ROMA (ITALPRESS) – “This community of scientists, researchers, doctors, volunteers who support AIRC is an extraordinary civil resource. Many are the citizens who receive benefit from your commitment. Sometimes it loses awareness, because research has long paths and applications are not immediate.” This was said by the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, in his intervention at the Quirinale to the celebration of the “Days of Research”. “Let’s think back to the path of the fight against cancer, we realize how great the leap forward accomplished in a few decades – the head of the state continued –. Research is about the future. He prepares it. He builds it. Always: after each stage, after every success. In order not to lose the sense and value of his work, even social, it is useful, every now and then, to pause to remember from where he left.”.
“Research and science save lives, in ever greater numbers, yet we must still see that irrational beliefs and destructive fake news are propagated, nailing parts, even small, of population in fear. The prejudicial opposition to vaccines is one of the most disconcerting symptoms: when we are faced with painful facts of news, with adults or children who risk or even lose their lives that could easily defend, we feel the need to counter the work of those who seek to poison their opinion,” he added.
“Research refers to a common effort, the circulation of information and ideas, the collaboration between different countries, different continents, different cultures. We checked it on the days of the Covid epidemic. A global network has been activated, providing large-scale protection, quickly building effective defenses and accelerating the weakening of the virus. Yet today, in addition to what is subtracted by resources from unarmed wars and attempts to extend military contrast to every dimension of the earth and even in space, we are faced with new material and intangible barriers that rise in various fields, hindering the international action called to prevent and counter existing outbreaks and risks of new pandemics,” added the head of the state.
“From research and medicine conquests, from the fight against cancer, a lesson emerges that exceeds the boundaries of the laboratories: on the top of the scale of social values remains the person. You researchers know well that what, in a certain, even long, moment, seems impossible can be made possible by human passion and determination. We want – and we can – to draw reason for trust and hope even beyond the scope of cancer research. There is still a road on this. The most aggressive tumors, the rarest types are borders that are still crossed. And, of course, they will be – continued the head of the state -. The research work must not stop: it does not stop – I repeat – never. We know we need it and we know we can count on it. Research Days are seen, and lived, as a message for the entire society. They help to remind us that the fight against cancer does not begin in hospitals, but much earlier, through prevention and reduction of risk factors. A large percentage of tumors could be avoided by intervening on factors and behaviors that are editable. The lower rate of oncological mortality, which is recorded in Italy compared to our European partners, comforts us on prevention and on the ability and dissemination of care. But it does not exempt us from the responsibility of improving this data, always, from year to year, better”.
– Photo Quirinale –
(ITALPRESS).
