Les Hill wants Aussies to be aware of prostate cancer
September 7, 2010
LAST week’s Sizzling September launch by the Prostate Foundation of
Australia (PD yesterday), was littered with Aussie celebrities, including
Rescue Special Ops actor Les Hill who chatted with PD about his
involvement with the organisation and its mission to educate Australian
men about prostate cancer.
How did you get involved in the campaign?
Early last year I started to notice some of the statistics about prostate
cancer and it just seemed to me that basically someone should be doing
something. 20,000 men a year diagnosed and 3,000 men dying seemed
like an enormous number. And the more I thought about it the more I
thought I might be able to get a few Australian men together that I knew in
the entertainment industry and make some sort of an awareness campaign.
And as we started to build the campaign more and more people wanted to
get onboard. So we spoke with the PCFA early on and said this is what we
wanted to do and we grew from there, and obviously exceeded all our
expectations. I think we’ve grown to about 35 Australian male identities
involved in the awareness campaign.
What has been your role with the campaign?
We made three ads at the beginning of the year. We developed the idea
for the ads with Josh Witeman who is a creative in the advertising industry
and Paul Middleditch who is possibly the world’s best TV commercial
director. It was an idea to raise awareness of prostate cancer and to get people talking about it. And anything
they need me to do, in as far as being an ambassador for the PCFA, i’m happy to come along and help with.
What advice would you have for
pharmacists who are wanting to
get involved with the campaign?
The best advice would be to
encourage people to speak to their
GPs. Every Australian man over 50
years and 40 if they have a history,
should speak to their GP about
prostate cancer. Also I would advise
pharmacists to have open
discussions with their patients about
prostate cancer, because i think it’s
one of those diseases that we shy
away from as a society and to be
able to have an open conversation
about it and take away some of the
stigma about it is very important.
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