George Alagiah: BBC colleague Jeremy Bowen urges people to check their poo for bowel cancer symptoms after death of newsreader
BBC journalist Jeremy Bowen has urged people to get tested for bowel cancer following the death of his colleague and friend George Alagiah, who died on Monday.
Speaking to Sky News, the BBC correspondent, who revealed his own bowel cancer diagnosis in 2019, implored those who received NHS test kits to use them.
The 63-year-old said: “For God’s sake use it. You’re an idiot if you chuck it away. It could save your own life.”
Alagiah, 67, was diagnosed in 2014 with stage four bowel cancer, which had spread to his liver and lymph nodes and had to undergo two rounds of chemotherapy and several operations, including the removal of most of his liver.
Bowen described how Alagiah would “rationalise his symptoms”, for example when losing weight he said he would attribute that to exercising or eating more vegetables.
Ex-BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen revealed his own bowel cancer diagnosis in 2019
However, the former Middle East editor, who is also a patron for Bowel Cancer UK, urged people to open up about the disease if signs are spotted.
“It involves poo and backsides. We tend not to mention [these things] in polite conversation but actually if anything goes wrong in your toilet activities in a period of over more than a few weeks you need to talk to someone,” said Bowen, who is nearly five years into remission.
He said he was able to tackle his bowel cancer early despite not having classic symptoms like blood in his poo or weight loss.
He decided to go to his GP and get tested after feeling pain while working in Iraq and India – a few weeks later he was found to have microscopic amounts of blood in his stool.
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“Four years earlier I had a virtual colonoscopy, a big scan of my gut and had nothing wrong then,” Bowen said.
In four years the journalist went “from nothing wrong” to having a stage three tumour in his bowel and lymph nodes.
He described the cancer as “really quite advanced” and had to have surgery and eight rounds of chemotherapy.
“I was really quite ill. Luckily I had done that test. If I hadn’t… I might not be here,” he said.
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George Alagiah ‘understood the human condition’
Sky News reported 30% of people who get NHS kits to test for the cancer ignore them, which Bowen strongly advised against.
He said: “Don’t do it. It could be your life at stake.”
Bowel cancer check rates soared after the death of Dame Deborah James last year from the disease, who also encouraged the public to get screened.
Her daughter Eloise has since launched an anniversary clothing line for her late mother’s Bowelbabe Fund.
Bowel cancer check rates soared after the death of Dame Deborah James. Pic: Bowelbabe/Instagram
On Alagiah, who was also a vehement advocate of cancer screening, Bowen said his friend had the “right mental attitude” after he knew his cancer had spread.
Bowen said Alagiah “beat the odds” of his stage four cancer but knew it was “going in one direction [which is why] he was so evangelical to get tested if you had any dodgy symptoms”.
Speaking about the newsreader, Bowen added: “I met him on his first day at the BBC and showed him around. He was clearly a very nice guy and it emerged he was a very good reporter as well. What followed was a very, very distinguished career.”
The crash involving a cargo ship and oil tanker off the East Yorkshire coast is bad news for the sea, fish and air in the area. What we don’t know yet is quite how bad it will be.
That depends on a few things – but the speed of the collision, clouds of filthy black smoke from the fires and the leaked fuel are certainly worrying.
Firstly, it matters what was on board those two massive vessels.
Follow live: Jet fuel spilling into sea after tanker collision
Analytics firm Vortexa estimates the 183m-long tanker was carrying about 130,000 barrels of jet fuel (kerosene), which is now leaking into the sea.
Jet fuel is not as sticky or viscous as heavier types of oil, thankfully, so it’s less likely to clog the feathers and fur of birds and seals. It can also be broken down by natural bacteria.
But it can still poison fish and kill animals and plants on the shoreline if it makes its way into the soil there.
The Marine Conservation Society has pointed out the site in the Humber estuary is close to some protected areas and is important for seabirds and harbour porpoises.
And both ships will have been powered by a dirtier, heavier kind of oil – likely marine gas oil or heavy fuel oil, though we don’t know the details yet.
Heavy fuel oil is nasty stuff.
Pic: Bartek Smialek/PA
Cheap, thick and tar-like, it can smother animals and is very dangerous if they consume it, and is extremely difficult to clean up. Let’s hope this isn’t creeping around the North Sea already.
We don’t know how much of either the jet fuel or the oil powering the ships has leaked, or how much will be burned off in the violent fires – which themselves are ploughing black smoke and filthy air pollution into the surrounding atmosphere.
And we don’t know for sure what was on the Solong cargo ship and if, or what, will go into the sea.
Cargo ship ‘had sodium cyanide on board’
It was carrying 15 containers of sodium cyanide among other cargo, according to a report from maritime data provider Lloyd’s List Intelligence.
The container vessel was also transporting an unknown quantity of alcohol, said the casualty report – an assessment of incidents at sea – citing a message from the local coastguard.
Plastic takes hundreds of years to break down, and potentially can choke or trap animals.
Many of us have seen that uncomfortable viral video of a turtle having a straw yanked out of its nose. Previous accidents on cargo ships have seen plastic Lego pieces wash up in Cornwall 25 years later.
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Secondly, the impact depends on the sea and weather conditions around it.
Things like the wind and currents affect how an oil spill spreads in the sea. Scientists can draw up computer models to simulate how the oil could behave.
Thirdly, it matters how quickly this is all tackled and then cleaned up, if necessary, and if it can be.
Usually the slower the response, the worse the impact.
The coastguard has said the incident “remains ongoing” and it has started assessing the “likely counter pollution response” that will be required.
Such a response might need the help of numerous public bodies: the government environment department, the transport department, the Environment Agency and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.
So for now the best we can hope for – aside from the welfare of the people involved – is that not all the oil is spilled or burnt, that conditions are calm and that rescuers and those cleaning up can work swiftly.
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