In October, the PINK comes out. (It feels like) Everyone is wearing pink — from professional athletes to youth soccer players, families to social media influencers — to bring the impact of breast cancer to the forefront of national conversations.
Pink is the color of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
According to the National Breast Cancer Foundation, Breast Cancer Awareness Month is about “getting women access to the life-saving support they need.” Throughout the month, there is a focus on education, screening, and support.
My local newspaper ran an entire section last week focused on breast cancer. It included stories from area breast cancer survivors, about how physicians diagnose breast cancer, about a local program to identify high-risk breast cancer patients, and the answers to FAQs.
I read the newspaper cover-to-cover.
The stories from survivors provided insight and inspiration. The stories about diagnosing patients, especially those at high risk,1 were informative, and the FAQs provided some info about the very little we know about how breast cancer can be prevented.
There was (only) one story in (the ENTIRE) paper focused on breast cancer prevention. It highlighted what is known about the association between air pollution and breast cancer. NOTE — there is some evidence that in areas where there is a lot of air pollution breast cancer rates are higher (compared to areas with lower levels of breast cancer).
This got me thinking —
Why are we not talking about PREVENTION during Breast Cancer Awareness Month?
It is NOT that I think that the focus of Breast Cancer Awareness Month needs to be changed and refocused. Everything that is done by the National Breast Cancer Foundation is important and empowering; I’m not suggesting that anything be removed from their agenda. What I am suggesting is that we expand the conversation about breast cancer awareness to include PREVENTION.
Can we include conversations about how to prevent breast cancer in our daughters and granddaughters during Breast Cancer Awareness Month?
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. ~Benjamin Franklin
Did you know…?
The United States spends approximately $4.1 trillion annually on health. Of that, approximately (only) 5 percent is directed toward public health and prevention (and this includes a 2.5% boost resulting from the COVID pandemic, usually we spend 2-3% of our national health budget on prevention).
We spend SO little on prevention.
And Americans are NOT getting healthier, despite the investments being made in health. And they tend to experience worse health outcomes compared to residents of other high-income countries that spend comparably less money.
The lack of attention to and financial support for prevention and public health is the problem. And it is pervasive.
So much so that —
We don’t (really) talk about prevention during Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
THIS NEEDS TO CHANGE.
Time, attention, education, and money need to be paid to PREVENTION and PUBLIC HEALTH. The parable below, which is included at the very beginning of my book on Epidemiology (seriously, it is that important) illustrates how easy it is to overlook prevention despite its importance —
“Once upon a time, there was a small village on the edge of a river. The people there were good and life in the village was good. One day a villager noticed a baby floating down the river. The villager quickly swam out to save the baby from drowning. The next day this same villager noticed two babies in the river. He called for help, and both babies were rescued from the swift waters. And the following day four babies were seen caught in the turbulent current. And then eight, then more, and still more!
The villagers organized themselves quickly, setting up watchtowers and training teams of swimmers who could resist the swift waters and rescue babies. Rescue squads were soon working 24 hours a day. And each day the number of helpless babies floating down the river increased. The villagers organized themselves efficiently. The rescue squads were now snatching many children each day. While not all the babies, now very numerous, could be saved, the villagers felt they were doing well to save as many as they could each day. Indeed, the village priest blessed them in their good work. And life in the village continued on that basis.
One day, however, someone raised the question, “But where are all these babies coming from? Let’s organize a team to head upstream to find out who’s throwing all of these babies into the river in the first place!” (From Living Downstream by Sandra Steingraber.)
I know that public health and preventing cancer is NOT as sexy as reading a story about a woman who has survived breast cancer. It just isn’t. And we will never be able to read about those stories. Because, to quote Dr. Bill Foege —
“Nobody ever thanks you for saving them from a disease they didn’t know they were going to get.”
Public health does the work of preventing disease. Preventing an individual from getting sick from a disease they didn’t even know they were going to get because it was PREVENTED through public health action.
Breast Cancer Awareness Month needs to be EXPANDED to include conversations about prevention. And more importantly, we need to answer the question that was asked by Sandra Steingraber, the author of (the book that changed my life) Living Downstream: An Ecologist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment —
“…why (does) so much silence still surround questions about” what causes cancer?
While we NEED better screening tests, more accurate diagnostic tests, and better treatment for breast cancer, we ALSO NEED more research, education, answers, and attention paid to breast cancer prevention.
Additionally, we NEED to fight breast cancer information. Despite what is being shared on social media and the Internet, there is NO diet to prevent breast cancer; NO exercise regime to ward off tumor development; NO cancer-fighting superfood; and NO line of home cleaning products that will keep cancer away.
Breast cancer development is complicated and mysterious. We need to study it more and seek answers (steeped in epidemiological research) that help us prevent its development, especially among our daughters and granddaughters.
So here is what I need from YOU —
This October when you put on your pink t-shirt or gloves or when you see pink on TV, think about ways we can raise awareness about breast cancer AND honor those who are suffering from breast cancer, have survived breast cancer, or have died from breast cancer. Additionally, we MUST have conversations about funding breast cancer prevention research AND we must discuss ways we can prevent breast cancer.
From this moment forward, October must be Breast Cancer Awareness and Prevention Month. We need to bring attention to the work that is needed to prevent breast cancer in future generations.
Thoughts? Questions?
Please share this with your friends & family —
If you are like me and were frustrated that the newspaper article (or any website talking about individuals who are at high risk for breast cancer) did NOT define what constitutes being high-risk — know that an individual is high risk if they are born female AND have a first degree relative (male or female) with breast cancer OR multiple relatives on either side of your family with breast cancer. Females with the BRCA gene are also at high risk. Additionally, females in their 60s and 70s are at higher risk.
Thank you for this. I wish the US were in general more interested in disease prevention than treatment. It is unfortunately true that more money can be made by treating a disease than preventing it. Additionally to your remark that we have to fight disinformation there is also no conspiracy by the pharma companies who already have "the cure" for all cancer but keep it under lock and key to be able to continue selling chemotherapy drugs.