American Cancer Association

>>gonzalo: good afternoon. my name is gonzalobegaso and i work in finance. we are extremely proud of having dr. huerta here and i'm gonnaask my colleague, ashley, to introduce dr. huerta. thank you very much for coming. >>ashley: hi everyone. my name is ashley,my name is ashley carrick and i'm currently a bold finance intern this summer under gonzalo'sgroup. i'm here on behalf of the hispanic googler network to introduce our first evertechtalk speaker, dr. elmer e. huerta. dr. huerta was born in peru where he obtainedhis medical degree at the university of san marcos in 1981. some of his highlights arethat he came to the us in 1987; he got his fellowship in oncology research at the johnshopkins oncology center. he received his residency

in internal medicine at st. agnes hospitaland received a masters degree in public health at the johns hopkins school of hygiene andpublic health. dr. elmer e. huerta is a director of the cancer preventorium in washington,d.c. at the washington hospital. dr. huerta founded this low-income prevention clinicin 1994 and continues to use it as a vehicle for reaching the hispanic and latino community.his involvement with the spanish-speaking community began more than 20 years ago, whenhe began to record his nationally and internationally broadcast radio and television health programs.dr. huerta's non-profit company, prevencion, also provides important health education informationto the hispanic and latino community. dr. elmer e. huerta has been repeatedly recognizedfrom his medical expertise. he was actually

appointed by president bill clinton in 1998to become a member of the national cancer advisory board. dr. huerta is the first latinoin over 95 years to be president of the american cancer society. today, dr. huerta is herefrom washington, d.c., with his colleague, chuck westbrook, who is currently the strategicdirector of content for the american cancer society. today, dr. huerta's gonna give usan overview of what american cancer society is. he's gonna discuss the prevantorium concept;something he's been working on for over 20 years and he's gonna give us some ideas ofhow american cancer society can actually work with google now. so, everyone, please givea round of applause for dr. elmer e. huerta. [applause]

>>huerta: thank you very much, ashley, andthank you very much, gonzalo. and good afternoon, everyone. i'm extremely pleased to be hereat google this afternoon. i already had a tour and i'm really, really, really amazedby the way you all work and you're philosophy of work here at google. i'm extremely happythat this happened. as ashley introduced me, i'm a physician by training; i'm a cancerprevention specialist; that's what i do for a living. i work in washington, d.c. in oneof the three largest hospitals in washington, d.c., called the washington hospital center.what i'm going to do, first i'm going to get my jacket off. i hear you don't wear jacketsand i like that. i was doubting this morning if i should weara tie. i should come in my t-shirt, but then

i'm gonna move around, i think this one, too,so thank you very much. first of all, it is very amazing how things happen. this is, ithink, something-- it should be important for you all, the young people here. you growup and you are used to, when you are a little kid, that things that happen to you are usuallyplanned by your parents. but later on, when you're 13, 14, 15, then you start planningyour own things. my son is there, he's 14 and he prefers to listen to his ipod thanto listen to his dad. that's the way it is. but then, then everythinggoes and when you have something in your mind and you have a dream or you have a plan orsomething, then you do everything possible in your means to make that happen. and thisis an example of that. i was in miami at the

airport in my way to peru to give a talk inperu and then i sat in the waiting room of this airport and a person was there next tome and say, "hi." "hi." you know, just a regular airport conversation and we start talkingand this one person says, "i think i know you. i saw you on television and i have tvshows and i'm the regular doctor for cnn en espanol. i have my segments there every thursday."and all that stuff. "ok, that happens kind of regularly to me in airports and somethinglike that." but this one person was very special. he said, "my name is gonzalo begaso. i workfor google." "oh, really? good." so, we clicked. one of those things that you click with someone.we start talking and talking until we board the airplane. but one of the things we plannedthat meeting, at that little meeting, was

to make this meeting possible. this, thisone, meeting it possible. he said, "i'm gonna do my possible to see if you can go to mountainview and meet with us and give a talk on cancer prevention. it would be the interest of peopleto hear that cancer can be prevented; cancer can be detected earlier." and that's whati said. it's an example of things that happen fortuitously, but then when you work towardsyour goal things happen. and i was telling my son about that and he said, "yes, daddy,i know that." probably he knows that, but i'm extremely happy gonzalo. thank you verymuch for making this possible and that's it. it happened, encounter in an airport and thisis what's happened here. well, i'm very proud also, too, ashley said, that last year innovember, i was elected as president of the

american cancer society, which is the largestcancer organization in the united states and the largest organization--cancer organizationin the world. the american cancer society started in 1913. it was founded in new yorkcity and currently is, i'm gonna show you some pictures here-- let me see my littlething here-- we have, we have a presence in over 5,000communities in the whole unitedstates and other places. and we have three million active volunteers. forty million donorson file and we are the largest source of private cancer research funding in the us. we arevery proud that we helped to fund the initial work of 42 scientists at a time that theywere young, nobody paid them much attention and 42 of these researchers, they went toget the nobel prize in medicine and physiology,

