NCI’s Consumer Liaison Group Chooses Four Areas of Concern

BETHESDA, Md--The new consumer liaison group to the NCI director has chosen three of its 15 members to serve as co-chairs and has identified four areas of concern for its initial attention.

The co-chairs are M. Venus Gines, a breast-cancer survivor from Lithonia, Ga, active in community work with the American Cancer Society; Susan A. Leigh of Tucson, Ariz, a survivor of Hodgkin’s disease, breast cancer, and bladder cancer, and active in the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship and the Oncology Nursing Society; and Daniel M. Moore, Jr., a prostate cancer survivor from Decatur, Ill, who started the Central Illinois US TOO! prostate cancer support group.

The consumer group’s four areas of immediate concern are communications and immediate access to reliable cancer information; informed consent, including making forms more understandable; patient consumer issues and population and genetics studies; and ways to identify additional consumer representatives for NCI committees and groups.