The fate of early breast cancer detection in California may hinge on two sentences currently being negotiated at the state’s capital. The sentences are at the crux of Senate Bill 1538, introduced by Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) on March 27. The bill would require mammogram providers to add information about patients’ breast tissue density [...]
Breast-cancer charity Susan G. Komen’s decision to pull funding from Planned Parenthood–an organization that provides subsidized breast cancer exams for lower-income women–leaves me scratching my head. Komen claims to be withholding funds because of new criteria barring it from providing grants to organizations that are under investigation by local, state or federal authorities. In and [...]
October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and that usually manifests in the bombardment of sexist and demeaning awareness campaigns like “Save the Ta-tas.” Don’t even get me started on the useless and idiotic Facebook memes. But there’s one surprising and, er, “exciting” new breast cancer awareness campaign this season. Rethink Breast Cancer, a Canadian [...]
Breast cancer awareness efforts have been wildly successful in one way and, research suggests, a great failure in another. On the success side, the movement has mobilized a truly stunning range of companies to brand their products in ways that raise awareness of breast cancer. Here are a few examples. Fresh cookies (with pink chocolate [...]
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and also happens to be the month, in 1986, that I first underwent surgery for my own breast cancer. I do a lot of thinking as the days grow shorter and my sense-memories of being diagnosed, having surgery, radiation and chemo grow stronger. I was younger than 50 when [...]
The BRCA genes were discovered in 1994 and 1995, but when you visited your doctor anytime from 1995 through the early 2000s, chances are that she or he did not recommend that you test for a mutation on the genes that would indicate an increased chance of developing ovarian or breast cancers. Why not? Because the paternalistic [...]
At the recent TEDwomen conference in Washington D.C., one of the presenters was Dr. Deborah Rhodes, an internist who has become a leader in assessing breast cancer risk. Rhodes became immersed in the challenge of how to effectively detect breast tumors in women with dense breast tissue when one of her pregnant patients, in her [...]
“The good news is, you’re a candidate for a lumpectomy!” With those ten words, my surgeon told me I had breast cancer. I didn’t understand the “good news” part. But he cheerfully handed me a brochure filled with pictures of lumpectomies, mastectomies and reconstructed breasts. Then he told me to go home and come back [...]
