A year after brother’s death, Ikeda campaigns vs oral cancer

In Taiwan alone, 5,400 Taiwanese men are diagnosed with oral cancer each year, according to a British Broadcasting Corp. report, and about 80 to 90 percent of them chew betel nut.

Commonwealth Cancer Association board vice president Bo Palacios shared this fact during yesterday morning’s proclamation of April as Oral Cancer Awareness Month.

Lt. Gov. Ralph DLG Torres led the declaration of April as Oral Cancer Awareness Month and CCA members as well as anti-cancer partners and advocates, including a family member who lost a brother to the disease from betel nut chewing, attended the event.

Mami Ikeda, who read the proclamation with a large picture of her brother Kazunori beside her, told of the agony their family went through during her brother’s struggle in fighting oral cancer before passing away from it.

Commonwealth Cancer Association staff, board, anti-cancer groups, supporters, and lawmakers join in a group photo after Lt. Gov. Ralph Torres declared April Oral Cancer Awareness Month. (JAYSON CAMACHO)

“We all know Kazu, he was an icon here in the CNMI. Aside from losing everyone of our loved ones, I’ve seen how it affects our lives, our loved ones, and our children. I for one is an advocate for this, and since it is preventable I think we should all do our part and not wait until it’s too late,” Torres said.

“It’s hard when I know we can do it. I want to thank the family of Kazu for coming out and making the community aware and hope we can save lives as we move forward,” he added.

Kazumi was diagnosed with oral cancer on April 2013 and was already terminal. He passed away on Feb. 11, 2014, after fighting cancer for nearly 10 months.

“It was just me and him after both our parents passed and then when he was diagnosed with cancer, I was his caregiver. He didn’t let the disease take control of him and he was very strong about it. My brother said that once he gets cured from the disease, he wants to go to schools and do outreach against [betel nut] chewing,” Mami said.

“But now he can’t. I am doing this for him now. I am joining CCA during their school visits this April and letting all the kids know and tell the story of my brother. It would make me happy if I could at least inspire some children to advocate this,” she added.

‘Harsher policies’

Torres said the bigger picture is, “What can the Legislature do to provide more awareness to the community that cancer is preventable?”

“I think at this point it’s more about going out to the community and letting them know about these programs in schools because we have young kids chewing betel nut, and that oral cancer can happen to anyone and it is treatable and preventable at an early stage,” he said.

Asked if the same policy for smoking should apply to betel nut chewing, Torres said the Legislature should look into that.

“That would be a policy call and the Legislature would need to look into that to get some more statistics on what kind of charges, who to charge, and how the charges are going to be made but that is certainly something that we can look into,” he said.

Advocates also sought for better recommendations and better policies toward betel nut chewing.