No Longer In The Pink

Breast cancer is a scourge. It can, unchecked, eat away a woman's dignity, as well as her life. Like so many chronic, noncommunicable diseases, there is no cure, only treatment, and the treatment is sometimes worse than the disease in debilitation of the body and depression of the mind.

Sadly, I have been privy to the monster's ravages, both within my family, a friend's family, through an associate of my wife, and through the glimpses brought to light by people I follow on social media. Something which I had thought of in the abstract, has become only too clear and terrifyingly close to me in recent years, like a tide advancing and eroding the barrier between my quiet life and the bedlam of the raging sea.

So, when Susan G. Komen For The Cure decided to pull its funding of breast exams at Planned Parenthood, due to a "policy change," thereby depriving women of limited means access to critical health care, I became incensed. And I was not alone.

Don't Think Pink

October is officially Breast Cancer Awareness Month in the United States, though it might be more accurately termed "Breast Cancer Exploitation Month." Pink is everywhere: ribbons, bumper stickers, T-shirts, water bottles, bracelets, charms, key chains, even on the shoes and gloves of NFL players. The profusion and panoply of pink-tinged items cannot help but catch the eye and assault the senses. One wonders, though, if the energies put into organizing this explosion of pink paraphernalia are wasted in the cause of awareness, reducing breast cancer to a Disney-esque parade. For as surely as the avalanche began, it became an Internet meme, perverted into something which had less to do with awareness of breast cancer, and more to do with frat boy frolics.

If we are going to talk about awareness of the prevalence and dangers behind breast cancer, let's look at the statistics: