Breast Cancer Awareness Month, once thought to be a serious and inspiring awareness campaign of 25 years plus, has in recent years become an unforseen fashion statement and trend. From tank tops to jewel encrusted key chains and personalized pink water bottles, the operation's signature pink ribbon is highly visible and impossible to ignore. Many experts are now questioning the validity of the campaign and whether it is truly helping women find a cure for breast cancer.
Statistics Show and Tell the Progress Against Breast Cancer
Despite the pink ribbon hoopla, deaths due to breast cancer have only dropped slightly. In addition, the focus on awareness may be pushing women into treatment unnecessarily, which in turn is actually causing cancers to develop.
According to Canadian Cancer Statistics 2010 produced by Canadian Cancer Society, Statistics Canada, Provincial/Territorial Cancer Registries, Public Health Agency of Canada, an estimated 23,200 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year and 5,300 will die from it. The bleak reality is that in the 26 years since the campaign started, the death rate from breast cancer has only dropped about 2% per year. According to the National Breast Cancer Coalition in Washington, DC, 117 women in the USA died of breast cancer every day in 1991; presently that number is 110 a day. "I don't think people understand the lack of progress," says Fran Visco, the coalition's president.
Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign Promoting Ineffective Prevention Methods
In recent years the campaign's objectives have been in question as the organization has unfortunately failed to keep up with the advances of breast cancer research. Dr. H Gilbert Welch of the Dartmouth Institute of Health Policy and Clinical Practice in Lebanon, N.H - a strong supporter of this notion has audibly stated: " scientists have come to understand that breast cancer isn't one disease but many. Unfortunately, doctors can't tell which tumors are harmless and which are truly dangerous — so they wind up treating all of them as if they were the worst kind."
A quick shoulder check backward indicates the original stated objective of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month was - to promote mammography as the most effective treatment in the fight against breast cancer. Doctors used to (the hidden message here being in past tense) think the priority was to catch breast tumors when they were small - and presumably most treatable. Therefore, doctors have placed an importance on annual mammograms.
Importantly however, most researchers are cognizant that mammography is primarily ineffective and treacherous to your health. Before the time of mammography, breast lumps were not quite the magnified fright they are today. Unfortunately in today's society we are sadly spending advertising dollars on sending the wrong prevention messages to women.
A Blast From the Past Lends Money-Making Insight to Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign
Intriguingly, a peek into the history of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month reveals that its founding sponsor is AstraZeneca; one of the largest pharmaceutical companies around the globe which conveniently produces breast cancer drugs such as, Tamoxifen, Arimidex and Zoladex just to name a few.
Within Canadian hospitals, clinics, and doctors' offices you find an increasing build up of otherwise healthy women waiting to be mammogram screened on a consistent basis. These individuals are told that any detected tumors require immediate intervention, disregarding the fact that the vast majority of them are harmless. Alarmingly some women actually develop harmful tumors from the mammograms themselves, resulting in the same "cures" and "treatments" afterward. Either way, it is not a hard mystery to solve that at the end of the day, drug companies such as AstraZeneca are reaping large profits from the mammogram system.
How much money from your purchases and donations actually go toward breast cancer?
When making donation decisions, first ask yourself; is the amount the company is planning to send enough for you? If you have no clue how much money is being donated, or you don't think it would be enough, write a check and give directly to the organization instead.
Breast Cancer Action (A San Francisco based advocacy group) notes that many organizations place a lid on the amount of money to be donated. In some instances, the limit is reached rapidly. If your purchase exceeds the cutoff then your "donation" may not contribute to any worthwhile cause whatsoever.
Is your company of choice contributing to the pinker than thou epidemic in a beneficial way?
In the mist of "pink washing" Breast Cancer Action warns against some cosmetics companies whose products suspiciously contain chemicals linked to breast cancer, automobile companies, and a group of chemical companies.
Let's Show Some Lovely Pink Love to Dr. Susan Love
With the increasing interest in pretty pink ribbons and technology at our finger tips, it would be a worthy consideration to give our hard earned money to initiatives that actually look for causes and risk factors for breast cancer.
National Breast Cancer Awareness Month "was helpful at the time, but it has outlived its usefulness," said Dr. Susan Love, a surgeon at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, and author of Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book to the Chicago Tribune in an October 2010 article.
Currently, Love has teamed up with the Avon Foundation to create The Army of Woman, an initiative that brings both women and researchers together for breast cancer studies. In particular this study has started recruiting participants during the month of October 2010, and is modeled after the Framingham Heart Study. The initiative will follow a legion of women for 20 years in order to look for the causes and risk factors of breast cancer.
Join the Conversation