which tells you about how we invest the moneythat we receive from the american public in this research area. and our name, when youask people in the united states, "name any health organization." ninety-six percent ofthe time the american cancer society name comes up. our budget for last year was 1.2billion dollars and the remarkable thing is that 85% of that money comes from donationsfrom the american people, with an average of only $45, which tells you that the popularsupport we have is tremendous and the responsibility we have is immense with the american people.so, if you can imagine that now i have this responsibility of being the president andthe first latino president is, for me, such an honor. the american society, of course,we are accelerating the progress against cancer

in every community by saving lives, helpingthose touched by cancer and empowering people to fight back this condition. i'm gonna showyou a little bit how we do this. how do we do it? a big chunk of our budget goes to research.it's the largest source of private, not-for-profit cancer research funds in the usa. almost 300million dollars of plus goes for this research every single year. education. we know thatcancer can be prevented; cancer can be detected earlier. and let me throw a number for youright now. this is very important. out of 100 people who died of cancer now a days inthe united states, 75 could have been either prevented or detected earlier. this is important.in other words, to put it in some other way, three out of four people with cancer, whodied with cancer in the united states, have

condition that could have been prevented ordetected earlier. we're going to see which one of those cancers later on. and, of course,we do a lot of this advocating issue, which is extremely important. what is this? that,as you know, without policies, without laws, nothing happens. so, early on, we've foundout that even though we gave a lot of money for research, even though we gave a lot ofmoney for education, it wasn't enough. we needed things to change in washington, d.c.at the executive power or at the congress. that's why we have a huge group of volunteers--millions,as i've said, four million volunteers-- many of those are cancer survivors and they helpus to educate congressmen, politicians in passing laws that are allowing us to reallyput the cancer agenda in the daily lives of

americans in the country. we have what wecall the cancer information service, the ncic, the national cancer information center. wehave, we are the only group in america that provides 24/7, 365 days of these telephonenumber available to the american people. if you call to this phone number, 800-acs-2345,227-2345, any time of the day or the night, you're gonna find a voice that's going togive you an answer to your question, questions. my mother has been diagnosed with pancreaticcancer. what is that? can be cured? a counselor, a specialized counselor, can answer to yourquestion any time. i'm smoking and i want to quit. can you help me? yes. we have a quitline any time of the day or the night that can answer to your question. this is reallya wonderful service that we have. and it's

24 hours and it's bilingual in spanish andin english. but we also have this cancer.org. amazingly, as you, here at google, you knowthis very well, for a cancer organization based in the us, almost 25% of all our inquiriescome from overseas, from all over the place. they are asking questions from many differentplaces in the world. and, of course, we have many publications that are books and pamphletsand all that stuff that we gave away. and we have many programs in the communities oncancer prevention, early detection and patient services. so, this is the call center; thisis web. we have a division; we have in places where people can go. we have, for example,what we call hope lodges. you know there are some people who live very far away from theircancer centers. they need to go and get treatment,

radiation treatment, chemotherapy and forthem it is extremely prohibited to spend money on hotels. so, we have these wonderful hopelodges--huge houses, and we house them for whatever time they need to complete theirtreatment. see, this is the way your money is being used when you donate for the americancancer society and before i forget-- my blackberry is in my pocket-- but i got an email fromthe california division here, from the person in charge and they want to thank everybodyat google because you, at google, are wonderful partners with the american cancer society.every year, you attend our relay for life's here in mountain view and the surroundingcounties and every year you donate approximately $60,000 for our work here. so, i just wantto thank you very much, google, for being

partners with the american cancer society.this is important, too, this program. it's what we call the patient navigator program.what that means is that when a person develops cancer and that one person doesn't have healthinsurance, which is a very sad fact now in our country-- 50 million people are lackinghealth insurance-- what navigators they do is that they guide these patients throughthe system and find a place for them to be treated. so, in other words, they navigatepatients in the turbulent waters of our healthcare system, which is not doing well and probablyneeds some reform. of course, we empower people with all these activities in the advocacyand the public policy. we also have a very active international program because justsouth of the border, starting in mexico up

to chile, the number one cause of death dueto cancer among women is cervical cancer. can you imagine that? a cancer that is 100%preventable with a simple pap smear; that is the number one cause of death among latinamerican women. and that is not the sad fact. the sad fact is that almost 85% of those cervicalcancers among these latin american women are found incurable; what we call a stage 3 form.there is nothing to do. breast cancer is the same. cancer prevention concepts, like theone we're going to share with you this afternoon, are completely unknown for these people. andgo to africa. my god. go to asia. so, we think that, even though we have a lot of problemsto resolve here in the united states of america for our american fellows, i think we needan obligation to transfer some of this knowledge

