Take a Number...288,130. Do you Feel Lucky?

Oct. 18, 2011 - PRLog -- Year before last the Susan G. Komen Foundation announced that they had reached the one billion dollar mark in fundraising, and yet the organization that get’s the lion’s share of donations for cancer is still racing, begging, groveling for a cure, twenty-eight years after Susan G. Komen died of breast cancer. Over a quarter of a century of fundraising, and we still don’t have a vaccine. Dr. Jonas Salk developed the polio vaccine in seven years with a lot less research money. Every woman in this country should be incensed about this blatant disregard for what has become a national epidemic.

According to the American Cancer Society, in 2011, there will be about 230,480 new cases of invasive breast cancer in women, and 57,650 new cases of non-invasive carcinoma in situ (CIS), for a combined total of 288,130. Breastcancer.org reports that the breast cancer incidence in women in the United States is 1 in 8 (about 13%). And if it affects one in eight, it will happen to someone you know. They have access to a much larger sample size than I, but in this community alone, one in every group of four women I network with, has had breast cancer. I wouldn’t go on record stating that it’s 25%, but it’s definitely closer to 20%.

Mammograms are old school; they don’t protect you from contracting breast cancer. And donning a pink T-shirt and running shoes isn’t a protective method either. It’s time. It’s time we take a proactive approach and develop a preventative measure. According to U.S Breast Cancer Statistics, about 39,840 women in the U.S. were expected to die from breast cancer in 2010, an extraordinary number! So until we have a vaccine you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, pink?

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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.