October is awash in seas of pink T-shirts, balloons and ribbons in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. But this messaging fails to recognize people who are not cured of the disease.
Many women with metastatic breast cancer feel left out of annual ‘Pinktober’ awareness drives because these campaigns tend to focus on earlier, more curable stages of the disease.
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A diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer means having cancer for the rest of one’s life – a situation with very different needs and concerns compared to earlier stages of the disease.
A Breast Cancer Awareness sign is seen before an NFL football game between the Washington Football Team and the Baltimore Ravens on Oct. 4, 2020, in Landover, Md.
(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Awareness-raising alone is an ineffective solution to the breast cancer epidemic. We need more action on primary prevention to limit exposures to known and suspected breast carcinogens.
Breast cancer pink has become the signifier of a new feminism more concerned with awareness than protest.
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Pinktober, when hundreds of products turn pink for breast cancer, is a curious month – more carnival than commemoration; more rose-coloured glasses than true blue conscious raising. Concerns have been…