Last week’s brouhaha about the Komen Foundation’s withdrawing its breast cancer screening support for Planned Parenthood – and then rescinding that decision in the light of public outcry – has made me want to go public with my complaints about breast cancer awareness.
My whine has nothing to do with Planned Parenthood. It has everything to do with the marketing techniques to raise awareness for breast cancer. They are everywhere; they are as insidious as the cancer itself.
Don’t get me wrong. I understand breast cancer is a serious problem, one made more emotional by the importance both men and women place on breasts in our society. In 2007, the most recent year statistics are available, 202, 964 women in the United States were diagnosed with breast cancer according to the Center for Disease Control. That same year, 40,598 women died of the disease. This is approximately twenty percent of those diagnosed.
At the same time, breast cancer is not the leading cause of death among women. Heart disease is. It’s not even the leading cause of death from cancer among women. Lung cancer is. So while organizations committed to the eradication of breast cancer serve an important function, I find their marketing to be over-the-top to the point where awareness of other serious cancers is dulled.
Cases in point: October is designated as Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I’m fine with this, since almost every other organization or not-for-profit has its day, its week, its month. But I cringe when I board an airplane and am asked to buy pink lemonade for $2.50 to support breast cancer research. I cringe when I visit the super market, stroll the cereal aisle, and see pink ribbons on various brand name cereals. And then there is my local automobile dealership that had its employees wearing pink shirts in sympathy.
Perhaps I’m biased. I am an ovarian cancer survivor. It’s true only 19,842 people were diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2005, the last year I could find statistics. However, 14,787 of them died. That’s a seventy-four percent death rate.
Which makes me wonder, why isn’t there a month to recognize this scourge? Why isn’t there some drink on airlines to acknowledge that the survival rate for ovarian cancer is incredibly low? Why does Susan G. Komen and other breast cancer research organizations seem to have a lock on the marketing of cancer when all cancers deserve their due?
Leave a Reply