.
“Shrek Forever After,” added mum Nicole.
The pair posed with their signature snuggle.
Nicole, who stunned onlookers in an intricately embellished black gown by Rodarte, was inseparable from her husband who put on his best suit and tie in support of his wife on her big night.
The country singer stood beside the strawberry blonde beauty who plays Aline Bernstein in the film; a costume designer who begins an affair with author Thomas Wolfe, played by Jude Law.
Keith stood back in awe of his stunning wife, who owned the red carpet.
Fans will remember Keith and Nicole’s memorable lip-syncing video that graced the internet last month.
In the goofy yet adorable clip, the married couple belt out the track Fighter from the father-of-two’s latest album Ripcord while sitting in the front seat of their car.
Relive the magic of the dorky clip in the video player below! Post continues…
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When asked if their daughters take after their parents by also lip-syncing along to Keith’s tracks, the Moulin Rouge actress consulted her beau, “Do they, baby?”
“No, they sing, and play,” she recalled.
Keith and Nicole tied the knot in Sydney on June 25, 2006, meaning that this year marks their 10th wedding anniversary.
Speaking of this coveted Hollywood milestone, the handsome hitmaker said to Today, “I think it’s about 30 in Hollywood years. I feel incredibly grateful.”
As friends of Brock Turner, the former Stanford University student convicted of rape, defend his actions, The Australian Women's Weekly Online's Lana Hirschowitz says it’s time we stop victim blaming
It was staggering in its strength, its power, its frank and reasoned wording.
It is something I hope everyone gets to read at some time.
As a woman who’s known men like Brock Turner I am hugely grateful to her for every word of that statement.
Then, as most of you would have, I read the hideous words of Brock Turner’s father.
A small man who spoke with such entitlement and privilege it made it hard to follow.
His son has clearly learned his lack of respect and basic humanity from his father.
But it gets worse.
Because now a letter that Brock Turner’s friend wrote to The Honourable Judge Aaron Persky has emerged.
A letter in which his friend Leslie Rasmussen defends Brock’s character.
“Brock is such a sweetheart and a very smart kid” she writes.
“I never caught him harassing anyone, verbally or physically. That would have been so out of character”.
In the letter Lesie says Brock came from a very respectable family, “I also know his sister Caroline. They all seem like such good kids brought up by two very cool and grounded parents”.
Because a rapist would never come from a respectable family would they?
But the thing we know, even if Leslie doesn’t, is that even if Brock’s family were a good family, which his father’s letter points against, it doesn’t mean that he didn’t take advantage of a woman and rape her behind a dumpster.
I went to a “good” school, an elite school where parents paid fortunes for a private education.
Presented in their school ties and blazers the boys from my wealthy suburban school looked the part.
But there were boys amongst them, young men from prestigious backgrounds that treated girls with the most foul and abusive behaviour.
Demands of sex, unwanted touching and non-consensual sex, this was the thrill for of some of these “well bred boys”. No blazers and ties were worn then. Nothing made them look good and proper when they were taking what they thought belonged to them.
Good breeding, expensive clothing, going home to a mansion and having excess cash don’t dictate behaviour.
That is dictated by the kind of person you are.
I look back to my days at school and I wonder what the girls like Leslie Rasmussen were thinking.
I wonder how they smiled and chatted idly with these boys who would go back to the party and mingle with them after they had just sexually abused one of her classmates.
Leslie Rasmussen writes “I don’t think it’s fair to base the fate of the next ten years of his life on the decision of a girl who doesn’t remember anything but the amount she drank to press charges against him. I am not blaming her directly for this, because that isn’t right. But where do we draw the line and stop worrying about being politically correct every second of the day and see that rape on campuses isn’t always because people are rapists. “
I will tell you where we draw the line Leslie, we draw the line when a person touches another person without consent.
When a man rapes a woman whether she is awake, asleep, unconscious or comatose that is rape.
Rape on campuses are always about people being rapists. Only rapists rape. Even privileged rich ones.
“This is completely different from a woman getting kidnapped and raped as she is walking to her car in a parking lot” writes Leslie “That is a rapist. These are not rapists. These are idiot boys and girls having too much to drink and not being aware of their surroundings and having clouded judgement.”
The only judgment clouded here is the people who promote rape culture.
I only hope that all the Leslies’ out there never have to learn the difference between being raped by a boy at school and being raped by a stranger in the car park.
