Be Aware...Another one bites the dust

Dec. 8, 2010 - PRLog -- Yesterday it was announced that Elizabeth Edwards lost her valiant six-year fight against breast cancer. Nightline presented a mini documentary chronicling the tragedies in her life…the loss of her 16-year old son in an accident, the loss of her marriage due to an unfaithful husband, and the tragic loss of her life to cancer. Unfortunately we packed the ceremonial pink T-shirts away a month too soon, when October came to a close.

When the KPRC Local 2 Facebook page posted the death of Elizabeth Edwards, a woman replied that we should be encouraged to donate and walk, to bring awareness to this disease. Excuse me, but if there’s a woman out there who is not aware of breast cancer, she must be living in a cave. The Susan G. Komen for the Cure announced last year that they had reached the one billion dollar mark in fundraising. And yet the organization that gets the lion’s share of donations for breast cancer is still running, begging, groveling for a cure thirty years after Susan G. Komen died of breast cancer. The best that we’ve been able to produce with this billion-dollar campaign is to tell women to “Be aware!”

Ironically Jonas Salk discovered a cure for polio in lot less time with a lot less money, and without today’s modern technology. We put man on the moon and returned him safely to earth one decade after President John F. Kennedy threw down the gauntlet. The American can-do attitude achieves remarkable results when we put our minds to something, yet in 30 years we still don’t have a vaccine or a preventative measure for breast cancer. Too much money is being raised without significant strides in eliminating this epidemic.

To date, the best we’ve been provided are reactionary methodologies to catch breast cancer after women are afflicted… manual examination, mammograms, and ultra-sound (if your insurance company will pay for it.)  Once it is detected, you can either ingest poison or be carved up and baked with radiation like a holiday ham. Not a good return on your investment if you ask me. Instead of pouring money down a pink hole, women would be wise to take that money and put it aside for the exorbitant health insurance premium they’re going to pay once they’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer. And they’re also going to need that money treating the after-effects that their outrageously-priced health insurance carrier won’t cover.

The medical community says that one in eight women will get breast cancer. My own random survey indicates that it’s more like one in five…20% of the female population.  According to breastcancer.org, as of 2008, approximately 2.5 million women in the U.S. have survived breast cancer… 2.5 million women! In 2008 over 40,000 died in the just the United States, so Elizabeth Edwards is not alone. I’ll ask you the same question Dirty Hairy always asked, “Do you feel lucky?”

For many of us, like Elizabeth Edwards, it's too late. But she has daughters. For the sake of her daughters and your daughters, don't let this pestilence infect not even one more generation. Save our daughters! Women need to start asking for accountability for all the billions they’ve donated for a cure. If women want to continue to throw bad money after bad, then at least have the gumption to ask for accountability…a full accounting of where and how the money is being spent. Don’t settle for lip service mouthing the words “Be aware!”


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Freelance reporter, writer, featured columnist, blogger, and public speaker, focusing primarily on aiding non-profit organizations in fulfilling their mission statements.