What breast cancer awareness should mean:
by NotDownOrOut
October is the month when society focuses the public’s attention on the cause of breast cancer research. I’m going to use the next month to share postings by some of the courageous people I have met online who are responding to diagnoses of breast cancer.
I used to accept the PINK breast cancer culture: pink ribbons on yogurt containers and everything else. If you read the breast cancer blogs as I now do, you get an education on how deceptive some of the breast cancer charities and activities can be. The pink ribbons on products may have nothing to do with charitable activity. Moreover, some advertisers put pink ribbons on products that offend breast cancer patients. For example, naked starlets with pink bows endorse the cause when they really advertise their own careers. Last year someone had bare-breasted women jump out of planes and called it a breast cancer fundraiser. Outrageous! Breast cancer is not something you can wrap with a pink ribbon. Moreover, the word these days is that we’re curing cancer. No. We are disfiguring people to remove precancerous conditions that might never become cancer and calling people cured. We’re encouraging women who have no signs of cancer to undergo mastectomies and calling that prevention. Thirty percent of people who do have breast cancer will not be cured. They will develop cancer that spreads and compromises the length and quality of their remaining lifetimes. We spend very little of the enormous amount raised by breast cancer charities on those with metastatic cancer. Yet 30% of those with breast cancer will have metastasis.
Read more about this in this posting. Give generously to the cause of finding effective treatment and cures of cancer, but give wisely. Allocate your efforts to charities that have their priorities on what matters, not on what is pink. Try http://www.METAvivor.org/Donate.html. Save lives through research that focuses on the lives of people with metastasized breast cancer!
- Be aware it is a horrific disease that has taken many lives
- We need to find a CURE, about 30% of people diagnosed with breast cancer at ANY stage will develop distal metastasiswhich is NOT curable today
- This high percent creates a frenzy of lifetime emotions for ALL who have been diagnosed, what if it comes back? For about 1 in 3 it will
- Cancer is a huge money maker so key players may be in no hurry to see it go away
- We need to be vigilant that large fund raiser aren’t being misappropriated
- We have to move past “I bought this cool pinK thing so I’m aware” – aware of what? That breast cancer exist?
- It is a demoralizing disease that devastates all parties involved — patient, family, friends, doctors, etc.
- Cancer is an overwhelming whirlwind of information for all involved, most have no idea where to…
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Not Down Or Out 
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
We are all in this together!
If I see one more pink ribbon, I think I’ll strangle someone with it!
This was a good and eye opening read. I don’t want to hamper the efforts of good people to participate and donate to research but there must be some way to be certain that some, or rather, more of the money goes to finding the cure. Certainlly cancer is a big business, you should see the bills I get!, but I can’t believe that they would hold back promising research to save thier jobs. That’s too conspiracy theory for me. Anyway, even curing breast cancer would allow them to keep thier jobs and there are many jobs ot there for fundraisers etc…Awareness is key.
I was angered once again to learn that mamograham screening age had risen. My dear niece was diagnosed with an agressive form of breast cancer at the age of 35 and she’s still fighting 15 years later. To say she’s been to hell and back is more than an understatement. The cancer was caught by a routine mamogram. Just think, we would have loved this wonderful, delightful mother, wife, designer of magnificient bridges, and so much more if the powers that be have their way of how we are allowed to protect our bodies and then treat them.
That’s awful. I have met many young women with advanced breast cancer online and during my treatment. I’m sad to hear how tough your niece has had it.
Thank you for giving something so important a voice and for spreading the word!
You are right — we are all in this together!
Thanks for returning to posting with this week’s Photo. We need your voice (and we care about all you are experiencing these days).
I wrote about this very topic, specifically Susan G. Komen’s “Race for the Cure” and why I don’t give them money…
http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2013/09/why-i-wont-race-for-the-cure-susan-g-komen/
I too found many blogs from breast cancer survivors who shared our view