Because at the end of the day, there is no difference.
Described as “The Emperor of All Maladies” by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and researcher Siddartha Mukherjee, cancer is often seen as a modern disease. But scientists have found evidence of it in dinosaur fossils and human cases appear in literature spanning four millennia.
The Egyptian physician Imhotep vividly described advanced breast cancer in 2600 BC as “a bulging mass in the breast”: cool, hard and spreading beneath the skin. Under the section “Therapy”, Imhotep solemnly recorded: “There is none.”
An early modern publication on cancer comes from 1818. Written by physician George Wagstaff, it includes a number of gruesome case studies such as that of “fungus haematodes”, or blood fungus in the lungs.
Since then, more than three million scientific papers have been published on the subject, 159,000 of them in 2015 alone.
Between 1968 and 2013 cancer deaths in Australia increased from 17,032 to 44,308, a rise of 160%. However, taking into account the increase in population (94%) and the increase in average age (34%) over the same period, there has been a decline in the age-standardised cancer death rate overall in Australia. The chance of a cancer death before the age of 75 in 1968 was 12.8%. This has fallen to 9.4% in 2013.
Cancer is made up of around 200 distinct illnesses united by the uncontrolled growth of human cells. The diversity of mechanisms by which different cancer types both grow and evade treatment means that many separate breakthroughs will be required to combat all cancers.
Currently, seven cancer types are listed in the top 20 causes of death in Australia. These are cancers of the lung, blood and lymph, bowel, prostate, breast, pancreas and skin.
Lung cancer
This is the number one cancer killer, ranking number four in overall causes of death. Most (80%) lung cancers are still attributable to tobacco smoking, either directly or through passive smoking. Australia is leading the world in reducing smoking rates and fewer than 13% of Australian adults now smoke, with fewer lung cancer cases as a result.
Sadly, lung cancer survival remains poor due in part to late detection. Less than 15% of people are still alive five years after diagnosis although new immunotherapy treatments that help the immune system destroy cancer cells are prolonging survival for some patients.
Also, trials screening people at high risk, particularly smokers, using chest CT scans are showing promise in catching the disease earlier and at a more curable stage.
Blood and lymph cancer (including leukaemia)
Cancers of the lymph glands (lymphomas) affect the body’s infection fighting mechanism and come in two types: Hodgkin and Non Hodgkin lymphoma. Blood cancers are called leukaemia and classified as either acute (fast growing) or chronic (slow growing).
Combined, these cancers are referred to as haematological cancers and they caused 4,275 deaths in Australia in 2013 (made up mostly of lymphoma and leukaemia caused deaths). For each, there are sub types with different features, treatments and survival rates. Little is known about the causes of these cancers but survival is improving for many types.
Large bowel cancer
In 2014, 4,169 people died of bowel cancer (0.9% chance of death before age 75) compared to 2,500 in 1968 (1.9%). These cancers can often be treated successfully if found early through faecal blood testing such as in the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program.
However, since the program began in 2006, only 40% of those invited have done the test. Despite men being diagnosed more, at a later stage and being more likely to die from bowel cancer, they are less likely than women to participate.
Prostate cancer
In 2014, 3,102 Australian men died of prostate cancer, up from 963 in 1968. Diagnosis and death are rare for those under 50 but the disease becomes increasingly common in older men with over half of prostate cancer deaths occurring after 80. Causes are unknown making preventative options hard to identify.
Although diagnosis is common, only one in six men who are diagnosed die of prostate cancer. The five year survival rates exceed 90%, giving prostate cancer the reputation of being a disease one dies with rather than from. However the large number of cases, particularly in much older men, mean it remains a major cancer killer.
More breast cancers are not being detected at a curable stage. from shutterstock.com
Surgery and radiotherapy are the most common treatments. Hormone therapy, recently combined at the beginning with chemotherapy, can often control more widespread disease for long periods.
Breast cancer
Perhaps the highest-profile cancer, progress in breast cancer has been strong. However, 2,844 Australians, including about 30 men, still died of breast cancer in 2014 in Australia.
Breast cancer is now divided into different sub-types, each with its own behaviour. Understanding this has allowed more personalised therapy for many patients, which has improved treatment outcomes.
Mammographic screening has attracted some controversy because of possible over-diagnosis. But with participation rates well above 50%, and more cancers being detected at more curable stages, it has likely contributed to the rise of five year survivals to 90%.
