Two Never-Smokers, husband and wife. Two Diagnoses: Stage I vs. Stage IV—The Difference Was One CEA  Blood Test.

 The absence of screening in never-smokers represents a critical blind spot in lung cancer care. 

 Without That Test, His Lung Cancer Would Have Gone Undetected.

 Help me Close this Gap in Lung Cancer Detection.

This is my story: From September 2022 to May 2024, I was misdiagnosed with Ménière’s disease, only to find out two years later it was lung cancer all along, stage 4 by the time it was diagnosed.

During that time, I was never evaluated using biomarkers that, life insurance companies are using to assess risk. The never-smokers are simply never tested for lung cancer. The delay in diagnosis reflects a broader issue: early warning signals are not investigated in patients considered “low risk.”  My neurosurgeon later told me that she sees this pattern too often—patients diagnosed with Ménière’s disease when,  it was cancer in disguise.  I promised myself during those 18 days at the  hospital fighting between life and death, that I was going to beat it for my family, my teens still need me, and that if I made it I was going to fight with all my mighty to find biomarker testing to help other people, to detect it at early stages instead of stage IV.

Then the unspeakable happen, my husband went to get life insurance,  he got denied because his Carcinoembryonic Antigen (CEA) levels were elevated.  Which prompted further evaluation and helped identify his condition early enough for surgical intervention, lung cancer stage 1.

And that is exactly how  CEA  landed in my hands.  That prompted the investigation and how we found his cancer, without that test initiated by life insurance, he would never have known until symptoms show, which in lung cancer tends to be at stage IV.

 We have measurable signals, but no unified approach to act on them. A simple $25-40 blood work could tell you, you need to investigate.

The Gap in Early Detection
Only about 20% of lung cancers are diagnosed at stage I.
In the non-smokers, the majority +55%, including my case, are diagnosed at stage IV.

Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related death. Approximately 15–25% of cases occur in never-smokers—yet there are no established screening pathways for this population, none.

CEA has long been dismissed as insufficiently specific for screening. However, in the right clinical context—particularly in otherwise healthy, non-smoking individuals—an elevated CEA should not be automatically disregarded. It may not point to one specific cancer, so a false positive for lung cancer, may be a positive for colon or other cancers, but it is rarely without meaning, why discard such valuable information?

The goal is not to rely on a single test, but to recognize when the body is signaling that something may be wrong—and to investigate accordingly.

 
A Call for Action
To the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), and policymakers including Alex Padilla:

Include biomarker testing for the never-smokers in the guidelines, using the biomarkers as a way to select who needs a low dose CT. Beyond detection, we also need better therapies, we need increased investment in research, but instead we did just the exact opposite. In early 2025, the NIH terminated 2,291 active research grants, withdrawing approximately $2.45 billion in funding. We need vaccines and therapies for the stage 4 population. We need the funding back.
 
Conclusion
Lung cancer is often called the silent killer.
Early detection is the only way to change that.

The current guidelines recommend mammograms, pap-smears, for females,  PSA levels for males,  colonoscopies for anyone above 40, yet nothing for the non-smokers for their lungs.  But lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States and worldwide, claiming more lives annually than colorectal, breast, and prostate cancers combined. Despite overall declines in cancer mortality, lung cancer is projected to cause approximately 124,990 deaths in the U.S. in 2026, accounting for nearly 20% of all cancer-related fatalities. And yet we only screen the smokers...

We are not asking for over testing—we are asking for alignment, transparency, and the willingness to investigate when signals appear.

The only way to know about those signals is to test them.

Join the Movement
Stand up against the silent killer.
Support awareness, transparency, and earlier detection.

Together, we can change outcomes.

Please share this petition.  

For funding use  the Lung Cancer Research Association or DM via Instagram: 

https://give.lungcancerresearchfoundation.org/team/820050