I'm all for cancer awareness but why is breast cancer the only publicized cancer awareness month? Many people suffer from all types of cancer daily and I've had family suffer from both Leukemia and Pancreatic Cancer. It's seems that if a celebrity is diagnosed with a cancer or has died from a cancer that's the only way awareness will be publicized. Now that Patrick Swayze has passed I'm sure Pancreatic cancer will be well known coming this November (Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month) Does anyone agree?
Cancer - 4 Answers
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1 :
One theory is that breast cancer has more survivors than most other cancers, so more people to form support groups and to be be activist for the disease. Not a whole lot of lung cancer survivors. I feel a little left out of the awareness hoopla.
2 :
No, I don't agree. Breast cancer awareness and Breast Cancer Awareness Month are not high profile because of celebrity deaths, but for a much simpler reason - sheer hard work. Breast cancer awareness campaigns and BC Awareness Month started as a campaign by ordinary women, many of them with cancer, to raise awareness so that people knew the symptoms, examined themselves regularly, attended their routine mammograms etc. Enthusiastic participation and hard work by women made it grow into something nationally, then internationally, recognised (and then big business cashed in). I agree that awareness needs to be raised about other cancers too.and while I hate 'competitive illness' I can see why there is resentment about an imbalance in awareness raising and fund raising. I too have had family members suffer from other cancers - lung, testicular, stomach and cervical cancers and leukaemia, all but one of them dying of their cancers. There are, as you point out, other cancer awareness months, weeks, ribbons etc; but the fact is none has had the sheer hard work put into it that breast cancer awareness has. Now, I've had breast cancer and I personally very much dislike BC Awareness Month - or Pink October as the more cynical of us call it. Support for those with a deadly disease that kills on average 33 women a day in the UK and 112 a day in the US (the only stats I have, I'm not being ethnocentric) has been turned into a marketing opportunity by big business, with around 1% of the cost of specially made pink stuff going to breast cancer charities, the rest into the retailers’ pockets. The pink fluffy stuff infuriates me, and I'm not at all 'tickled pink' by Asda's (Walmart's) trivialisation of an illness that may yet kill me. October magazines carry stories from cheerful survivors who claim to have the all-clear (there is no all-clear with breast cancer), and often say bc has changed their lives for the better - very different from anybody I know who's had breast cancer. And it has negative consequences for breast cancer patients too - I believe that the whole thing is counter-productive, that the marketing and fund-raising hype surrounding breast cancer, by trivialising a deadly disease, is leading people to believe, wrongly, that breast cancer is 1) not very serious, certainly not as serious as many other cancers (many women with breast cancer have been told - by people who don't have it - that it's a 'good' cancer to get) and 2) easily curable. I've even heard it said that it's a ‘fashionable’ or 'sexy' cancer - my sexy prosthesis and sexy scarred, one-breasted body are evidence that it's no such thing. In all the pink trivia, it's easy for people to lose sight of the fact that breast cancer is a devastating illness with disfiguring surgery, grueling treatments and so far no cure. I don't wear a pink ribbon and as someone in remission from breast cancer I support the Think Before You Pink and Pink Stinks! campaigns, both started by women with breast cancer http://thinkbeforeyoupink.org/?page_id=13 BUT it does annoy me a little when people complain about the attention breast cancer receives in comparison to other cancers. The solution is not less attention for breast cancer, but more attention for other cancers - and there is nothing to stop any group of people starting a campaign along the lines of the one started ny those women who started all the breast cancer awareness. They'd have to be as dedicated and prepared to work as hard though.
3 :
I think another contributer to the largeness of NBCAM, in addition to hard work, is something pretty simple. Breasts are on the outside of the body and are an immediately recognized and highly visible symbol of femininity. Due to the high visibility and natural awareness of the breasts, this particular cause receives a lot of attention. Fortunately, advances in breast cancer research will ultimately help advance research in other cancers as well. Not to trivialize breast cancer or to make a direct comparison of the level of impact the two can have on an individual's life, but in terms of awareness campaigns, it's sort of like campaigns to save different endangered animals. The cutest ones who do the most interesting things, such as the giant panda and whales, end up getting a lot more attention than say the dwarf wedge mussel. However, all is not lost for efforts to save other lesser known endangered species because the campaigns for the panda act as a sort of gateway (for many people) to a broader awareness of conservation efforts and activism. Sign up to help save one, and the World Conservation Union will be sure to let you know about others that you weren't aware of. Not to mention, many people will seek the info out on their own as they begin to wonder what other species are endangered. After all, if we can let something as cute as the panda get on the endangered list, what other things are we neglecting. NBCAM similarly becomes a gateway to awareness of cancer in general, which is a positive thing. If something as visible as breasts can be affected, what about everything else we can't see? (And come to think of it, the two are related. Keys to fighting cancer may be held in species of plants and animals that are dying off that most people don't know about.) Ultimately, I think the high profile of NBCAM is beneficial. On the one hand, some frustration over not having as much attention given to other cancers is understandable, but we also have to be careful about not diluting the beneficial impact of NBCAM on all cancer efforts by running too many derivative campaigns. If we end up with a major colored ribbon month for every cancer, even NBCAM could lose its voice as the audience becomes fatigued. All cancer efforts would then begin to suffer. I also understand the distaste for a lot of the marketing surrounding NBCAM, but the fact of the matter is, marketing has a huge impact on awareness and thus involvement. There will be people who make money off of it by not directly contributing to efforts, but as unappealing as that may be to those not familiar with marketing and business, the harsh reality is that if some form of market cannot form around something, you simply will not yield the same results. It's taking the good with the bad, unfortunately. Capitalism is a double-edged sword, that's for sure. As someone else pointed out though, individuals can (and should) make choices to purchase pink-ribbon items through vendors who are known to maximize contributions to research and education efforts, or those who work in conjunction with the actual nonprofit organizations. Someone mentioned "think before you pink". Individuals and facilities can also seek out vendors through NBCAM.org. (NBCAM=National Breast Cancer Awareness Month).
4 :
YES!!!!!! LOL I TOTALLY AGREE!
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