Pancreatic cancer
Little progress has been made in pancreatic cancer that took 2,547 Australians in 2014, compared to 797 in 1968. Smoking, obesity and some pesticides can contribute to pancreatic cancer risk.
An absence of signs and tests make early detection uncommon and little progress has been made in identifying important drivers of pancreatic cancer growth. As diagnosis often occurs at an advanced stage and focused treatments are lacking, outcomes are poor with a five year survival rate of only 5%.
Skin cancers
Melanoma is the leading cause of skin cancer deaths. Of the 2,067 skin cancer deaths, approximately 1,600 were due to melanoma while non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC), a far more common but less lethal form, claimed the others in 2014. Excessive ultraviolet radiation from sunlight remains the main cause for both.
Recently, New Zealand surpassed Australia as the number one skin cancer nation in the world. Melanoma cases are falling in Australia, probably due to prevention efforts.
Generally, treatment of early stage disease is highly successful with a greater than 95% five year survival rate. Even for advanced melanoma, new immunotherapy treatments are increasing survival times.
Terry Slevin, Adjunct Professor, School of Psychology and Speech Pathology, Curtin University; Education and Research Director, Cancer Council WA; Chair, Occupational and Environmental Cancer Committee, Cancer Council Australia
I had noticed a small discoloured spot on my forehead but I didn’t get around to getting it looked at very early which is a bit silly. I have very fair skin, and I’d spent a lot of time in the sun riding horses as a kid.
It was small, a tiny spot really, and I mostly just covered it with my fringe. I wasn’t too worried, but it was something I planned on getting around to dealing with.
I finally got my GP to look at it. He didn’t seem overly concerned but he suggested I get a skin specialist to look at it. I’d had a few basal cell carcinomas removed but they’re the least scary of the skin cancers and it didn’t occur to me that this might be serious.
I saw a surgeon and he thought it would be difficult to surgically remove the lesion because the skin on my forehead was so tight but we still wanted to remove it, we just needed to work out how we were going to deal with it.
It was eight years ago, and I think everyone is more alert now, but none of the specialists really gave me any sense of urgency with it.
I got it looked at by a specialist again a couple of months later and we realised that it was too big to freeze it off and they diagnosed it as a squamous cell carcinoma. It had to go, and the doctors thought the most effective method of removal would be radiotherapy but right in the middle of this all I discovered I was pregnant.
They refused to treat it while I was pregnant so I had to wait.
My morning sickness was out of control for the entire nine months so although I could see the lesion on my forehead was changing I couldn’t give it too much thought as I was too busy trying to get through the tough pregnancy.
The cancer became larger due to the pregnancy hormones and although the doctors had warned me that this was likely, it was still confronting. It grew from a small freckle size to the size of a five cent piece.
When my baby was six weeks old I started radiotherapy, where every week for six weeks I went in for treatment, and then I was given the all clear shortly after.
The doctors gave me the impression that it wasn’t something I needed to worry about further. My cancer was gone so moving forward it wouldn’t be an issue but I have since found out that’s not the case at all.
My mother also had a squamous cell carcinoma removed from her face, but later she was diagnosed with a secondary cancer from that one. It had spread into her neck and lymph nodes and ultimately it killed her.
I can remember numerous times where I was sunburned to the point of blistering as a kid, mostly through carelessness and lack of knowledge. We just didn’t have the same sun screening awareness that we have today. I was super vigilant with sun screening my kids and even now I still check my skin regularly and have anything odd checked straight away.
I think it’s important that people realise that sun safety is not just when you’re in the sun. I’ve badly been burned sitting in the shade so it’s important to remember that any time you’re outside you’re at risk.
HOW TO SPOT A SKIN CANCER
According to SkinChecker dermatologists use two visual methods for initial evaluation to identify if a lesion is normal or suspect.
The ABCDE method
A – Asymetry
If you put a line down the middle would the two halves match?
B – Border
Irregular, wavy or jagged border clearly defined against the rest of the skin.
C – Color
Uneven colour. Light brown to black.
D – Diameter
Is it bigger than 6mm?
E – Evolution
Rapid evolution of size, width, or thickness.
The Ugly Duckling Method
One person’s moles are often similar in appearance. They look very alike with the same shape, colour and thickness. A new pigmented lesion can be considered suspect if it has a different appearance from the other moles. This is known as the “ugly duckling”.