to other disadvantaged places in the world.so, this international program is really a working in that regard. and, of course, wehave many volunteer opportunities. so, here, at google, if you want to volunteer with us,just please contact the local american cancer society. they will be extremely happy to workwith you and you can give us some of your wonderful time so we can do more for americanswith cancer. and also, of course, we have alliances with many corporations and actually,this afternoon, chuck is here with me because we want to explore some possibilities workingwith google. we would like to see what we can do together; how can we use the powerof google and the trust of the american cancer society and the content that we have, so wewant to explore how can we work together maybe

if conversations go ahead, some time fromnow we will be saying that everything started july 29th of 2008, so hopefully we are goingto see that. i'm gonna change this presentation to another one, which talks a little bit aboutwhat i do with my daily life. this is called the cancer prevatorium concept. here, i'mgoing to talk a little bit more about cancer prevention, which is something practical thatyou need to take home. i used to be a medical oncologist. what does it mean to be a medicaloncologist? as you all know, when someone gets cancer and when we talk about cancer,we are talking about 200 different conditions. this is very important as a concept. that'swhy when you maybe someday are going to hear on the television, "there's no cure for canceryet. what's going on?" there is no cure for

cancer because they are 200 conditions. eachone is different from the other one. you see? so, cancer, out of these 200 different typesof cancer, as i said before, 75% can be prevented or detected. so, i used to be in medical oncology.when someone gets cancer was telling you there are three ways that you can treat a tumor.three ways. the oldest way to treat cancer is the scalpel; the knife--cut it out. surgery.those specialists are called oncology surgeons. they operate cancer. they know how to do it,they know how to explore it, they know how to clean it, as the people call it. surgicaloncology; number one specialty--the oldest. then, in the 30s, 40s, a new specialty arose.it was radiation treatment. once x-rays were discovered, these huge machines were discovered;the cobalt therapy machines and nowadays what

we call the linear accelerators. they arehuge machines that release high-wave radiation and they treat cancer and burn quote marksthe cancer. radiation treatment-- that is the second way to treat cancer. the thirdform of treating cancer is a specialty that started around the 40s, after the second worldwar, when by chance, they discovered that nitrogen mustard, a gas that was used in thewar-- it's amazing, it was used in the war, in the trenches-- they discovered that someof the survivors, veterans, they developed leukemia when they were exposed to this gas.when they went to study this gas, mustard nitrogen, they found that it was a chemicalthat could also, in addition to cause cancer, could destroy cancer. so, that was the beginningof a new specialty called chemotherapy, ok?

chemotherapy means that you give drugs toa person, either through the mouth or through the veins directly, but these medications,they go to your body and kill the cancer cells. that is chemotherapy, ok? so, surgery, radiationtreatment and medical oncology are the three specialties. well, i used to be in medicaloncologist. for five years in peru, i trained in how to administer chemotherapy. but somethinghappened at that time that made me uneasy of my specialty. i used to love it, but irealized that most of the cases with cancer that were sent to me for chemotherapy to givethis kind of treatments to these people, they had very advanced types of cancer, but mostof this cancer were either preventable or early detectable. so, i started to get uneasy.why? why to give up chemotherapy agent to

a person, which is a very strong treatmentwhen that one cancer could have been found ten years before with a simple pap smear?and the things that really changed my mind were when i asked to these people with cancer,with these huge tumors, "do you know what a pap smear is?" and people they didn't know."do you know what a mammogram is?" "i have heard, but i'm not sure what it is." "do youknow that cancer can be prevented?" "i don't know." so, people were lacking basic healthinformation, but, at the same time, they were lacking this basic health information theywere very knowledgeable in all the entertainment world: soap operas, the life of the michaeljackson or the madonna's-- everybody knew about these kind of things. that's when igot this idea, this concept, that something

needed to be done for people to increase theirawareness in the early signs of cancer, to let them know that cancer is a silent condition,they need to see the doctor before they get a symptom. so, i quit medical oncology and20 ago, i embarked in this career of cancer prevention and control, which is what i doand i'm gonna let you know a little bit later on. so, the concept is that our healthcaresystem--and that's a reason i left medical oncology-- our healthcare system is centeredin the person with a condition. what does it mean? this is the reality of our healthcaresystem. in this healthcare system, all these people-- what are they doing? what they'redoing is wait for a symptom to appear to see the doctor. think about this: in many societies,in many groups, you only see the doctor when

