Friday, October 07, 2011

Why I'm Over the Pink

There was a secret up on Postsecret recently about resenting breast cancer awareness because of the number of children diagnosed with cancer and how underfunded and unaware people are of it. Steve Jobs died this week of Pancreatic Cancer. A cancer which killed Patrick Swayze and Michelle's father. According to the AP, only 20% survive the first year post diagnosis and by 5 years only 4%.  There's not a lot the physician's can do for it. And yet, you rarely hear about pancreatic cancer.

According to Cancer.gov, the most common cancer is prostate cancer.  Did anyone know that?  They estimate that there will be 221,130 new cases of lung cancer and 156,940 estimated deaths from lung cancer. Yes breast cancer is the 2nd most frequent cancer around. (More estimated new cases than lung), but only an estimated 39000 people will die from it. I won't say that breast cancer isn't significant, obviously it is. But with cancers that are a guaranteed death sentence, maybe we should start funneling some of that pink money along to other cancers.

1 comment:

Cat said...

Cancer in general sucks. I don't see a difference. It's a killer disease and used to be 10 years ago you knew someone who knew someone with cancer. Now? I stand in my church choir and three people around me are battling it and one just survived it. Scary.

I don't like singling out various body parts. All cancer needs to be thought of as important to look into.

Er.. sorry, not commenting on what you wrote, but it sparked how I feel about the issue. Technically this was my own blog post on the matter. ;)