Breast Cancer Awareness Month on October, 2024: Background information on Breast Cancer awareness month?

October, 2024 is Breast Cancer Awareness Month 2024. Breast Cancer Walk 2014 - Take the First Step Towards a Cure‎ Get an info kit for the next walk!

Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM), also referred to in America as National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (NBCAM), is an annual international health campaign organized by major breast cancer charities every October to increase awareness of the disease and to raise funds for research into its cause, prevention, diagnosis, treatment and cure.

Because the adoption of putting on a pink ribbon by cancer of the breast children running within the 1990 New You are able to marathon and also the subsequent formation of the charitable organisation which aims to provide 90% from the money it boosts towards the support of research and awareness from the disease, huge amount of money have ben contributed. The Brand New You are able to based charitable organisation Pink Ribbon Corporation. promote Breast Cancer Awareness Month where like-minded, affiliated worldwide groups take part in fund raising while using pink ribbon motif. The sponsors are urged to make use of the pink theme and it is quite normal to determine municipal fountains gushing with superbly coloured shows. Within the United kingdom, a current campaign saw media presenter and celebrity Chris Evans offering a pink Comes-Royce Ghost services each day anywhere in the united states, filled with chauffeur and champagne, using the entire hire fee well over £5,000 being contributed towards the charitable organisation.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month story ideas

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — This year, an estimated 182,460 women will hear their doctors say, “You have breast cancer.” More than 40,000 women will die from the disease.

As October marks Breast Cancer Awareness Month, here are some of the hot topics in breast cancer research and patient care from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center:

When treatment goes too far

Recent research has shown that more women are choosing to have their healthy breast removed after being diagnosed with breast cancer. The number of double mastectomies from 1998 to 2003 more than doubled, according to one study.

Is anyone else upset that breast cancer is the only publicized awareness month?

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

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.

Your thoughts on breast cancer awareness month?

I I have had breast cancer, and I hate Breast Cancer Awareness Month, as do most other women I've met who have or have had breast cancer. Many of us call it Pink October, and not affectionately.

Why do I hate it? Firstly because I object to a deadly disease being used as a marketing opportunity, secondly because I believe all the pink, fluffy nonsense has negative consequences for breast cancer patients.

Every October - magazines carrying 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.

The negative consequences for breast cancer patients are that all the marketing and fund-raising hype surrounding breast cancer, all the pink trivia and 'fun', by trivialising a deadly disease, are 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 described as a 'sexy' cancer; my sexy, scarred, one-breasted body, sexy swollen arm, and sexy fear of recurrence and metastases say otherwise.

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, gruelling treatments and so far no cure.

All the overpriced pink tat you see in shops results in a donation of as little as 1% of the price to breast cancer charities and research, with the rest going straight into retailers pockets. I truly resent the disease that - who knows? - may yet kill me being turned into a marketing opportunity by Asda/Walmart and others.

I don’t wear a pink ribbon or contribute to BCAM, and as someone in remission from breast cancer I incline towards the Think Before You Pink and Pink Stinks! campaigns, both started by women with breast cancer:

BUT - on the other hand, while I hate 'competitive illness' and understand why some people feel resentment about an imbalance of funding and awareness, it does annoy me a little when people complain about the attention breast cancer receives in comparison to other cancers. The reason breast cancer is higher profile is simple - sheer hard work

Breast cancer awareness campaigns and BC Awareness Month started as a campaign by ordinary women, many of them with breast 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 the campaign caught the public imagination (and then big business cashed in).

There is nothing to stop any group of people starting a campaign for awareness along the lines of the breast cancer campaign for any other cancer. They'd have to be prepared to be as dedicated and work as hard as those women worked around breast cancer though

It's thanks to the hard work of those women that breast cancer is no longer the major killer and the automatic death sentence it used to be - but don't lose sight of the fact that in the US an average of 112 women die from breast cancer every day (that's one every 15 minutes), and in the UK.that average is 33 a day - I don't have statistics for other countries.

Like Denise, I don't understand why schools are setting paters on breast cancer awareness; young people of school age are at zero risk of breast cancer, and such well-meant but ill-informed interventions in schools result in several young girls posting on here every day terrified that they have a cancer they are too young to have to worry about.