you have a problem. either you have a sorethroat or you have a tumor that's growing here or you're losing your weight or bloodis coming around you, whatever. time to see the doctor. very few people are proactiveand see the doctor when symptoms are absent. so, if we have this healthcare system, whichis based on the person, then we create our extremely busy, illness-loaded, primary caresystem. go to any hospital in america. full of patients. most of those conditions, preventable,detectable, advanced cancer, heart attacks, strokes, uncontrolled diabetes; that is thebulk of our healthcare system. and we spend billions of dollars in this healthcare system.and they often use the emergency room. you heard this because there are so many peoplein the hospitals, the people they just want

to short-cut and they go on to go to the emergencyroom. this is our healthcare system. it is extremely expensive and inefficient and wespend, i don't know, 1.3 trillion dollars in the healthcare system and the united statesis number 42 in life expectancy in the world. it's amazing. so, we're not getting our moneyback. why? because everything is condition, disease, illness, loaded with these conditions.well, in addition to this, people they have many barriers. many barriers to access ourhealthcare system. for example, there is no information, there is linguistic isolationfor a lot of people, they are poor--when you are poor your priorities change--there areno insurance coverage; you are lucky here, very fortunate in this company to have wonderfulfacilities. i saw this morning your clinics

are great places. you have nutrition counseling.you have everything, but that is not the reality of millions of americans. fifty million americansthey have no health insurance. and 25 million more americans, they do have inadequate healthcoverage. so, there are no programs that are ethnically sensitive or culturally competentfor these people. they don't understand the medical healthcare system, so those are barriersthat people have every day. that's why the obscurity comes. what is obscurity? for example,if you ask people, "do you think when you reach the end of cancer; are there any painmedications that can alleviate pain?" nineteen percent of americans believe that there areno pain medications; that once you reach the end, you are going to die screaming of pain.that is not true. and 13% they don't know.

so, if you add up these two numbers, thatis like 42%, 32% of people, 32% that they are not aware of something so important thatthere is a lot of pain medication when you reach the end of cancer. so, if you have people,30% of americans believing that there's no pain medication when you offer them screeningactivities, they all say, "no, no, i don't want that because i don't want to even knowif i have cancer or not." you see? that creates fatalism. seven percent of americans, theybelieve that all you need to beat cancer is a positive attitude, not treatment, you see?look at this. this is amazing. how much is it? fifty-four percent of americans believethat treating cancer with surgery can cause it to spread throughout the body. so, if somebodygets a biopsy or gets surgery, people believe

that that is going to spread the condition.that's an old wives tale from the last century, but 50% of americans still believe. so, whati want to show you here is that we, here in america, we still are holding many misconceptionsregarding cancer and we need to change that. so, what are the things that you need to doin order to beat cancer? there are some things you have to do. for example, --and i'm turningthis off for a moment-- number one, the concept is the following: one out of two men and oneout of three women are going to get cancer during their lifetimes. think about this number.one out of two men and one out of three women are going to get cancer during their lifetimes.that's one concept. second concept: your chances of getting cancer starts when you're a littlekid. example, skin cancer. there are studies

that show that it is the amount of uv lightthat you receive when you are a little kid that's going to determine your risk of developingskin cancer when you are in your 30s, 40s or 50s. this is telling me that we parents,we need to be careful with the kids. young people that don't have kids, they need tobe careful with the little boys and girls that they are around and with themselves.we mean that the risk of cancer starts at a very early age. a third concept that i wouldlike you to remember. it's a very important one. cancer is a condition that doesn't giveyou any pain, any symptom when it's starting. this is important. we, at the american cancersociety, we used to have the famous seven warning signs of cancer, my god. if you bleedthrough the rectum, if you are developing

cough or hoarseness, if you have a wound andthe skin doesn't cure, you know what? we dropped those things in the 60s because those thingsare late cancer; they're not early warnings. so, the concept that you have to really, really,really please put inside you is that cancer is a silent, treacherous condition. therefore,you have to do something to try to find the cancers that can be found early before theystart. and there are only four tests that have been proven to be effective in findingearly cancer. i'm gonna go one by one. the number one test is the pap smear, the cytology.pap smears need to be done every year after the first sexual intercourse. why sexual intercourse?because we know now that cervical cancer, 90% of cervical cancer cases, are due to theinfection with a family of viruses called

the papillomavirus; hpv-- human papillomavirus.it's amazing; it's new knowledge. so, hpv, human papillomavirus, four species or fournumbers of these because there is a hundred of this hpvs-- one hundred of those-- fourof those are known by the numbers 16, 18, 28 and 31. they cause 90% of cervical cancersamong women. so, it is amazing, but at the end of the day, cervical cancer is an std;it's a sexually transmitted disease. this is new knowledge. that's why we have now avaccine. we have now a vaccine that has been developed against two of these strains; number16 and number 18, which cause 70% of cases of cervical cancer. who needs to be vaccinated?women, little girls who hasn't started sexual intercourse yet. see? that's a new knowledge.so, that's the number one test that proves

