October. Another breast cancer awareness month with buildings and bridges aglow in pink. One year since the last one. And around the world another 500,000 women dead of breast cancer. Almost 40,000 in this country alone. Actually, this is the 25th breast cancer awareness month. We are being asked to celebrate that fact - which is symptomatic of the problem. Why do we try so hard to make breast cancer palatable, comfortable, pink? I really don't feel like celebrating.
Twenty five years ago, in the United States, 110 women died of breast cancer every day. Twenty five years and billions of private and public research dollars later, that number is 110. Every day. Not much progress, is it?
What have we been talking about since the last awareness month? We spent weeks and months arguing over whether to screen women once a year or once every other year. The public and media were up in arms because a group of objective experts questioned the benefit and frequency of mammography screening. Should we let women decide what to do? Or should we just tell them? We argued over whether a new drug that shrank a tumor for several weeks but didn't make women live longer, or improve their quality of life -- and had life threatening side effects -- was good enough. Such low expectations. We deserve more.
I don't feel very pink about any of this. I feel angry. I am frustrated at the lack of progress. And I feel used. I have helped convince the government to give billions of dollars in research funding to the worldwide scientific community. I have seen others push to spend billions more in mammograms and billions in awareness campaigns. I have lost count of pink light bulbs. But I haven't lost count of the too many women who have died.
When will we call for an end to this madness? When will we get serious about ending breast cancer?
How about now? It is time. Twenty years ago, after my diagnosis, I joined a group of women who launched the National Breast Cancer Coalition with a mission to end breast cancer. We thought our work would be complete by now. It's not. Over the past two decades I have seen science develop incredible technology that could help find answers and expand our understanding of the disease. It is now time to harness all of this knowledge and all of these tools. It is time for a new approach and a refocus on our goal: not the goal of a new drug or a new way to find cancer. That is just not good enough. The goal needs to be the end of breast cancer. At the current rate of progress it could be 500 years before that happens. And that makes me very angry.
We're setting a deadline: end breast cancer by January 1, 2020. And we have a plan to get there. Many will say it cannot be done. But we have never tried. They will say that science doesn't work that way. Well, it can and it must. It is time. A deadline changes everything.
I know it is controversial to declare a deadline. I know that, to say the least, it will be exceedingly difficult to achieve it. But that is how it should be. There is comfort in arguing over mammograms. We have been doing that for more than 30 years. We know about that, we cling to it, no matter what the evidence tells us. We cheer every new drug as though it were a real breakthrough, though none of them are. We feel safe and somehow hopeful if there are new drugs to take, even if they have little or no benefit. It's time to give up comfort. It's time to give up easy. It's time to give up good enough.
Between now and the next breast cancer awareness month hundreds of thousands of women will die of breast cancer. How many more of these "celebrations" will you accept? It is time to get real about ending breast cancer. Take all of that energy pushing for awareness and let's come together to achieve the deadline. It's time to give up hope and take up action. Get angry. Get motivated. Get on board. Tick tock.
Follow Fran Visco on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Deadline2020
Samuel S. Epstein: Breast Cancer Unawareness Month: Rethinking Mammograms
http://www.youtube.com/wordisborntv#p/a/u/0/8hm250NsUUs
It utterly galled me to see Kentucky Fried Chicken, a company whose products contribute to cancer, team up with an organization that purports to care about breast cancer. And it also sucks to see Yoplait team up with Komen, as dairy products are just not good for you either.
It's all marketing and pinkwashing.
Thanks again for all you do to help so many! Liz
I am not wearing pink this month. I'm wearing a pin that says:"Say it, Fight it, Cure it Damn it!
Since diagnosis 10 years ago, I’ve been befuddled by the incredible October outpouring of energy, money, and fluff around breast cancer “awareness”. Perhaps 25 years ago it WAS important to bring breast cancer front-and-center, so it was not endured in secret. We’ve accomplished that goal. Women are aware.
It’s PAST TIME to redirect our efforts. Business-as-usual is not working. We know more about the causes, treatment, and even prevention of breast cancer. But we have lost focus and direction.
Each well-intentioned researcher is working hard. But the work is uncoordinated and spiraling off on countless narrow paths. In 10 years, if nothing changes, we’ll know a lot more about many details of cancer. Yet we will still not have come close to stopping breast cancer.
I am proud to join NBCC in demanding action to end breast cancer by 2020.
That video linked below, www.stopbreastcancer.org, LIES. It mentions that women in 1975 were much lower to be at risk of contracting breast cancer, and it's risen greatly since. In a lie of omission, it does NOT mention that mortality rates have been severely cut.
Deadlines are stupid and meaningless when you are fighting a force beyond your control and complete knowledge.
Yes, strides have been made, but we still, after billions of dollars, are not close to eradicating breast cancer. Yes, the RATE of death is somewhat lower but too many 100s of thousands are still dying. So we're going to try something daring - we're setting a deadline. Risky?? Absolutely! But by gathering the best of all the stakeholders together, just maybe we can see the way to the light at the end of the tunnel!
Having had a 3rd sister diagnosed in the past few months (that's 3 out of 6 sisters), I'm applauding this new bold initiative. Enough is enough! We aren't giving up support for those with the disease, we aren't giving up comforting the bereaved, but we are giving up relying on hope alone to turn the tide. We have remarkable researchers working on the problems, we have knowledgeable advocates to sit at the table. We CAN get this done! We MUST!
Hope wrapped in pink ribbons is not enough; it hasn’t stopped breast cancer. We need a bold new strategy and a unified will to end this disease. Thank you NBCC for raising the bar! It’s time to harness the collective knowledge gained though billions of dollars of research toward a single goal: the end breast cancer in this decade. Why should we settle for less?
Go to NBCC’s website www.stopbreastcancer.org to learn more.
Doesn't that sound ridiculous? It's exactly how you sound. You are speaking of an ugly, cruel and disgusting force which is completely beyond our control. Do you think you're the first person in history that's decided it SHOULD stop? Everyone in the world will agree. However, it won't be stopped because you angrily insult the importance of education, awareness and HOPE. It will be stopped because scientists work endlessly against the problem. A simple decision is meaningless. This post is meaningless. Actually, this post is counterproductive. With your cynicism and anger, you aim to take away hope. Hope is the one weapon the bereaved have against despair and tragedy. You should be ashamed.
We as a species have no control over this problem, and hopefully that will soon change! However in the mean time, we will not OBTAIN control by getting "angry," "motivated" and "on board." We will gain what little control we can by supporting those who suffer, supporting those who experiment and research, consoling those who are berieved, and educating those who do not know enough about breast cancer. THAT is what this month is about: hope. Don't you DARE demean or dismiss the importance of it. Not for one second.
Do you know how truly stupid, naive and ignorant it is to imply that the science world has been sitting on their thumbs, just waiting for an uppity group of people to say "Okay, cure's taking too long, it's time for us to motivate you."
You will not *force* a cure into being. If a cure happens in the next week, month, year or decade, it will not AT ALL be because people got angry about it. It is comically childish to think otherwise.