Read the Conversation
EF: Could you tell us about the origins of the Cancer Warriors of Mexico and your personal connection with your organization?
KLC: I am rarely asked about the origin of our foundation; it is quite a personal story. My mother was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer in 2013, and this had a major impact on our family. The initial prognosis was positive: one and a half years of non-invasive treatment. My family and I promised to join her in this fight. She saw herself as a warrior, and that is why the name of the foundation is Cancer Warriors of Mexico.
Unfortunately, the cancer metastasized in different parts of her body. In the final stage of her disease, I decided to volunteer for different organizations and visit public hospitals to provide support services to young cancer patients. I began to notice the issues that parents faced when they visited their children in the hospital. Parents had to remain by their children's side for long periods or make very frequent visits, leading them to lose their jobs because of their absence. As a lawyer by trade, I realized we needed to find a legal solution to resolve these problems. We needed to present an amendment to federal legislation.
I originally did not want to start a foundation, and I was not expecting to run an NGO. I quickly learned that doing something of this magnitude as a single person would be nearly impossible, which is what led me to form this organization. I managed to convince other people from different professional backgrounds to join the foundation and offer their services. We brought in psychologists, physicians, economists, and labor lawyers and formalized the foundation in 2017, one year after my mother passed away. A few months after the formalization of the NGO, we presented a labor bill before the Mexican Senate.
After months of work and negotiations, our bill was approved in both the Senate and our House of Representatives. We achieved a guarantee of more than 20 million dollars per year to cover more than 10,000 parents of children diagnosed with cancer. We also managed to get them occupational leave for up to one year so that they could stay with their children and not worry about losing their jobs. This was a historic milestone in our country, and that is the reason why we started to get more popular on social media, radio, and television. We now have unstoppable momentum and use law and public policy as a strong mechanism to help people diagnosed with cancer and their families.
EF: In addition to your expertise as a lawyer, what other skills have you leveraged in your work?
KLC: I am passionate about what I do, so that is one necessary ingredient. I also have communication skills, which are a must when it comes to running an organization. As I studied law and have a master's degree in public policy, public speaking is a skill that I have trained for many years and utilize every single day to convince decision-makers of the value of our projects and initiatives. I am also very sensitive when I talk with patients, and this is a skill I developed when my mother was a patient. One has to be empathic and respectful with patients, as they are suffering, and everything in their lives revolves around recovering their health.
EF: Cancer Warriors of Mexico aims to make significant changes to the legal framework surrounding cancer. What positive impact are you hoping to see spill over into the rest of society?
KLC: We launched a national movement in 2021 called #CancerOnTheAgenda. This movement was adjacent to the midterm federal and state election process, where we saw candidates making promises to the people. Mexico was going through a crisis during this time; there was a lack of oncological treatment, and the candidates were not talking about this crisis.
My passion, work experience at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and legal background led me to write a call to action to the candidates to include cancer control as one of the commitments on their agenda. I also poured my heart out and called them out for their empty promises. My call to action gained traction, and the candidates listened. A meeting of more than 60 organizations focused on cancer control in Mexico was organized, and I proposed that we start the national movement Cancer on the Agenda.
This movement sought a public commitment by the candidates, where they were asked to sign a letter related to cancer control reform. This letter contained a variety of points, for example, increasing the public budget for every cancer type in Mexico. They were also asked to work on infrastructure, reducing the time of diagnosis and speeding up access to treatments. It was greatly successful, and we obtained more than 400 signatures from different candidates around the country.
One of our greatest triumphs in the movement was attaining the signatures of 5 candidates in one day. These candidates were vying for the position of Governor in Nuevo León. One of them, Samuel Garcia, won, and thanks to Cancer on the Agenda, Nuevo León is running two programs for comprehensive access to treatment for both breast cancer and childhood cancer. Both of these programs are well-funded and are running smoothly.
EF: Can you share one thing that you are excited about in 2024?
KLC: I expect the presidential candidates to make an honest commitment to the cancer control agenda. We will be renewing the Mexican Congress, which is made up of 128 senatorial positions, 500 representative positions, and governors from 9 states.
Although you asked for one thing, I need to mention a second one. I am a firm believer in teamwork. Our main project is in collaboration with 12 other NGOs. If we are all honest and believe in the power of our results, we will achieve the best outcome. We created a workforce commission in 2022 to promote a General Cancer Law for Mexico, and after one and a half years of working with specialists and senators from five different political parties, we presented the bill on October 11, 2023. The bill is currently undergoing the Mexican legislative process and is on its way to being passed. It is my wish to see it through before the end of the year.
EF: Pharmaceutical companies are investing in highly specialized cancer treatments and gene therapies. How can we increase access to these treatments and make them more affordable?
KLC: That is a complex question, especially when it comes to developing countries such as Mexico. Only 5 million out of the nearly 130 million people in our country have private insurance and access to private hospitals. Mexico also has a fragmented public sector. We have different care gaps that generate inequalities in the system, so the UICC is currently promoting a campaign called “Close the Care Gap.”
The first step is an early diagnosis of cancer. Almost 200,000 people are diagnosed per year with cancer in Mexico - the exact number is 192,000. Between 70 percent and 80 percent of all of them are diagnosed in the late stages, which is the main issue that we face: not having access to treatments. Promoting early detection is our priority, and we have another initiative in four states to promote early detection. The name of the initiative is #OneDayAgainstCancer. Thanks to the amendments made in these four states, the initiative has been presented in eight additional states in the country and unanimously approved in four of them.
Workers in these states now have one day of paid leave per year to undergo cancer screening. Employees have the right to ask for the day to go for a mammogram or a screening to detect cancer at an early stage. Adults can be screened for breast cancer, cervical cancer, and prostate cancer. This is yet another example of the successful use of the law to boost early detection.
When pharmaceutical companies need to promote programs to make treatments more affordable, they can do this through negotiations with the government. It is about collaborative work. We, as civil society, are pushing the cancer control agenda in front of the government.
We need to shift our thinking away from "expenses" and move towards the concept of "investments." Sometimes, the Mexican government sees cancer as an expense, but if we have a push to obligate the government to establish a national cancer control plan, as the WHO has recommended since 2005, we can invest in better treatments and reap the rewards in the future in the form of a healthier society with respect to the human right of health access.
Sometimes I view our government system as being reactive instead of proactive, investing more in care or attention to diseases than in prevention. These changes to the law would probably cost more in the short run but would net savings in the long term. We need to move away from rhetoric and show the government our data so that decision-makers can push the cancer control agenda forward.
EF: If you were the Minister of Health for 2024, what would be your starting point with regard to cancer legislation?
KLC: Last year, a decision-maker asked why we needed a law that specifically focuses on cancer when we have so many other diseases. I mentioned our general health law for all the diseases and then asked, "Do you know how many times the word ‘cancer’ appears in that law?" When they did not know the number, I told them six times. Furthermore, five of those instances are found in one article related to the national cancer registry, something that we do not put money into executing. The general health law clearly does not give cancer the importance it requires.
If I were the Minister of Health, I would create public policies and attention plans for every disease. We need to have order and structure for every single disease with a strategic national implementation to protect everyone, regardless of the disease a patient suffers or their location in the country.
