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HomeMy WebLinkAboutClinton News-Record, 1980-03-27, Page 30[ucation, service and fund raising ancer Society has three aims The Canadian Cancer Society was established in 1937 at the suggestion of the Canadian Medical Association, Its initial purpose was the education of the general public with regard to, cancer. Its aims are now three- fold: Education' in order that the disease may, be prevented, or diagnosed and treated in its earliest stages; Service to Cancer Patients; and Fund Raising to support these two programmes but primarily to support Research into the cause and cure ofthe disease. The Canadian Cancer Society is a national organization governed by a Board of Directors which include representation from each province in , Canada as well as from allied health organizations. The Ontario Division is one of the ten provincial Divisions of the Cancer Society. The Division is governed by a Board of Directors made up of 40 members -at -large, one member from - each District and Unit, and members from allied health organizations •within the province. The Division operates through Standing Committees that direct all activities of the Society. In Ontario, fifteen Districts have been organized to co-ordinate the work between the Division and the Units, Branches and Sections, ^that carry out the work of the Society at the com- munity level. The Districts also function through Standing Commitees on Cam- paign, Commemoration Funds, Education, Medical Advis'ory, Planning, • Development and Nominating, Publicity, and Service to Patients, that act in an -acivisOry capacity. Membership on these Conimittees is made up of the respective Unit Committee Chairmen. The Unit is basically the level at which the major portion of the work of the Society is carried out. There are more than one hundred Units in Ontario. The structure of the • Unit is patterned • after that of the District and the Division, with a governing Board of Directors and similar Standing Commitees. Many of these Com- -mittees are broken down still further into con- venorships. • Branches are located in smaller centres and each is part of a Unit. Ontario has approximately two hundred and fifty Branches, that are fully organized with a Board of Directors and Standing Committees on Cam- paign, Education and Service to Patients. Sections are composed of one or more representatives of the Cancer Society in corn: munities where there are not enough people to warrant a more formal structure. They form a direct part of the Unit or Branch with which they are affiliated. CANCER RESEARCH Over half of the funds mild by the Cancer Society are used for direct support of research into the cause and cure of cancer. Eighty-five percent of the funds spent by the National Cancer Institute of Canada are provided by the Canadian Cancer Society — an amount of over $6.5 million a year. The Ontario Division of the Cancer Society also assists the Ontario Cancer Treatment and Research Foundation in its °clinic extension programme through an annual grant. FINANCING OF THESOCIETY Receipts and disbur- sements at all levels of ' tilde Cancer Society in Ontario are handled through -a Rotating Imprest Accounting System, by means of which all accounting, preparation • of statements, and auditiqg are done at Division Office. All funds received by a Unit, from _any. source, are placed in a Transfer Account and automatically tran- sferred by the bank in- volved to the central bank of the Ontario DiVision. In similar fashion, Branch funds should flow directly into the Unit Transfer Account. Units and Bra -riches then operate on an ad- vance, which is placed in a separate "Working Fund" account. The units are reimbursed from Ontario Division for their expenditures on a con- tinuous basis up to a set amount. All bequests to the Cancer Society are handled through Ontario Division with. the guidance of--its-Solis i tor • All salaried staff .throughout the province are paid from Division - Office. This creates a working force large enough to be eligible for staff benefits such as insurance and pension GENERAL COMMENTS The chain of command for efficient functioning -of the Society is from National to Division to District to Unit, Branch and Section. • • Mel Farnsworth,president of the Goderich Branch of the CanadliMICancer Society and Howard Aitken, publicity chairman for the -Huron Unit of the Canadian Caner Society, proudly display last year's special cancer edition entitled Hope. The edition is aptly named because it gives hope that with more research dollars, cancer can someday be beaten. (Photo by Joanne Buchanan) • The SoCiety, has very 'it operates. However, it Cancer patient. definite rules and remains flexible enough +++ regulationsimcier which to be of real service to the Cancer A campaign is now k • bbeing •developed by the ver? Canadian Cancer Society e e to interest more young people in joining the various units and branches across the country. • +++ "We have evidence that Cancer in birds, animals and fish may be caused by one of many tumor viruses, usually touched off by secondary causes such as chemicals, radiation, secondary infections or a breakdown of the immune system. I think this is true of nurnan cancer as well. A:liar§ the oPinion.. �T Dr. Rose Sheinin, a grantee of the National Cancer Institute •of • Canada, whose research , funds come from public donations to the Canadian Cancer Society, Dr. Sheinin, Chairman of the Department of Microbiology and Parasitology at the University of Toronto, receives her NCIC grant for "Studies ,of the Mechanisms of Action of Tumor Viruses". She says there has been some success . in preventing a certain type of cancer in laboratory mice by the • use of an experimental vaccine but she does not see the day in which one vaccine will be given to everyone to pre venithe. nc clirrence.of cancer. "And yet," she "-continues; "it's entirely possible that there is some single underlying prOcess that could be attacked ttT1 cancers. "In -the '19th Century, and before, people treated fever as a disease. Today we know that fever is a symptom of many diseases. Maybe cancer is like fever, a •common response to a very wide assortment of derangements of the cell." . She goes on to explain that there are at least ten different kinds of tumor viruses: as -different as, say, a gazelle -and a cockroach. Within each of these ten classes, there are thodsands 'of in- dividual viruses different enough to be told apart. "On the surface a cancer virus resembles other viruses but for some reason it acts differently. We un- derstand how it acts but we still don't know why it acts that way," says the Toronto -born in- vestigator. - "We know enough about the viruses to be able to describe them in greater detail than any other organism on earth, yet there is a basic question about. viruses: Are they alive? A virus is an extremely good manager of the multiplying machine of its host cell. And if you consider anything that can direct its own multiplication as being alive, then a virus is " "But a virus cot grow by itself - itrequire. a cell in which to thrive. And a tumor virus is the-) supreme parasite," says Dr. Sheinin. "It does not kill the cell in which it grows •as do the non - tumor viruses." She goes on to explain • that many of the scien- tists in the forefront of cell biology today are not studying cancer per se, but because they are_ doing perhaps the most ..,impoint't research possible in relation to the cancer problem. Rose Sheinin believes that a cancer-causing virus can lie dormant in a person for years or all his life until, or unless, it' is "triggered" by some outside factor. She feels these factors are prin- cipally chemical' pollutants in "what we wear, what we eat, and in the air we breathe" an -2. that governments arelax in combatting such pollution. Cancer research at Princess • Margaret Hospital in Toronto is going full steam ahead. Get ready to give to the Canadian - Cancer Society, Huron Unit This informative publication is brought to you with the kind co-operation of the following McCALLUM - FUNERAL HOME CAMBRIA ROAD, AT EAST:ST., GODERICH ALVIPA'S TV 162 Mary St. 524-9089 Goderich REAL ESTATE LIMITED 34 STANLEY STREET GODERICH 524.2966 "CALL US -TO WELCOME YOU HOME"