Everyone is aware of breast cancer. Everyone.
But how many people know what the red ribbon symbolizes? What about the pearl ribbon?
The answer, for those who don”t know, are heart disease and lung cancer. Both kill more women every year than breast cancer.
But people seem to care much more about breast cancer, because breast cancer doesn”t have the stigmatic attachment that lung cancer has to smoking or that heart attacks have to obesity. Breast cancer only seems to hurt innocent people, which makes it easier to fuel passion and empathy from the public.
Jack Olson
Breast cancer diagnosis rates and death rates have remained almost static for the last 20 years.
And yet, October is a month filled with pink items for breast cancer awareness – pink dog leashes, pink coffee mugs, the omnipresent pink ribbon symbol on stickers and T-shirts.
Vandal cheerleaders had pink pom-poms at last week”s homecoming football game, and recent NFL games show pink shoes or pink stripes on nearly every uniform in the league.
Today, there are more important things for Americans to pay attention to and spend their money on. Most of the public, including people at the University of Idaho, miss these things when we are distracted by the pink pom-poms waving in the Kibbie Dome.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the U.S. – responsible for about one in four deaths on average.
To compare, the CDC reports that lung cancer is the leading cause of death by cancer for most women at 36.4 deaths per 100,000 deaths. Second for most women is breast cancer, which accounts for 21.3 deaths per 100,000.
Part of why these numbers are so small is because of the great work awareness and research organizations have done. When more women die from lung cancer than breast cancer now, why is it that people still focus so much on wearing and buying pink?
Buying pink sunglasses or wrist bands isn”t going to cure breast cancer anyway. There are more important things to raise awareness of.
Dieting and exercise massively decreases people”s chances of developing heart disease. The World Health Organization just declared ever-popular processed meats as potentially carcinogenic, which puts them alongside cigarettes and alcohol.
These are the sorts of things Americans should be aware of now. Everyone is aware of breast cancer. We won. Now let”s move on to where the real problems are.
Jack Olson can be reached at [email protected]