that works; cytology, pap smear. the secondtest that has been proven that it can work to detect cancer is the mammogram. a mammogramis a test by which women gets an x-ray of her breast and cancer can be found the sizeof a little grain of sugar. that size, before it can be touched. when you find an earlycancer with that method you don't need to do mastectomies anymore. mastectomies meaningthat the whole breast needs to get out; that's past-, that's a thing of the past for mostwomen now in the us. why? because we are finding that the mammogram can find the cancer veryearly. who needs to get a mammogram? every woman after the age of 40. how often? oncea year they need to get a mammogram. if the woman got sisters or mother with breast cancer,then they need to start at the age of 35.

only for very high risk women who are thewomen who have mother and one sister with breast cancer, the american cancer societyrecommends the mri, the magnetic resonance imaging of the breast. for the rest of women,that is not necessary. ok? so, first test, pap smears. once a year after the first sexualintercourse. number two? the mammogram. test number three. you're pretty young here, butyou should know this maybe for your parents. what is the test? it's called a fecal occultblood test. fobt. fecal for feces, excrements occult blood test. what does it mean? thistest needs to be done every single year in a person, men and women, after the age of50. why? because it is after the age of 50 that you, inside your colon-- and remember,the digestive tract system. please allow me

to say this; some people don't remember. it'syour mouth, your esophagus, your stomach and then comes 15 feet of small bowel and thenat the end we have five feet of large bowel, or colon. that's at the very end. in thatlarge bowel, which is five feet, people over 50, they develop little pieces of meat thatare hanging like a little pieces of broccoli; they're called polyps, polyps. and we knowis that these polyps, one out of ten polyps, they become cancer. and you know what? theybleed, but they don't bleed a lot. so, when people go to the toilet, normal, great, noproblem. not true. that, those feces, they may have drops of blood mixed with the stools,but there is a test. a very easy test called fobt-- fecal occult blood test that can bedone at the doctor's office. actually, we

give it to patients, they take it home, theyget a sample, they put some drops, they send it back to the office and they are read. andthe result comes positive. what does it mean positive? that that one person has blood inthose stools. what do we do? we ask the person to come, we give them some laxatives, we cleanthe guts and then the person gets a colonoscopy; an exam by which a tube, a small tube is introducedinto the colon and the five feet are examined, looking for these little polyps and you knowwhat? they take them out through the colonoscope. cancer can be prevented. can you imagine?that's why every time you hear that a person has died or has been diagnosed with advancedcolorectal cancer, you should think to yourself, "oh my god. that one person didn't know thefacts." how is it possible that now, the days

in america where we have all these tools,somebody can be found to have an advanced colorectal cancer? impossible. you see? lackof information. that is the third test, ok? the first test was the pap smear, the second,the mammogram, the third, the fecal occult blood test and colonoscopy positive and thefourth, which hasn't totally demonstrated that it can increase the life of men who getsthis test, is the psa-- the prostatic specific antigen. p for prostatic, s from specific,a from antigen, which is a protein that we measure in the bloodstream of old men combinedwith a rectal examination to see if the men has prostate cancer. every man, if he decidesto do so, need to have this test after the age of 50. listen, that's it. x-rays of thechest, they don't work. mris on the chest,

they don't work. what else? sonograms, theydon't work. what else? all these markers they doing in your bloodstream, they don't work.four tests can find the most common cancers that kill people in our country. so, the preventativesign. what is the preventative sign? the preventative sign goes with the number one killer of peoplein america. who is that? cigarettes. every single year-- listen to this number-- 440,000americans die because of cigarette smoking. four hundred and forty thousand, which isequal to 12,000 a day, which is equal to 50 an hour. and look at what happened in thelast weeks with the salmonella scare that we have all over the united states. one thousandcases and none dead; the whole country was paralyzed. who cares about 12,000 people dyingevery day? you see? well, cigarette smoking,

if our kids, they don't start. if adults canquit we can really control 30% of all deaths due to cancer in the united states. i wantto repeat this: one out of three people who died out of cancer in the united states ofamerica died because of cigarette smoking. that's a big chunk of prevention. so, if youdon't smoke, great. you are not in that group. the other preventative thing that i am interestedfor you to know is regarding maintaining a healthy weight, eating well and exercising.we have some research now that's being gathered that shows that even person has a healthyweight, but more than a healthy weight-- a healthy lifestyle-- is going to prevent breastcancer, prostate cancer and colorectal cancer. so, what is the advice here? very simple tosay and difficult to do: eat everything, but

