This month, tens thousands of white flags have been planted on the National Mall to memorialize the 120,000 Americans who die from lung cancer every year.
November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month, and LUNGevity, a nonprofit organization dedicated to lung cancer research, hosted an event Wednesday morning featuring policymakers, survivors and medical experts who called for bipartisan support of lung cancer research and screening programs.
LUNGevity estimates more than 226,000 people in the U.S. will be diagnosed with lung cancer this year, and 65% of all new lung cancer diagnoses are among people with no tobacco exposure or only past tobacco exposure.
The display on the National Mall includes American flags representing veterans who have died from lung cancer.
“This field of flags, it’s more than a symbol of loss. It’s a call to action,” said Andrea Ferris, president of the LUNGevity Foundation.
Lung cancer claims more lives each year than breast, prostate, ovarian and kidney cancers combined. Yet it receives a fraction of the attention and a fraction of the federal funding, according to Ferris.
“The challenge is that so few people currently qualify for screening,” said Neal Augenstein, cancer survivor and WTOP host. “If you have any smoking in the past, if you have a family connection, you really need to talk with your doctor and insist that you get a CT scan.”
Augenstein battled with cancer for three years; now he is cancer-free and stood in the U.S. Capitol Wednesday morning to raise awareness about the importance of screening and early detection.
“I asked myself, well, should I share this or not? Really, I shared it because if something happened to me and I wasn’t on the air, I wanted people to know why,” Augenstein said.
“That really is evidence of people who had to tell their family that they had lung cancer and who had hope …,” said Augenstein, looking at the sea of white and American flags. “It could have been me. I sort of hope … that I outlive having one of these flags put in the ground for me.”
Long cancer can be detected early. Find a lung cancer screening center near you.
Get the D.C. area’s top news and weather delivered to your inbox every morning. Sign up for First & 4Most, our free newsletter.
Want more insights? Join Working Title - our career elevating newsletter and get the future of work delivered weekly.
