How can lawyers fight cancer?

Friday 4 November, 2011

Anybody who has been following the debate over plain packaging of cigarettes will have noticed the tobacco industry relying on complex legal arguments to fight the legislation that it knows will reduce the number of young people who take up smoking.

The debate highlights how the law can influence cancer public health outcomes.

On a positive note, the law can be used to proactively reduce exposure to cancer risk factors - such as tobacco, alcohol and obesity - and to ensure adequate access to treatment for people suffering disease.

However, the law can also operate to increase exposures and to raise barriers to treatment, for example, where trade, intellectual property, or drug control laws are applied without sufficient concern for their health impacts.

Cancer Council Victoria CEO Todd Harper says that in the next century many of the most important public health concerns will require legal interventions and in recognition of this, the Cancer Council and the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) have decided to establish a new Centre for Law and Cancer.

"The aim of the Centre is to contribute to the effective use of law in combating cancer," he says. "It will build on the public health law capacity that CCV has established over the last decade across cancer prevention (particularly tobacco, alcohol and obesity), and access to medicines for pain relief, both domestically and internationally."

Another key goal of the Centre is to nurture and develop the next generation of public health legal professionals.

"Our ability to be successful in public health initiatives over the next 100 years will depend on our ability to work effectively with public health lawyers and help grow the capacity of these lawyers. We need to make it a viable career path for every undergraduate lawyer," Mr Harper said.

Jonathan Liberman, the inaugural Director of the McCabe Centre, said the Centre will seek to become an invaluable resource for organisations in the UICC network all over the world.

"We will be developing online materials about the use of law and regulation in cancer control, promoting research, conducting training, hosting an online facility to answer questions and promote debate, and facilitating partnerships between legal experts and cancer control professionals," he says.

"Our vision is to enable scientists, doctors and lawyers to work collaboratively to make the biggest possible impact in preventing cancer and ensuring highquality treatment for people with cancer.' 

Appropriately, the Centre will be named after Rolah McCabe, whose legal action against British American Tobacco in the Supreme Court of Victoria highlighted the unjust behaviour of the tobacco industry and underlined the impact of the law on our society.

Ms McCabe's lawyer, Peter Gordon of law firm Gordon Legal, said the Centre is a fitting tribute.

"Rolah felt she never had the chance to a fair fight with British American Tobacco because of their so-called 'document retention' policy that saw many crucial documents shredded before the trial. She was determined that her legacy would be to ensure other people would have access to a fair fight and this Centre provides for that."

The McCabe Centre, which will be officially launched early in 2012, has been seed funded with generous contributions from the McCabe family and the lawyers who acted on their behalf.

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