in small portions and try to prefer fruitsand vegetables over animal food. if you like animal food, go ahead; that's no problem withthat, but be moderate with the size of the portion that you eat, eating. okay? and thesecond one is the exercise. put in your agenda your 30 minutes, at least 30 minutes of exercisingevery day. that is extremely important. that may be preventing colorectal cancer, breastcancer and as i said also, even colorectal, prostate and breast, which are big chunks.so, you see, cancer is a condition, as i said at the beginning, that is not one disease.there are 200 different conditions. what we know now, for example, that the number one,the most frequent-- this is a concept also-- the most, what we call prevalent, that's ascientific word, the most common cancer among

women is breast cancer. that is the most common.the most common cancer among men is prostate cancer. the second most common among men afterprostate is lung cancer. the second most common among women after breast is also lung cancer.and the third most common, among men and women, is colorectal cancer. you see? that's whati was talking also only about colorectal, breast, prostate and lung because they arethe chunk, like us 80% of deaths due to cancer are these four guys. and so you heard, thereis prevention and early detection for these four guys. breast: mammograms, self breastexamination, be attentive, see your doctor once a year. prostate: as i said, the psa,the examination. lung: don't smoke. colorectal: fobt and colonoscopy. you see, these fourkillers, they have way to be prevented or

detected early. so, at american cancer society,we are extremely interested in people knowing these facts and starting to incorporate thisknowledge into their daily lives. you are young, a lot of young people here, you arein the time in your lives where lifestyle is going to be extremely important and isgoing to determine your risk when you reach your 50s and your 60s. you're in your 20s,30s, this is the time that you have to eat well, you have to acquire the behaviors thatare going to allow you just to travel through time and decrease your risk of cancer in thefuture. so, i think i'm gonna stop here. my work, i don't want to present the rest. someof them are very gross. we have some pictures that i don't want to impact you, but justto complete the story i was telling you at

the beginning, once i discovered that mostof people they didn't know the basic facts, i started to use radio and television to reachout people with knowledge. i have daily programs on television, i'm sorry, daily radio shows,i have weekly television programs. i'm reaching now thousands of people; most of my work isin spanish--reaching out to this latino immigrant community. but 14 years ago, when i finishedall my studies, my second specialty actually, i was hired by a hospital in washington, d.c.this hospital is called the washington hospital center and i remember meeting with the directorof this cancer center and he told me-- it was 1994-- he said, "you are the first cancerprevention doctor i met. in this big cancer center, we have surgeons, radiation therapistsand medical oncologists, but you're the first

preventative guy that i know. what would youdo if i hire you?" he said. "well," i said, "what i would like to do is to open a littleclinic here for people who are of low income, but this clinic is going to have a sign atthe door that's going to say, 'this place is for people without symptoms only.'" hesaid, "what? who's going to come to this clinic?" i said, "people who are aware of my televisionshows, my radio programs and they are already convinced that they have to see the doctorbefore they get a symptom." and he said, "who's gonna pay for this?" i say, "people are gonnapay out of pocket because even poor people, when they see the value of something theyinvest in their health." and he said, "well, i'm not sure. your plan is kind of bold, buttry it. if it doesn't work, then you have

to work with the medical oncologists seeingpatients." "ok," i said, "that's fine." so, we started the clinic and in three weeks wefilled appointments for six months. so, the demand of the public was immense. why? becauseat that time in 1994, my radio programs, my tv shows they were very popular and i alreadyhad convinced people that they needed to see the doctor before a symptom appeared. that'scalled the preventorium. preventorium is a word that i coined as opposite to the oldsanatoriums. i don't know if you remember in the history of medicine, there used tobe old sanatoriums where people with tuberculosis or mental health problems; they used to goand die in these places. it was very sad. well, the sanatorium was that. the preventoriumis a place only for people without symptoms

and then we have chats on nutrition, we talkabout smoking, we, of course take the blood pressure, the whole stuff. i examine patientsfrom head to toe and we do these four tests that i'm telling you. so, people pay $120once a year for the check-up and then come back every single year. it's exactly likejiffy lube for your car. you take the car for a tune-up, get out, see you next time.so, that is a concept. that's what i, this morning when gonzalo took me for the healthclinic here you have and i saw you have, a lot of your consultations are preventative.and that's the way it should be. and maybe one of special office needed to be createdhere at google only for the ones of you that want a prevention consult. i'm not sick, ihave no sore throat, i don't have anything.

