Breast Cancer Awareness

As October winds down to an end with Halloween, the time to dress up in costumes and trick or treat, we must also think of the pink ribbon. The pink ribbon is a symbol for Breast Cancer Awareness Month which happens every October. According to the National Breast Cancer Foundation(NBCF), cancer “Cancer is a broad term for a class of diseases characterized by abnormal cells that grow and invade healthy cells in the body.” For breast cancer specifically, “[it] starts in the cells of the breast as a group of cancer cells that can then invade surrounding tissues or spread (metastasize) to other areas of the body. “

Breast cancer can be treated in five different ways and according to the NBCF most treatment plans include a combination of those five methods. They are: “surgery, radiation, hormone therapy, chemotherapy, and targeted therapies. Some are local, targeting just the area around the tumor. Others are systemic, targeting your whole body with cancer fighting agents”.

Now being aware of Breast Cancer is simply not enough! We must also bring awareness that many members of marginalized groups often don’t have adequate medical care to diagnose breast cancer in its early stages, or the resources to receive treatment for it. African Americans are overrepresented in states that have not expanded Medicaid and often have inadequate insurance coverage. This is why the American Cancer Society writes that Black women are 41% more likely to die from breast cancer. Even with detected cancer, because of lower rates of treatment and surgery, they are 30% more likely to die from triple-negative breast cancer than their white counterparts.

It is so so important to draw attention to the effects of institutionalized racism and its effects on marginalized communities, especially during months of minority history awareness and cancer awareness!

By: Alan Lu