Cancer cases will more than double between 2000 and 2030, primarily in poor countries, an international expert says. World bodies like the United Nations and World Health Organisation need to develop a coordinated strategy to confront the rising cancer risk, said Peter Boyle, director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer. The incidence of cancer, once considered a disease of the developed world, has increased in poorer countries and global policymakers are not keeping pace with the challenge, he said. When the research agency was founded in 1965, cancer was considered a disease that afflicted wealthy nations. That changed with the growth and aging of the population in poorer countries, which also imported more risk factors such as tobacco and alcohol abuse, obesity and the lack of physical activity, Boyle said. ‘The cancer control community worldwide has suffered from being very diverse, loose and uncoordinated, and it certainly could do with a lot of leadership and an overall coordinated strategy,’ Boyle told a news conference at United Nations. ‘That should come from organisations which are in place to do that.’ Boyle’s agency is part of the World Health Organisation. In Africa, the […]