i just want to talk about smoking or i justwant to talk about-- do a check-up on me. maybe even a mammography unit can be placedhere so women who are over 40-- i don't know how much percent of your workforce are over40-- but you can go, take a break, instead of going to play volleyball there, you getyour mammogram and then you have the result. you get, you have the whole thing right hereonly for prevention. well, i'm gonna take some questions. i think that is the bulk ofwhat i wanted to say. i just want to finish saying that there is a lot of hope and a lotof positive news regarding cancer nowadays. it is not as it used to be in the 50s or the60s, even the 70s or 80s. nowadays, as we speak, there are 13 million americans whoare cancer survivors. why is that? because

we have wonderful early detection methodsand we have wonderful treatments. so, cancer is not the killer anymore that it used tobe. we have wonderful ways to treat it, wonderful ways to detect it. it is up to people, itis up to people to really know those things and they can go to see the doctor before theyhave a symptom to find them earlier. and it is actual organization, the american cancersociety and others, to release this message to the public and it is also hopefully, upto an organization like yours to work collaboratively with other organizations to put this messageout. maybe beginning with you, the googlers, and maybe putting for the general public allthese tools on cancer prevention because you know what? cancer can be prevented, cancercan be detected. for 14 years in a row in

the united states, the number of people thatare dying of cancer is decreasing and decreasing and decreasing. so, we're making good progress,but we need to do much, much more and i really appreciate gonzalo, again, the opportunityto talk to you all here and this is gonna be up on youtube, whatever, but thank youvery much for this opportunity, gonzalo. if you have questions, i will be very happy to-- >>gonzalo: yes, we got several minutes forquestions. thank you very much, dr. huerta for coming and it was amazing. >>huerta: thank you. >>gonzalo: so, if you got any questions, pleaseif you could go to the center of the room,

please. >>huerta: i, i didn't have my radio show today.i get questions all the time on the radio show, so i didn't have my fix today. so, askme any questions. [laughter] any questions you may have regarding cancer,i will be very happy to answer those. >>audience #1: of the patients that you seein your center, what percentage have you actually detected early cancer? >>huerta: very good question; wonderful question.what is the rate of the detection of cancer i have in my clinic? i didn't actually mentionthis, but the main risk factor, the main characteristic

of a person to develop cancer is age. it isafter 50 where the bulk of cancers start. so, my population at this clinic is youngbecause they are the newly arrived immigrants. the average age of my patient is only 34.so, therefore, the number of cancer is low. i have seen almost 25,000 people in this clinicand i have found 83 cases of cancer. these cancers that i'm finding are very early, treatable,but that is the rate: 82 out of almost 25,000 people. >>audience #1: and second question is whatabout some of the silent killers, the ovarian cancer. my dad recently died of transitionalcell cancer of the kidney and the things where they say there isn't early detection.

>>huerta: exactly, wonderful question. ifyou remember when i said that three out of four cancers that kill people in this countrycan be either prevented or detected earlier, unfortunately, that means that one out offour cancers that kill people in this country cannot be prevented, cannot be detected earlier.the list is long. brain cancer, kidney cancer, ovarian cancer, stomach cancer, pancreas cancer,leukemia's, lymphomas, there is a list of cancers that cannot be prevented or detectedbecause we don't have the means yet to do it. we are working hard. we are funding researchersfor them to find these tools, but at this time we cannot give you any answer. tonight,there is going to be a program in larry king. they invited me to appear. i'm not sure ifthey are going to ask me later on, i'm still

waiting for their confirmation and this abouta fact that i have commented to a group of people at lunch. and it has to do with theselittle things here: cell phones. this little device, when you put it right here, it's sendingelectromagnetic fields and research has shown that if you put this little thing next tothe five year old little boy or girl, the electromagnetic fields go almost to the otherside of the brain. if you put this little thing next to the brain of a ten year old,it goes almost halfway through inside the brain. in adult goes a third of it. initialresearch that we are still confirming showing that on the side you use this little thing,you may get more what we call caustic neuromas, tumors of the nerve that conducts auditionto your brain, or maybe brain cancer. we are

still learning about that. so, we are on thepreventative side. what is the thing you have to do? consider this thing as a very usefulthing, i use it, i'm not intending to stop using it, but you know what? for a short conversation,one minute yes, put it right here. no problem, great, talk to you later. but if you're gonnahave a conference call, or you gonna talk to your boyfriend or girlfriend for 20 minutes,30 minutes, one hour, you're a sales person-- don't put it right there. get your littlecord or even the blue tooth because it's a hundredth less energy from the blue tooth,but the point that i'm trying to make and probably either myself or our chief medicalofficer tonight, larry king's going to say, consider this little thing as a possible sourceof the disease. just to put an analogy, go

backwards and you cannot because you're veryyoung, to 1948. 1948, 1949, it was a huge discussion about the possible effects of cigarettesmoking and lung cancer. my god, nobody believed that. no, you're crazy. this cigarette causingcancer? no way. even my own organization at american cancer society, we didn't believeit. we needed proof, proof, proof. it took for us eleven years until 1960 to pass a resolutionsaying yes, cigarette smoking causes cancer. and how many millions died over those years?that's, i'm taking that same attitude. you know what? be careful with these things. useit because they are important. they are extremely important, but you know what? they may beharmful for you and we may find out that they are harmful for you in the year 2028 or 2030,when you already got all that exposure during

