CEOs Resolve to Combat Cancer
In 2001, former president George H.W. Bush challenged Robert A. Ingram, to do something "bold and venturesome" about cancer, a leading cause of death in the United States. Ingram, then the CEO of Glaxo Wellcome (now GlaxoSmithKline), enlisted the support of fellow CEOs from diverse industries and state governments and founded a non-profit organization known as the CEO Roundtable on Cancer, Inc. When Roundtable Member CEOs gathered for the first time, they accepted the challenge issued by the forty-first president of the United States by pledging to create and implement initiatives to fight cancer.
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Bob Ingram,
Vice Chairman, GlaxoSmithKline
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CEOs look inside their organizations
As a first order of business, the CEOs agreed to ask an important question: "What are we doing to fight cancer within the organizations we lead?" When the CEOs reconvened, they had their answer: Cancer was not being addressed comprehensively by any of the Member organizations. Encouraged by data that showed that focusing on prevention and early diagnosis would be cost-neutral to cost-beneficial, the CEO Roundtable commissioned its first Task Force, led by Gary Reedy of Johnson & Johnson. Their mission: to develop a corporate standard of excellence with respect to fighting cancer.
Experts Form the Task Force
The Gold Standard Task Force, comprised of human resources leaders, employee benefits managers and medical directors from CEO Roundtable member organizations, began to formulate an action plan on behalf of their CEOs. They engaged the support of additional experts such as Dr. Michael Fiore, head of the Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, Dr. Harmon Eyre, Chief Medical Officer for the American Cancer Society (ACS), Dr. Andy von Eschenbach, director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and Dr. Martin J. Murphy, Jr., CEO of AlphaMed Consulting and an expert in the field of oncology. "Our Task Force had come together as corporate leaders, and as we began to design a scientifically-based standard of excellence in fighting cancer, we sought additional outside expertise." said Gary Reedy, Task Force Chair. Reedy added, "In the end, we developed our recommendations after a thoughtful process utilizing extensive input from experts."
Focusing on Risk Reduction, Early Detection, Quality Care
The Task Force reached a consensus on a commitment to the following goals:
- Reducing the risk for cancer,
- Detecting it at the earliest possible stage when treatment can improve outcomes, and
- Ensuring access to high-quality treatment.
The Five Pillars
Dr. Eyre of American Cancer Society advised the Task Force that more than half of all cancer deaths can be prevented, and Dr. Fiore and others agreed that encouraging people to discontinue the use of tobacco should be a primary goal of the Task Force recommendations to the CEO Roundtable. Task Force members agreed that encouraging people to maintain a healthy diet and be physically active also would help meet their first goal of Risk Reduction and should be part of the final recommendations. They concluded that encouraging screening for certain cancers would be an effective way of meeting their second goal of Early Detection. Finally, to reach their third objective of providing access to Quality Care, the Task Force agreed that anyone diagnosed with cancer should be able to get the best-available treatment, and should be able to participate in cancer clinical trials if they choose to do so. Ultimately, the specific recommendations were focused in five areas, known as the Five Pillars, which are Tobacco Use, Diet & Nutrition, Physical Activity, Screening & Early Detection and Access to Quality Treatment and Clinical Trials.
A "Bold and Venturesome" Initiative
The Task Force recommendations, packaged as a comprehensive and powerful approach to fighting cancer, were ratified by the Members of the CEO Roundtable on Cancer, Inc. This "bold and venturesome" initiative was aptly named the
CEO Cancer Gold Standard, and is now being adopted within many of the Member organizations. With the introduction of its new website, the CEO Roundtable on Cancer, Inc. has introduced its first product, the
CEO Cancer Gold Standard.
According to Reedy, "There's no doubt that the CEO Cancer Gold Standard has the power to change the face of cancer, to save and lengthen lives. We urge all organizations across the United States to adopt it so that its full potential can be realized".
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