Despite the pressure on the Pink Ribbon cancer deaths declined only slightly. And at the center of consciousness can push more and more women are unnecessarily treated.
As expected, when the leaves turn yellow in autumn rose in America in October with the arrival of the national breast cancer awareness year. From shopping to football stadiums, the signature campaign saw pink everywhere. However, some experts wonder if this campaign really help women with breast cancer.

Harsh reality is that within 26 years since the start of the campaign, breast cancer mortality fell only slightly – about 2% per year since 1990. According to the National Breast Cancer Coalition in Washington, 117 U.S. women died from breast cancer every day in 1991, is today that the 110th number

“I do not think people understand the lack of progress,” says Fran Visco, president of the coalition.

The campaign is also aimed to keep pace with advances in cancer research, Dr. H. Gilbert Welch, said Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice Lebanon, NH Doctors used to think that the priority to catch breast cancer when they were small was -. And probably more manageable as a result, they stressed the importance of annual mammograms.
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But now, said Walsh, the researchers found that breast cancer is not one disease but many. Certain cancers lazy and not a problem. Others may grow and spread slowly. The most aggressive tumor metastases before doctors and patients know that they are there.

Unfortunately, doctors can not say that the plants are not harmful and actually be dangerous – be treated as the wind for everyone as the worst kind.

But tests such as mammography, self-tests better able to find tumors lazy, says Walsh. hurt as a result of how we women from the question of chemotherapy than surgery, radiation therapy has not the tumors. In a paper published last month in The New England Journal of Medicine estimates that were saved for every life by mammography, 15 and five other women diagnosed and treated unnecessarily.

National Breast Cancer Awareness Month “at the moment is a good idea but it has outlived its usefulness,” says Dr. Susan Love, breast surgeon at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, author of “Breast Book Dr. Susan Love.”

“You see this message, that the best prevention is early detection, but not prevent cancer is to find an already there,” says Love. “Early detection is really nice message -. It gives you a sense of control fixes, but not our current understanding of cancer, works like”

Campaign organizers say, there is no need to renew their message.

“If it is not broke, do not think we have to solve the plague,” said spokeswoman Laurie Casaday, senior director of company affairs for oncology drug manufacturer AstraZeneca, the founding sponsor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month programs.

The campaign website says that the organization is “dedicated to education and empowerment of women about their breast health care to detect by practicing regular self-examinations are taken in the planning of visits with their annual mammogram care, maintenance of the required changes to treatment, knowledge of the facts about recurrence. ”

Other campaign highlights the stories of women who have their lives saved by screening test to believe. But the reality is disturbing that many of these lives were never really in danger, says Gayle A. Sulik, author of “Pink Blues Band. What bothers Health breast cancer women’s culture

Sulik said that the problems of over-diagnosis and treatment are rarely discussed lawyers in advertisements or promotional messages. None of these terms appear anywhere on the websites of the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, breast oldest and largest support group.

Not surprisingly, says Walsh.

“This is a common problem with campaigns to raise awareness about the disease and patient advocacy groups to raise sea,” he says. “If you look at their funding sources, often drug or device manufacturer, who enjoy an increase in the number of people with the disease.”

Walsh named AstraZeneca’s sponsorship of the month of consciousness, “a huge conflict of interest” as to encourage women, screening will always increase the number of diagnoses of breast cancer and breast cancer drug market to Arimidex, Faslodex, Nolvadex and Zoladex.

This charge is vehemently denied by Casaday. “It is not a cure for breast cancer to sell,” he says. “This is to ensure that women trained in her breast health.”

When the campaign began, women were more likely to notice and call a lump in the breast, while women now familiar early signs of breast cancer, said Casaday. He notes that last month New England Journal of Medicine study highlighted breast cancer awareness key factor in reducing mortality from breast cancer.