those years. and don't give it to kids. don'tgive it to kids. any other questions? >>gonzalo: we got time for one more question. >>audience #2: you said you've been workingwith the immigrant communities in d.c. so do you have any breakdown about how, or whichethnic groups are they disproportionately affected by cancer these days? or is thereany data about that? the breakdown. >>huerta: thank you. yeah, well, immigrantsare coming from all over the world. the united states is a nation of immigrants. we comefrom all over the world, but over the last 50 years, most of the immigrants are fromlatin america and also asia. they are coming by thousands and thousands. among asian americans,for example, they have higher rates of cancer

of the breast. they are starting to have breastcancer and there is this paradox there, by which in japan and many asian countries, breastcancer rates are low. but once they come to the us, something happens that they startgetting breast cancer. they also get cervical cancer, very high rates, especially the newlyarrived korean, vietnamese communities because they don't know about prevention. they arevery shy about going to see the doctor so they don't get pap smears. one day they arebleeding through the vagina, they see the doctor, cervical cancer, i'm sorry. thoseare some of the most frequent cancer among these asian communities. i also have veryrare cancer that is in the throat that is also very common among them. among latinos,out of the 40 million latinos in this country,

65% of them are mexican americans. they arethe majority. and obesity rates are very high in these communities and we are seeing thesame pattern of distribution of cancers as in the general population, meaning breastcancer, lung cancer are the most common among these people. what happened is that even thoughthey have the same distribution, the frequency, the incidence is lower among this immigrantcommunities. we don't know why, but they have less cases of cancer. the problem is thatwhen they go to see the doctor, again, they are late. huge tumors for all those barriersthat we show-- no insurance, etcetera. so, they live less time; their survival is less.so, well, another cancer is cervical cancer. and another cancer among latinos is livercancer. as you know, liver cancer is a cancer

that can be prevented through a vaccine because80% and that is another cancer in asian americans is liver cancer, that's very common amongthem. why is that? because liver cancer is the consequence of chronic infection withhepatitis b and hepatitis c virus. so, if you prevent by vaccinating kids for hepatitisb, then you are going to prevent liver cancer in the future. another cancer that is verycommon among latinos is stomach cancer, which is this very common in latin america and theythink it is because of the infection by a bacteria, called helicobacter pylori. haveyou heard about this story? this is very fascinating. for many years, we doctors are very dogmatic.dogmatic meaning that we learn something and for doctors this is very difficult to changethat thing that they give you at the school

of medicine. and the dogma was that nothingcould grow in the stomach. the stomach was so acid; you know with this hydrochloric acidthat the dogma was nothing could grow inside the stomach. nothing. for years. well, itwas in the 1970s, two australian crazy guys, they demonstrated that this stomach of dogs,they had bacteria. they see bacteria here in the stomach of dogs. they went to lookfor this bacteria among human beings and they found the bacteria there, too. so, they wrotein scientific papers, "we are finding bacteria in the stomach of people." all the doctorssay, "haha, look at these guys. they are finding bacteria. haha." they say, "they are contaminationmaybe in the laboratory." they kept researching and they found that this bacteria caused gastritis;acute inflammation of the stomach. they wrote

in the paper again, the scientific paper,"helicobacter pylori causes gastritis." nobody believed because the dogma was so strong.one of these guys, he had to prepare a broth with bacteria and water, ok? and previously,he has a gastroscopy and his stomach was beautifully clean. they took biopsies; everything wasfine and after that he took the broth with the bacteria. and he developed this terriblegastritis. luckily, he took antibiotics later on and cleaned himself. he published that.no way, that cannot be possible. it took 20 years of work for other doctors to start believingand these two guys, dr. marshall and i don't remember the other guy, they got the nobelprize two years ago because they discovered that bacteria can cause gastritis and cancause stomach cancer. here in the us, it's

luckily very, very not frequent, this kindof infection. in poor countries, up to 80% of little kids, they already have the bacteriain their stomach. so, it's all these things that we hear at the cancer society, we tryto research and try to fund and maybe-- this is the last word-- just to thank you againif you are an american cancer society contributor and i invite you to keep working with us sowe can just wipe out cancer from the united states of america. >>gonzalo: thank you very much, dr.huerta,for coming. thank you very much for coming to all of youguys and we are gonna share with you and for some of you guys that, you know that thisis a hispanic googler network event and we

got some t-shirts for you if you wanna justcome here to the side and you can get a t-shirt. thank you again, dr. huerta. >>huerta: thank you very much. thank you.